Strong Ski Legs with Shuffle Jumps

How It Helps Your Skiing

This exercise is really brutal, but it's amazing. It consists of repeated, lateral, explosive jumps done for about one to two minutes. Short of buying a sophisticated machine, this is as close as you'll get to skiing while in your living room or gym. The explosive lateral jumps engage muscles very similar to what you use in a hard turn. By repeating in one direction without crossing feet, you'll improve your foot coordination. And by going for a full minute or more, you'll build that power-endurance (see below for a definition) you need for a hard run on a steep slope or in the bumps. Finally, as the burn builds your legs will go a little silly. Concentrating on maintaining form through the burn is great mental training for doing the same while skiing.

Phil Mahre, possibly the greatest American skier ever, decided to get back into ski racing in 2006/2007 in his late 40s. His goal is to become national champion again. Phil has never been a weight lifter, and his leg-strengthening routine involves a similar (but actually easier) exercise as one of his main training exercises. If you do this a couple of times a week for a couple of months before the ski season, you'll see a huge difference. If you're only able to ski on weekends, this can be a great Wednesday exercise during the ski season.

Setup

It's essential that you warm up before doing this exercise. You could run for 5 to 10 minutes, or do some exercises like jumping jacks, mountain climbers, jump rope and things like that for five minutes. You should be breaking a light sweat before you start though, because this is an intense exercise.

You can do shuffle jumps pretty much anywhere with a nice three- to four-jump open space (about 15-20 feet / 5-6 meters), but your knees and ankles will probably thank you if you find a relatively flat, padded surface (carpet, lawn, gym mat). It helps to have a partner call out the time because anything beyond about 40–50 seconds is going to be brutal and it helps to have someone call out the time every 15 seconds and then count down the last ten. Barring that, a watch with a countdown timer is nice.

Let's assume we're starting going to the left. So start near, but not at, the righthand side of your exercise space. Drop some sort of marker to the outside of your right foot (a stick, hat, sock or coin works great). Hold another marker in your left hand.

Going for the Ski-simulator Burn

Start in a low, athletic stance so that you can touch the floor next to your marker with your right hand just to the outside of your right foot. Gather your strength and explode straight sideways off the right foot. Jump as hard and as far as you possibly can. Land on your left foot and bring the right foot to but not past the left foot, so you find yourself again in a low, athletic stance. As quickly as possible, explode off the right foot again, and do it again. On the third jump, touch the floor with your left hand and drop the marker you're holding.

You now have markers that define how far you went on your first repetition. These are your targets for subsequent reps. Explode back to the right and try to go hard enough that you can touch the marker you placed on the ground when you started. Go fast enough that it feels like an all-out sprint. Like a 400-meter run, this is going to hurt at the end. You're going all out. Keep going back and forth for sixty seconds. Ninety seconds if you can stand it. Rest a few minutes and then do another set.

Important tip: holler with each jump. A good UUUHHHH! is worth a few inches on each jump.

What is Power-Endurance

Power-endurance is a term rock climbers and other athletes use for training efforts that fall between endurance training and strength training, usually somewhere roughly between running 400 meters and running a mile. For some people, power-endurance training lasts 1-2 minutes. For others a power-endurance exercise lasts 1-5 minutes or even 3-8 minutes. That strikes me as being on the very high end, because at eight minutes, for most athletes, we're past a one-mile run time, which is definitely moving towards the endurance end of the spectrum (you'll be drawing on aerobic systems well before 8 minutes). Some people use the term "muscular endurance" for that range and use the term "power-endurance" to designate the ability to generate maximal power repeatedly over a long period of time, like a baseball pitcher.(return to text)

Power-endurance training is similar to lactate threshold training where runners do 400m, 800m and one-mile repeats. Power-endurance places more importance on explosive action or maximal force actions, but it's similar in that you're typically working at a level where your muscles can't clear lactic acid and you go beyond a sustainable aerobic output. (return to text)

See also Brian Sharkey and Steve Gaskill, Sport Physiology for Coaches, passim.(return to text)