Hill Running

Aerobic fitness is good for base conditioning, however, skiing is essentially a power sport. As a very hypothetical example, if you took 15 runs of 2000 vertical feet each in a day, you might take a rest stop every minute or two. That could equate to say 30+ reps of 90s duration. I would think that would be a pretty solid day. So training for that kind exertion level, performance skiers are looking to enhance primarily their muscle endurance, strength, agility and power (which is a measure of force production divided by time). Obviously other fitness basics: balance, coordination, flexibility, aerobic endurance, etc. are important, but there is only so much time in a day. So, at some point, the skier has to focus more specifically on high intensity, low volume activity. After a summer of consolidating an endurance base, sprint work, helps develop the metabolic pathways used in maximal effort over short durations. I find hill sprints particularly are an excellent means of developing power and muscle endurance in the legs hips and lower back. Doing hill sprints, leg turnover is typically slower than sprints at a track, however, the force projection through the leg into the ground is higher. Because you have to extend the hip, the hamstrings come into play as do the glutes. Well developed hamstrings have been shown to reduce the risk of ACL separation as well.
 

Edited by georgert - 6/9/11 at 10:52pm

Reply: "What's a typical workout for you like?"

Although it's not very clear in the video, this particular day we did a series of pyramids: There were seven cones set on the hill, approximately 10 yards apart from each other. The idea is to sprint to the first cone, then walk down, seven times. Then, sprint to the second cone, six times, walk down, third cone five, fourth cone four, three, two, and finally one long sprint to the last cone. There's a subliminal reward as you go higher, because although the run is longer, you do fewer reps. The total number of reps for seven cones is 28. Because in the oxygen debt delirium that ensues, through experience I know that it's virtually impossible for athletes to keep an accurate count. To keep track of laps, we make a pyramid of 28 stones at the base of the hill. One row of 7, one row of six, etc. When the athlete completes a lap, they toss the stone. After the last stone in the row is tossed, move on up the hill to the next cone until all laps and stones are completed, etc.
By the way, if you're working out with a buddy, you can have a little cheap entertainment by instead of throwing the stone away, put it in one of his rows.
Stay tuned, I'll be posting a few more workout suggestions and video in the next few weeks.

It's both. To keep an athlete's mind in the game, it's important to set goals. By having a structured workout whereby the rules are laid out, each athlete can try and achieve the goal to the best of his/her ability while still getting in the prescribed duration/distance. The initial short intervals can be done at a very high intensity, so the pace at the beginning of the workout, through typically the third cone, is very high. The last couple of cones is more of a hard plod. So there is a range of velocities that the athlete is working at, although all of the repetitions are all within the 85%-95% VO2 max range.

In response to Rick, apparently you didn't get that I was trying to compare the energy expenditure of actually skiing with activity you can do in the off season that stimulates the same metabolic pathways and similar muscle groups.So to spell it out, "15 runs of 2000" vertical feet" actually refers to ski runs, not running runs. Next time I'll use smaller words.

 What's your point?