Alright, you’re already making good progress. The elevator and escalator are barely used anymore, the car sits idle on nice days because you cycle to work or school, and you discover via Strava that you’ve already run 35km last week. So, you’re doing great with your basic fitness. Being more active throughout the day is definitely having a positive effect.
But just improving your basic fitness isn’t enough. Skiing is all about our legs; that’s where the action is. Time to give them a good workout. But how do you actually train your legs? You don’t need a gym membership. With your own body weight and a little creativity, you can go a long way. We’ll give you a helping hand!
Warm-up:
We recommend a gentle warm-up before starting these exercises. Start with a 5-minute walk, 10 minutes of running, and finish with three 60-meter sprints at maximum power. After the warm-up, your legs will be ready—it’s leg day!
Bench sitting:
an exercise everyone probably knows is bench sitting. Cursed by many, but an absolute favorite! Bench sitting works like this: sit with a straight back against a wall and your knees bent at a 90-degree angle.
A good and fun place to do this exercise is in the park or woods. Choose three straight trees about 10 meters apart. At each tree, do 30 seconds of bench sitting. After 30 seconds of bench sitting, sprint to the next tree for another 30 seconds. Do 3 sets of 3 and try to push yourself hard during the sprints. Is 30 seconds too easy? Increase the time as long as feels comfortable. This exercise will definitely help you ski down the moguls more easily!
Walking Lunches
No, this has nothing to do with lunch. A lunch is a large step forward with a knee bend of up to 90 degrees. Make sure you keep your back straight. To maintain balance, you can hold your hands in front of your torso at shoulder height. We don’t need a gym for this exercise either. Start easy with 10 steps forward and a sprint back to your starting point, rest for 10 seconds, and then do 2 repetitions. If you don’t feel any results with 10 steps, you can increase the number of steps.
Stairs:
The absolute favorite! Stairs are a great way to train your legs, and the possibilities are endless. Everyone has a staircase somewhere. At the station, in tunnels, in parks—there are stairs everywhere. Here are a few exercises we can do:
- Sprint up the stairs as fast as you can.
- Run up the stairs as quickly as you can without missing a step.
- Frog jumps (from a crouched position, jump with both feet simultaneously to the next step).
- Frog jumps where you jump two steps up followed by one step down.
- Sideways without skipping a step.
- Skip the sideways step.
- As quickly as possible, take one step up with one foot at a time, one step down followed by two steps up.
One exercise is from the bottom of the stairs to the top. Choose three different exercises and do three repetitions of each.
After all those exercises, it’s important to stretch gently. You’ll definitely feel some muscle soreness after the first few sessions. But don’t give up, because after a few workouts, the post-workout soreness will quickly subside. Motivate yourself by thinking of those endless powder fields; you’ll never get through them with weak legs.
Goodluck!