By Chris Cook -US Ski Team, Salomon Athlete Force
As one ski season comes to an end, planning and preparing for the next one immediately begins. I like to go through everything from the previous year and pick out things that I would like to continue and move forward with for the new season and throw out ideas or systems that weren’t beneficial for me as an individual. I think this is very important because we all come from different molds and have to figure out the exact equation that yields success for you as an individual athlete. Today I will be looking at getting started with a strength plan to carry forward into the new season.
I think having a quality strength plan can be very important to the success of a ski racer, especially when it can be fine tuned to focus on general strength weakness, gaining more core strength, and strength through stabilization exercises.
Firstly when designing your strength program it’s important to remember less is more, because many of us haven’t been back in the weight room since the fall! You do not want to walk into the weight room from a long absence, pick up your plan from the previous year, look at the biggest weights you threw up and decide you will one up that to start the spring with a bang. While it seems like a good idea and logical progression, it is going to put you into the hurt bag the next day guaranteed and could even worse cause injury. The goal of your strength plan for spring should be to figure out what areas you feel you could gain strength, like the core, arms, legs, balance, or agility for example. After you identify some areas of focus you can begin setting up the progression.
Strength training revolves around progressions and executing them with good technique. If you have records of last years strength program look back to that spring which will give you a good starting point for this year. I look back and make sure year after year that the strength program is progressing or at least maintaining.
After gathering all the information you can dig up it’s time to hit the gym. The number one goal of your spring strength program is to focus on easing into the sets and reps, the quality of the movements, and the actual technique. You want to execute each exercise with precision and perfect technique. This often means using real light weights and low sets and reps, but this will pay for you down the road. You want to break all old habits so when you begin moving up in weight, sets, reps, you have perfect technique which will maximize each exercise and every gym workout.
To give an example I will run through this process, which helped me set up my spring strength program.
Areas I want to address through a strength program for this upcoming season:
Balance and stability
Increase explosive power (legs and arms)
Continue with plyos progressions
Maintain Core strength progression
Improve technique with a large focus on back squat
After identifying these areas I set up the following progression:
Strength Workout once a week
Warm Up 15min
Ploys focus on technique and explosion, 3 exercises, 2 sets 4 Jumps
Balance/Stability—One leg lunges on dynadisc, 2 sets 6 reps each leg
To prepare for explosive power exercises:
Squat, Bench press, and lat pull down, 2 sets 5 reps real light weigh with precise technically correct movements
Core Strength: 1 back exercise, 1 stomach exercise, and 1 rotational exercise, 2 sets 10 reps with real light weight and controlled explosive movements
Cool Down
Now you’re ready to hit the gym. And remember the strength program should always be recorded so you can make small changes and be more prepared for the next season. Get ripped!
