As many on here know @DidSurfNowSki and I have been attending (not enjoying ) Duncan’s sessions for a few years. He works on building strength to assist in balance and strengthens joints to reduce the risk of injury, this definitely saved my season last year. I can guarantee you will have a few laughs, feel like an idiot as you try to balance, and will look for an oxygen canister after the harder efforts but you will enjoy and benefit from it. Ps Duncan is great at scaling the workouts if you have issues.
I started the ski-fit thingy about 2 weeks ago, doing walk, jog, sprint, squats, bike, weights stuff but any tips to add variety would be very much welcomed???? One of my objectives in particular, is to get some spring into the legs for off-piste ventures. One thing I tried which seems helpful is carrying a 4kg weight in each hand on an hour-long walk/sprint session. Legs are like lead toward the end but I sense the knees are strengthening quite a bit already and I dare say it will help with skinning uphill? I'd love to join in your sessions, but drive times would be prohibitive!
Try chucking a few litres of water in a backpack. You don't get the arm and shoulder workout you get with hand weights, but you don't have to carry them.
Will try that. Not sure how it will go with my lower back which can flare up a bit but worth a crack. The 4kg weights in hand feel quite light to start with but more akin to 10kg on the homeward run. Doing upper body exercises with the weights as you walk has the advantage of taking your mind off heavy legs.
It’s the balance stuff I like, we do a lot of single leg squats and standing up single leg with weights. The sessions are about building strength in the joints.
Finding difficulties. I had been using one of those wobbly board vibrating thingies, mass advertised on late night tele and purchased by thousands of people who believed it would make you lose kilos if you simply stood on it. I was using it to warm up before I went jogging or riding and found it warmed up the lower legs quite well; with practice you could even down a coffee! Knees felt better in particular. Doing squats at the same time was definitely a good one for ski legs . . . . Anyhow*, many weeks of this and I'm feeling less bad than earlier on, generally doing about 60min per day of jogging, walking or riding. Weight is barely changing, despite eating bird seed and greek salads for weeks on end, so weight loss is now far less important than ski-fit and endurance. Two days ago I went for an aggressive bike ride and returned home early so thought I would stand on the vibrating thingy as a warm-down. Bad! Not sure if it was the cause of the problem but my lower body ended up with the equivalent of shin-soreness everywhere. My knees and ankles started swelling, sciatica kicked in on both sides and I felt like shite within an hour. It lasted 2 days. I set this thing to vibrate at very high revolutions, but I would definitely advise others not to do same. PS: I hate getting up at 5am just for the love of skiing. I am def not a morning person but when you work 7am-7pm every day, its the only window really.
Interesting, I have nothing that I could suggest apart from maybe spreading the lactic acid about the muscles and they reacted to the extra toxins. Just a thought. One of the things I found when training for long triathlons was that compression pants really stopped the muscle bounce, so I ended up with less leg soreness in the days after longer runs. One of the exercises I like is balancing on a half bosu (?) ball and doing taps on all sides. Great for warming up the ankles and strengthening the joints.
I do unweighted squats when ever I think of it, generally in reps of 50, then when I get in the shower I do 100. I maintain my normal regime but just add this in and it works a treat. My recent couple of days in Austria are testement to this. I was on day one legs after finishing last season with a spectacular dismount in NZ. I managed to keep up with the crew of Austrian, German, Japanese & American, some of whom were on day 50 legs. Well not quite true, on the first day I called it quits at 3:30pm and they skied a couple of extra runs but I also was giving away 10 years on the younguns as well.
would love a breakdown of the sessions and time and days. I can't do single leg squats or pistols due to knees (or lack of - doesn't affect my skiing luckily) I also already do a considerable amount of gym, running, riding, martial arts, so want to look at the sessions to determine if it would suit me or not
These sort of threads always make me laugh ...... Get fit for skiing Get fit for summer Get fit for trekking Milford track etc etc etc Why not just change your lifestyle and make exercise and diet part of your life ????? You will live longer Look better Feel better Rant over .......
It’s not about that at all! Yeah sure live a healthy lifestyle, totally agree and then do specifics to help your body cope with what you have planned coming up. I.e live a healthy lifestyle, I plan to run a marathon so will do some specific training. I plan to spend 40 days on snow tele skiing so yeah I want to work on my balance and joint strength.
Ha ! This is a ski specific gym season. I've been doing them for a number of seasons now. They make a big difference to leg and core strength, particularly when you combine them with an hour cycle home over hills as well. Not all of us are fortunate enough to be able to ski straight out of our homes
Maybe I am luckier than some but I have also been going to normal gyms for a lot of years , and have seen the explosion of different workout programs . ALL BASED on proven training protocols . It's a joke Sure if you are going to run a marathon you do need to have specific training goals/program , but just to go skiing you can do all the stuff mentioned in your stock standard gym.
Don't even need a gym. Weights yeah for certain exercises but not necessarily a gym. There are a myriad of body weight bearing exercises whereby you don't even need weights to achieve a general well being and maintain muscle tone.
You alive @DidSurfNowSki ? another year another ski fit program with Duncan, luckily his girlfriend is in the crew this year training so he has to be nice.
would still be interested in a run down of the sessions. I already do a lot of different fitness things, but this could be something to try.
We train at mountain strong, the new climbing and outdoor oriented gym in Canberra (Fyshwick), similar to Blochaus but with a bigger gym and more training tools. I think this year Duncan is working on two sessions a week one focused on strength and one cardio today’s session was a basic warm up across equipment. We then did toe taps which is basically working on balance equipment, half bosu ball etc and trying to balance whilst taping the ground with your toe in all directions. we then did an exercise which is hard to describe but worked the groin muscle. Duncan works a lot on balance and joint strength. we then did some Cossack squats and a little ab work. the main set was six stations, sled push, 90 degree hold, squat jumps, ski erg, 90 degree hold, squat jumps basically one person did 10 sleds and that was the timer for each set.
Jacko, you mention sciatica being a limiting factor some times. I'm not sure if it's still a current way to help it but I had great relief with regular ilotibial stretches. Someone here will know more about them.
So... We start off proceedings carrying stupidly heavy heights over our heads while going for a walk, mixing this up by trying to swing the weights around our bodies one way then the other. Then it was 10 star jumps / 10 push ups / 10 squats Then 20 Then 40 That was the warm up. The TIC, Torturer-In-Chief, wanted us all to be fatigued before starting the main set. Then we did the main set. I'm feeling all beat up today.
@DidSurfNowSki i wasn’t going to let some scrawny rock climber take the sled push record! vanity restored for skiers
https://www.mountainstrongcbr.com/ Navigate to the Membership tab, get an account and follow the bouncing ball to Mountain Fit to register. You pay each time you turn up. You're not locked into a set number of sessions, only do those you come along to. Tues and Thurs 7-8pm.
Thanks! What kind of base level of fitness should I have? The comments above make me slightly apprehensive!
It's as hard or as easy as you want to make it. Just don't go bonkers out of the gate and try and out lift @zac150. Fight me for the smaller weights We're not exactly Olympians...
haha have you seen @DidSurfNowSki and me, neither would be classed as in peak fitness. duncan will scale for you
I assume by skull you mean beer, because I dont want to double with @skull for anything (no offence) and if you mean trying to get in a small boat with oars your kidding your self.
the above picture wasn’t in a class, my kids climb in the gym, I cling onto the walls in a slight upward motion. One of the climbers set a gym record for the sled push and given he has standard climber legs I wasn’t letting him have the record.
See, what I know as doubling a person I have also hear referred to as "dinking" - and now I have images of a terrified @skull sitting on the handlebars of a mountain bike as it tears down the slops of Thredbo, and it's hilarious.
Just don't ride down on @telecrag 's handlebars. Or try to follow his line when skiing. As a matter of fact, just try to avoid the guy all together
