Train Ski Smart with Sno-Country Eccentrics

For many years now SnoCountry has brought you the best in health and fitness tips related to skiing. It continues to be our goal to provide you with accurate and up-to-date information about cutting edge training techniques as well as the old favorites that work. With that said, the new buzzword in ski conditioning is eccentric training, and it is especially popular in knee rehabilitation programs. We thought it would be useful to take a look at eccentric training and make sure understand what it is? What are some examples of good eccentric exercises and then give you our top 10 eccentric ski exercises.

So what are eccentrics and they’re not those weird people that hang around the ski lodge looking at themselves in the mirror. Eccentrics are simply movements where the muscle is lengthened as it produces force (as opposed to shortening as it normally does). Most human movement produces force while shortening and we call that concentric. Most of our movements on a daily basis are concentric. Skiing is a unique activity for many reasons, one being that a lot of the muscle actions are eccentric. Movement such as lowering your height into a turn or absorbing a bump are very eccentric indeed on your quadriceps as is leaning forward on your calves. In these situations your body weight provides the load and your legs absorb it and in these situations you are producing force to absorb your body weight as the muscle lengthens. This is eccentrics. Eccentrics have a few other characteristics that we want to be aware off.

1. They initially cause more muscle damage.  That’s why your legs are often sore or stiff after the first ski outing. But by doing them as part of a pre-season training program you’ll get over the soreness well before snow flies.
2. We are stronger eccentrically than we are concentrically so doing more eccentric exercises gives us a better adaptation, makes us stronger overall and gives us better ski-readiness.
3. You must build into eccentrics slowly. For while they are very good for you, too much too soon will make you very sore. We recommend only body weight to start and only a few repetitions (<5) of each exercise first time out.
4. Most eccentric exercises involve “decelerating” movements so you’ll know you’re doing them if it seems like your ‘catching’ yourself or slowing down before starting a return movement.

Because eccentrics provide a very powerful stimulus we often see rapid muscle growth and adaptation. That’s why we often see big leg muscles in well-trained skiers.  So if you can incorporate a routine of eccentrics into your training only once or twice a week you’ll really benefit. Furthermore, for the most part, your body weight will provide you with all the overload you need. Here is our “Top 10 List of Eccentric Exercises”, and they are not in any particular order.

1. Walking downhill (w/backpack)
2. Running downhill
3. Single leg squats (w/poles for balance)
4. Forward and backward lunges
5. Leg hops = Jump from side to side as far as you can, taking off and landing on one leg at a time. Sometimes it’s helpful to put marking on the floor for landing targets.
6. Wall sits = Old skiers favorite – sit against the wall 90° at knees, 90° at hips.
7. Box/bench jumps= Jump down from a step or box, start at 12 inches, progress to 18, 24, 36, à one week at a time, so it’ll take you 4 weeks to get to 36 inches.
8. Broad jump downhill tuck= Old skiers’ favorite: perform a two legged broad jump as far as you can.  When you land hold your position and go straight into a downhill tuck and hold for ’10-15’ seconds, then repeat 2-3x.
9. Vertical jumps (land on one leg) = These are simple vertical jumps but we make them more difficult by only allowing you to land on one leg.
10. Straight leg raises = Simply lift your leg straight up in front of you and hold it up as long as you can.

Okay, these exercises will give you the thunder thighs you need for the bumps and those long cruisers. But be warned – start very slowly and only do a few reps of each exercise until you’ve been going for about four weeks. Otherwise you’ll be so sore you won’t be able to walk down the stairs. Oh! Did I mention – Go Slow!

Article by Declan AJ Connolly
Professor
Director, UVM Human Performance Lab
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