Gym workouts to prepare for next season?

[Tammy]

Hi Ladies,

Recently joined a gym and was wondering if anyone could give me advice on exercises, machines, weights to prepare for next season.

I already ride a bike to work (30-40 min per day, 5-7 X/week) and practice martial arts (40 min per day 2-3 X/week) on top of this and was wondering what more I should be doing? My main concern is keeping in good shape to avoid injury.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Tammy

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Sounds like you've already got a good plan in place for strength and cardio!
Throw a few lunges into the mix: weighted/static, dynamic, side lunges, wall sits - for the sustained/controlled quad response.

I find I have to stay on the ab work, specifically lower ab, to prevent the early season backaches.

 

[tcarey]

https://crossfit.com/

Find an affiliate in your area and go! The workout of your life!https://www.crossfitmissoula.typepad.com/



T

 

[tradygirl]

Throw this in once or twice a week once ski season gets closer (Sept/Oct). These things did wonders for my leg endurance.

The Leg Blaster - do the whole circuit without stopping:
20x air squats (squatting with no weight)
20x alternating standing lunges (10 each side)
20x jumping lunges (10 each side)
10x jump squats (squat and explode into a jump)

Work up to 3 rounds with one minute rest in between. The first couple of weeks, you can split everything in half and do "mini-leg blasters" so you don't end up crippled. :D

 

[prairiedawn]

You might want to try trailrunning. It's a blast, and if you have a single-track trail, in a pretty area, with steep hills, frequent ups and downs, lots of rocks, tree roots, mud, and a few stream crossings, it translates well to skiing. It's even better when you share the experience with your fellow trailrunners. :-)

 

[Consuela]

I really like James Wilson's Dumb Bell Combo workout. I've gotten better results from this than when I used to just wander from machine to machine and can actually spend less time in the gym. I do this only twice per week. While it's main audience is mountain bikers, I found it crosses over to skiing just fine. Well worth the $17.

The three things I get from it are:
1. Flexibilty/Mobility (key to avoiding injury)
2. Power
3. Endurance

Send me a PM if you decide to try this. I'll be happy to send you the tracking spreadsheet that I created for this system.

https://www.dbcombos.com/

Here's his regular website, if you'd like to read some of his articles:

https://www.bikejames.com/

I just started incuding Tabata Intervals into my workout. Tabata is made up of three Rounds. Each Round is made up of 6 - 8 Intervals. Each Interval is 20 seconds of sprint, followed by 10 seconds of rest. You can do the same exercise for each interval or work your way through a circuit or series of exercises. I rest up for a couple/few minutes between rounds, so I can give the next Round 100%. If you give 100% sprint on each Round, you can expect to fall over gasping for air at the end of the round. I'm starting this to increase my VO2Max, but it's also supposed to be a great fat burner.

[Edit] PS. Always do a solid warm-up before Tabata. Otherwise, you risk injury with such intence sprint intervals.

On DB Combo days, I Tabata jump rope. And, once a week on a non-DB Combo day, I rotate twice through a 3-station circuit of bicycle crunch, jump rope, and mtn climber. There are plenty of Tabata demos on YouTube. You can really Tabata whatever you like.. punching bag, outdoor sprints, treadmill, stationary bike with braking system, jump rope, squat thrusts, etc. It's helpful to start with something that you are already comfortable doing, so you can keep your form and avoid injury.

https://www.gymboss.com/tabata.html

I use the GymBoss timer for both the DB Combo Workout and the Tabata Intervals. It has two different interval settings, which is perfect for Tabata (20 second sprint followed by 10 second rest). I tried using the clock on the wall for the first couple weeks (because I'm cheap!) and found it hard to focus on my form and keep my energy level peaked while trying to watch the clock. The timer let's me stayed focused.

https://www.gymboss.com/

Good luck and don't forget to let us know what you end up doing!

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Two words: Les Mills.
(international fitness program started in NZ)
Intense workouts. This is a fun overview video:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1B7AhzkM28"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1B7AhzkM28[/ame]

note to mods: not sure why this embed is posting twice? Fix if possible?

 

[num]

Throw this in once or twice a week once ski season gets closer (Sept/Oct). These things did wonders for my leg endurance.

The Leg Blaster - do the whole circuit without stopping:
20x air squats (squatting with no weight)
20x alternating standing lunges (10 each side)
20x jumping lunges (10 each side)
10x jump squats (squat and explode into a jump)

Work up to 3 rounds with one minute rest in between. The first couple of weeks, you can split everything in half and do "mini-leg blasters" so you don't end up crippled. :D

I'm gonna try these out. Thanks Trady!

 

[Tammy]

Update-- stretching question

Hello again collective wisdom!

Thanks again for all of your advice. I ended up doing a combination of things suggested on the list; I'm doing squats and thrusts with light-weight dumbells about 2x a week. However, I think I'm doing something really wrong.

The other day at Aikido practice, I had a sharp pain in one of my knees-- no pop or crunch thankfully. I sat out for about 20 minutes with some ice, popped some arnica, felt fine and jumped back in. However, I've noticed that both of my knees have these groaning pains in them occasionally. Again, not debilitating, but I'm getting concerned :(.

One suggestion I heard was to make sure I'm stretching prior to doing strengthening. I don't really do this, admittedly. Does anyone have any favorites?

Thanks again in advance.

Cheers,

-T

 

[whiff]

I usually try to do about 15 minutes of cardio before strength training. Maybe this would help.

 

[altagirl]

The only reason I would ever stretch prior to exercise is if your physical therapist recommended something specific (if you need to stretch to get your patellas to track right or something - and even then they have always told me to warm up first). Otherwise, it can be dangerous to do so, because stretching temporarily reduces your muscle strength. You SHOULD, however, warm up thoroughly before exercise, and stretch afterwards. Doing some light cardio or other exercises to get your body moving should help for sure. Just save the deep stretching for once you're done.

And if you are concerned with your form for exercises, I would definitely find someone who knows what they are doing to help you. (Which, sadly, isn't necessarily reliable by just consulting your average gym trainer type person). If it hurts (in some way other than the muscular soreness/burning type of pain), I would say there is a problem. If you can't figure it out, I'd consult a physical therapist.

 

[MaryLou]

I've never had knee problems, but am an fear of them lol. I would definately figure out what's going on with your knee pain. I think you should never let your knee be bent less than a 90* angle, that's what I've been told. I don't do squats at that gym, just fearing knee issues. I use machine pullies to get my inner and outer thighs, and glutes/back of legs/butt (bad at anatomy terms). I do one exercise where you stand against a wall and bend like you're sitting (mentioned above) - that's a thigh burner. And lots of time on elliptical machine. I find my thighs are one of my strongest muscles, so don't really worry too much about them, honestly.

I am concentrating on my core being strong. Working on abs, back, shoulders, chest. When I was skiing last winter I really concentrated on opening up my chest, having good back position/posture and sucking in my abs - that made it so much easier to rock through the bumps. Having a desk job means I don't use those muscles as much as I should, so I'm concentrating on them in the gym.

Also playing Mom's soccer this summer, that's one cardio workout! Realized I cannot dribble a soccer ball for the life of me, so getting lessons my from daughter lol...maybe that'll transfer to skiing muscles (?).

 

[tradygirl]

think you should never let your knee be bent less than a 90* angle, that's what I've been told. I don't do squats at that gym, just fearing knee issues.

This is a huge fallacy that so many people believe. If you learn to do deep squats WITH THE PROPER FORM, they can do wonders for your knees. I used to struggle with knee problems from running and biking (and it started to affect my skiing). I started a program called Crossfit, and with a few coaching sessions, I learned how to do a proper squat (butt to ankles). After a few months of doing squats, cleans, and snatches, I had no more knee pain and haven't really struggled with it since.

That being said, if you aren't willing to take the time to learn the right form, I would stick to 90 degree squats. But if you really want strong legs and amazing core strength, learn how to do a deep front squat.

 

[altagirl]

If you are concerned with knee injuries - the one thing you should DEFINITELY do preventatively is strengthen your hamstrings. Women are prone to having their quads too strong in comparison to their hamstrings and that leads to injury. And I know that when I had my first knee injury years ago, I was definitely guilty of that. I did a lot of lifting, but definitely preferred working quads to hamstrings and even though my legs were insanely strong and muscular at the time, that was a recipe for a torn ACL.

 

[MaryLou]

This is a huge fallacy that so many people believe. If you learn to do deep squats WITH THE PROPER FORM, they can do wonders for your knees. I used to struggle with knee problems from running and biking (and it started to affect my skiing). I started a program called Crossfit, and with a few coaching sessions, I learned how to do a proper squat (butt to ankles). After a few months of doing squats, cleans, and snatches, I had no more knee pain and haven't really struggled with it since.

That being said, if you aren't willing to take the time to learn the right form, I would stick to 90 degree squats. But if you really want strong legs and amazing core strength, learn how to do a deep front squat.

I believe you. Like Alta girl said above - I've got very strong quads so don't feel that is an area I need to really work on, so just pretty much skip them (except what I get through other exercises). If I needed to, I'd probably take your advice and learn the correct way - only have limited gym time so can't do it all anyways.

Forgot to mention an exercise I learned at a boot camp class is where you sit against a wall for 30 seconds, then turn around and jump with your arms up and touch the wall as high as you can for 30 seconds, then go back to the sitting wall, then jumping, etc. Best thing is it only takes about 5 mins. and I can do it wherever/whenever I have the chance - and it really gets my muscles working.

Oh...balancing exercises - hubby had knee PT b/c of an injury and at their recommendation he bought this pad thingy that is like a flattened balloon - you stand on it with one leg and balance while tossing a weighted ball (or have someone toss it to you). It's hard to keep so well balanced, but I guess in doing so you really strengthen muscles around the knee. Don't do it as much as I should - but my kids like tossing the ball to me, so it's almost a family activity lol.

 

[Christy]

FWIW, I really never had knee pain (a bit backpacking down the mountain, but that cleared up when I got hiking poles) until I took a ski fitness class. I don't really know what caused it, but it started to really hurt especially when I did the jumping and lunging exercises. At some point I started asking the trainer for alternate exercises--a couple of the guys in the class did this too. The pain went away when I stopped going to class.

 

[pinto]

Make sure when you're doing wall sits, squats, that sort of thing, that your knees track right over your toes. If your knees are in and your toes are out, or vice versa, it isn't good.

 

[MaineSkiLady]

Make sure when you're doing wall sits, squats, that sort of thing, that your knees track right over your toes. If your knees are in and your toes are out, or vice versa, it isn't good.

Agreed, per physical therapist who has treated the whole fam damily here. He is a stickler for squats form, says 90% of people are doing them wrong/more harm than good. Easy to lose form once it gets tiring. Caveat. Ditto lunges, esp weighted.

 

[tcarey]

Here is a good link to proper form for squats.I agree with most if what he says other than tilting the head back when performing these,I advocate a more nuetral neck position,but keeping the chest open. I would also be careful with those wacky backwards wall things!

https://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C03D688F10C4DE1F

 

[KarenD]

If you are concerned with knee injuries - the one thing you should DEFINITELY do preventatively is strengthen your hamstrings.

Thanks to this thread, I've been inspired to add some more hamstring reps to my gym workouts. Now if I could only have a time machine to go back and get the joints I had in my 20s, I'd be all set.