Exercises to Strengthen Legs for Skiing?

My legs are weak because I have not skied much in the last few years. I am going on a trip soon and need to strengthen my legs asap. Any tips? Thanks in advance!

Alpine or Tele?

Was in a similar spot earlier this season. Legs were way out of shape and had less than 2 months to get in shape to ski. I ran a couple times a week to build cardio, hi-rep medium range (meaning not deep) squats, lunges, box jumps, and wall sits. Think about the type of effort that skiing requires and try to mimic it. That said, I am no exercise-physiologist so I am sure someone will say that I am way off. Regardless, the above exercises and 3 days on the snow in a 1.5 month period had me in good enough condition to make a strong showing at Silverton and Crested Butte for a few days.

Ski a lot.......

then you'll be in shape...

#1 most important exercise is squats ( deep ). JoeP's other exercises are also excellent. Your first day back you will not have your balance so you will be using more muscle than you need, kind of like over gripping when climbing. Any type of skating is the closest activity you can do to approximate skiings dynamic balancing movements and muscle groups. After skiing if your quads mostly hurt you are leaning back on your heals, if your ass mostly hurts that means you are skiing in proper fore/aft balance.

Honestly, any basic lower body weight room workout will help you. It's not rocket science and it's easy to find on the web.

You probably want to focus on medium range reps for hypertrophy. This will give you a good balance between strength and endurance.

Don't forget to train posterior chain as well--hamstrings, calves, glutes, low back. Things like deadlifts work well and supine hamstring curls with a theraball. This helps balance out the quad work and improves your chances of maintaining an intact ACL if you should happen to have some ski slope mishaps.

Pistols

powerathletesmag.com/pages/…

Commute via bike until your trip. I started bike commuting and my legs are now massive and skinning is easy peesy.

I'm no expert, but here's what works well for me for a few months before ski season:

If you're going to be earning your turns then long trail runs are great for some endurance. Also some sessions with a heavy pack on the stairmaster (try not to grab the side rails or you'll defeat the whole purpose of the weighted pack).

As far as weights I like to do squats or leg press, I start with higher weights and fewer reps to try and build some strength and then trend towards lighter weight and more reps (15 to 20) with less rest between sets (try 30 second rests and you'll feel the burn!) as the ski season approaches. I feel like this mimicks what you'll need to do on skis, lots of reps but not a massive amount of weight.

This is, of course, inferior to just going out and skiing a bunch, but if you're stuck in the concrete jungle 5 days a week like me it's certainly better than nothing...

The other stuff already listed sounds like good advice as well, and don't forget your core and antagonist muscles. In the end just getting to the gym and doing something will be infinitely better than doing nothing.

How soon is your ski trip? If it's within, say, a couple weeks, it's already too late. If you try training your legs now, they're just going to end up being sore for your ski trip and you wouldn't notice any appreciable strength gains even if they weren't sore. Noticeable strength gains take time.

Substitute lunges for all forms of walking.

goatboywonder wrote:Substitute lunges for all forms of walking.

Leg blasters. Tons of them.

As fast as possible:
20x Air Squats
20x In-place lunges
20x Jumping lunges
10x Jump Squats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytG6raes1Tc

So, i went to see my orthopedic and pt the other day and he let me know that lunges are a horrible idea for your knees. They both said the best exercises would be "Roman Chair" and a modified version of the quadricep leg extension. This modified version includes starting with your leg straight, lowering only 6 inches, then lifting your leg straight again.

If you have good knees, lunges are probably great. However, if you have bad knees cuidado!

Thanks for all of the advice!