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Swede

Making fresh tracks
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Little late in transition, tries to Norway it, ends up too much on the inside and the outside gets all wobbly and releases. It’s a classic. (didn’t read the article btw)
 

HardDaysNight

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Yes. Until PHV (roughly maturity) strength training should be limited to body weight exercises, i.e. no weights.

The idea that lifting weights is harmful to young people seems to have been around forever. It is based completely on conjecture and there exists absolutely no scientific evidence to substantiate this claim. The objection to lifting heavy objects at a young age has to do with the growth plates in the long bones of the body. If these growth plates are stressed, the theory postulates, there will be an adverse affect on the eventual height of the youngster. In other words, lifting weights can stunt his growth.

There have never been any studies that supported this allegation although there have been many studies done in Europe that evaluated the effects of weight training on growth in adolescents. Some studies included subjects who began strength training as young as six years old and none reported any damage of growth plates when they were fully grown. In fact, those that took part in some form of weight training at an early age generally surpassed the average height of their counterparts who did not do any lifting.

One longitudinal study, covering a span of ten years, compared the effects of training on youngsters who participated in swimming and those doing strength work using weights. The hypothesis was that swimming was safe and weight training was risky in terms of health and well being. What they discovered was there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of overall development, except that the weight trained athletes had more muscle mass and much better posture. There was no evidence of any disruption in the growth process in either group.
 

razie

Sir Shiftsalot
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Fair enough and very good correction. It's not about *any* weight training, it's about *excessive* weight training or *heavy loads*.

What's excessive? That's where the trick is and I think that generated the "rule of thumb" with "body weight", if someone's not doing this "by the book".

It would be interesting to know if in those studies, the 6 year olds lifted more than their body weight... or if, at the end, the weight lifters were faster than swimmers... :eek:

A serious strength training program for ski racers will require testing of several parameters and fine-tuning the program accordingly. Testing of PHV, hormones, testosterone, bone mineral density etc. Tests of coordination and flexibility to ensure they're not affected etc.

These all play a role. The "growth plates" are especially vulnerable apparently, during the growth spurts - which makes sense logically and why you're supposed to test for growth spurts every 3 mths (i.e. PHV). Here's some of the actual warnings in the manual.

"Adult forms of training which emphasize heavy load repetition maximum and heavy eccentric type training may cause damage to these growth plates. Supervision is critical to ensure appropriate load and execution."​
and
"[...] in their growth spurt: • The growth plates (discussed in lesson 4) are at their most vulnerable. Supervise your athletes – adolescent males in particular will be tempted to lift larger weights with improper technique"​

In fact, if you look at general age guidelines, body weight only is up to 12-15, next is 13-17 to learn lifting techniques with limited weights and after 18, when the athlete mastered lifting technique,

"the coach can then introduce repetition maximum and advanced lifting. The focus remains on maintaining form and range of motion."​

I don't mean to throw the book at you - just to add more detail to an admittedly over-simplified "rule of thumb"... and thanks for the opportunity to refresh my memory on this topic!

Disclaimer: I am totally not qualified to teach lifting technique and maybe my athletic development manual is dated... I know there are other posters here much more qualified to talk about that... I think the most important take-away for skiing is the focus on maintaining coordination, speed. flexibility and range of motion, while developing some strength, stamina and endurance... alpine ski racing is widely recognized as the hardest sport to train well, from this point of view, among others. It's not just about not messing with the growth, but also about not impacting overall athlete development, especially in the early teen years, when different features develop at different rates.

cheers

p.s.
At the same time, my own skiing is now limited by strength... (but given that I'm not a teen, avoiding weights is not an excuse! Damn it! :().
 
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Swede

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Yeah. Having had access to some great coaches through my daughters team and also my wife’s cousin who has been the physics coach to a few former and current WC skiers, we’ve (she) has been through a few physical build up programs, starting at 9-10. First movement and full flexibilty before you start focusing on strength. Something fun. My daughter did gymnastics (which her ”club mate” Jessika Lindell Vikarby also did as a kid). Others do soccer, wrestling, track and field ... Allround athletics that is fun. Then sometime around U14 weights, under instructor supervision, was brought in. Light. Only free weights. But they all had to pass individual flexibilty tests before weights were reccomended.
It is a strength sport and depending on the level you race at, your strength will dictate your technique, which will dictate your tactics. But first — flexibility.
 

Corgski

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Fair enough and very good correction. It's not about *any* weight training, it's about *excessive* weight training or *heavy loads*.

I don't mean to throw the book at you - just to add more detail to an admittedly over-simplified "rule of thumb"... and thanks for the opportunity to refresh my memory on this topic!
The author of the manual seems to be trying to allow broad scope for weight training while catering for the near moral panic against weight training. It is how you write when you have a lawyer looking over your shoulder. Avoiding harm is reasonable but when you have to cater to social trends it can be very selective. What are the risks of ski racing without an adequate strength base?

I can understand not wanting to recommend weight training to someone over the internet. However body weight exercises can get scary, especially when trying to generate higher loads. The old rule of thumb used to be that one needed to be able to squat 1.5 to 2 times your body weight before starting plyometrics. The differences between a true plyometric jump and what everyone is doing is subtle but the loading difference is huge. How much load does a one legged squat generate, a one leg jump? Weights can be far safer in many situations.

We know little about the OPs strengths and weaknesses. He may be naturally strong, needing to work on speed and agility or he may be a agile highly coordinated kid who needs to work on his strength. The bias against weight training means we implicitly assume the former which has real injury risks in addition to preventing many kids from reaching their athletic potential. Strength is every bit as trainable as the other skills (in some cases, more so). I would not necessarily push a kid to develop levels of strength that is outside the norm, but why not help a kid at the 40th percentile reach the 90th percentile?
 

HardDaysNight

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It has been assumed by almost everybody for the past 40 years that improving flexibility is important for both athletic performance and injury prevention and that the way to do so is by stretching. But is that actually true?

Stretching is an attempt to increase the range of motion (ROM) around a joint, like the knee, hip, ankle, shoulder, elbow, or around a group of joints like the spinal column. The common method is to force the joint into a position of tolerable discomfort and hold it there for a while, thus hopefully increasing the ROM.

More recent approaches to increased flexibility have used techniques that affect the muscles themselves, which actually control the ROM around the joints. Massage, active release, “foam rolling,” and other techniques applied to the muscle bellies themselves are much more effective for increasing a tight ROM than stretching. The Hip Bone's Connected to the … Thigh Bone, the Thigh Bone's Connected to the … Knee Bone, etc. So flexibility is really all about the muscles anyway.

The assumption is always that your current ROM needs to be increased. Here are some heresies for your spring entertainment.

Tendons and ligaments do not “stretch out.” You cannot make them longer, and it would not improve their function if you could. Their function is to transmit force, like a chain or a cable. In the case of tendons, which connect muscles to bones, the force of muscular contraction is transmitted to the bone it's attached to, thus moving the bone. Tendons are indeed elastic, in that a sudden dynamic load causes a very small temporary change in length and a subsequent rebound. But during normal muscle contraction, if the tendon changed its length not all of the force would move the bone – some would be lost as the tendon stretched. Just like a short piece of chain, a tendon pulls the bone with all the force of the contracting muscle precisely because it does not stretch during the contraction.

Ligaments behave likewise. They anchor the joint as it moves, so that the bones which articulate at the joint change their relationship only with respect to their angle. This allows the joint to serve as a fulcrum in a system of levers. When ligaments move enough to allow the joint to change from its normal articular arrangement, it is said to be “dislocated.” When tendons and ligaments are stretched excessively, they rupture.

Most importantly, you cannot change the length of either a tendon or a ligament with stretching of any type, massage of any type, or therapy of any type. And why would you want to? Tendons and ligaments are force transmission components. They are very tough, and they cannot be permanently lengthened by non-invasive means. The only connective tissues that you can affect with stretching are the fasciae, the thin “silverskin” that covers the muscle bellies. If they become a problem, usually caused by tiny scars called “adhesions” that form between them and their underlying muscle or between adjacent fasciae, they can be stretched with the previously-mentioned forms of therapy.

Since neither ligaments or tendons are designed to stretch, an increase in flexibility primarily involves the muscles that control the position of the skeletal components they operate. Sometimes, but not that often, the muscles behave in a way that requires you to teach them to lengthen more readily. And the best way to do this is with full range of motion, loaded (i.e., using weights) exercises. Since full ROM is, by definition, all you need to do, anything beyond that is either a simple waste of time, or a counterproductive waste of time.

Stretching does nothing to prevent or alleviate soreness, protect against injury or improve strength or any other measure of fitness. The vast majority of the studies done on stretching not only support this summary, but also indicate that stretching prior to either training or performance produces a significant decrease in power production. Tighter muscles can contract harder and faster, and this has an obvious application in performance athletics.

The upshot is this: if you are already flexible enough to operate efficiently within the ROM of your required training and performance movements, you are flexible enough. And you don't need to stretch. If you want to, go ahead and enjoy yourself, but you are not using your time wisely.
 

Swede

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As a reference re flexibility, most kids in my daughters team (not her though, being a gymnast) needed to improve their flexibilty. It was quite comprehensive programs and ”stretching” in a traditional sense was just a little bit.
A recent report from the National Sport Federation in Sweden suggested that early specialisation and one-sided training has made young sport practitioners bodies less versatile and more prone to injuries. Anecdotally, there was a reference to a test made in a high school boys soccer class. Less than 50% could perform a proper somersault.
 

razie

Sir Shiftsalot
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Stretching does nothing to prevent or alleviate soreness, protect against injury or improve strength or any other measure of fitness. The vast majority of the studies done on stretching not only support this summary, but also indicate that stretching prior to either training or performance produces a significant decrease in power production. Tighter muscles can contract harder and faster, and this has an obvious application in performance athletics.

That's true - that was surprising when I learned about it. Bottom line is that the morning warmup needs include only minimal or no stretching - more range of motion and activation instead. Another interesting thing is that the warm up itself should include stretching and range of motion only after a light exercise - not with a cold body.

Some stretching is useful at the end of the program, to help the muscles recover shape, a "beauty stretch".

:beercheer:

@Corgski I don't honestly see the issue here - especially as far as kid ski racers are concerned, we're not creating mini-terminators, but fast ski racers.

If a 14 yo does deep squats on one leg on a balance board, with two 8lb dumb bells; pushups in one arm etc - I would think that's strong enough for a HS racer! Even that has to be taught properly - you can get hurt doing simple squats! How many adults in this thread can even do that?

That level of training would be great in my book, for most young racers, complemented by a good overall athletic development program, designed and supervised by someone knowledgeable. That's the main point here. It's not about lifting 200lbs at 12, getting strong and slow... but developing a good all around athlete, active in several sports, at the early ages.

Nobody said strength should not be trained - let's take this for example - if a 14 yo racer goes through a program along the lines of the one below, on a regular basis, he/she'd already be well in the 95th percentile, I would think:

https://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/gym-pro-skier-paula-moltzan

Pay attention to the note on "Loaded Squat Jumps"

As far as safety goes, proprioception and speed/flexibility/endurance are just as important as "super strength", if not more.

We know little about the OPs strengths and weaknesses. He may be naturally strong, needing to work on speed and agility or he may be a agile highly coordinated kid who needs to work on his strength.
He's 5'8, 150lbs at 14 yo and wants to race slalom.

cheers
 
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SlapChop

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Lots of great stuff being said here.

Having Ski Raced my entire youth, (about 6-19 years old) and getting back into it in my 30s, I'll offer some advice from a mindset perspective (seeing as a lot of the equipment, fitness stuff has been talked about).

It was already said in this thread, but I'll echo it - you only race yourself (don't look at the top times!.. unless they are yours)

Learn to separate race day from training day. When you are training, or freeskiing - pick two, maybe three skills at most to focus on throughout the day. You can go many places and get great instruction, but remember, repetition and focus is the key (time on snow!)

On race day, you focus on the course, not the skiing. That is why all that focus on developing the fundamentals is so important, those skills and fitness will let you do what you want in the course on race day. Pretty is not always fast!

And have fun! (Which is a given, because ski racing is pure awesomeness regardless)
 

Corgski

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@Corgski I don't honestly see the issue here - especially as far as kid ski racers are concerned, we're not creating mini-terminators, but fast ski racers.

If a 14 yo does deep squats on one leg on a balance board, with two 8lb dumb bells; pushups in one arm etc - I would think that's strong enough for a HS racer! Even that has to be taught properly - you can get hurt doing simple squats! How many adults in this thread can even do that?

That level of training would be great in my book, for most young racers, complemented by a good overall athletic development program, designed and supervised by someone knowledgeable. That's the main point here. It's not about lifting 200lbs at 12, getting strong and slow... but developing a good all around athlete, active in several sports, at the early ages.

Nobody said strength should not be trained - let's take this for example - if a 14 yo racer goes through a program along the lines of the one below, on a regular basis, he/she'd already be well in the 95th percentile, I would think:

https://www.shape.com/fitness/workouts/gym-pro-skier-paula-moltzan

cheers

I think we are talking at cross purposes here. I am happy to defer to you on target ability levels, whether strength, power proprioception or otherwise. I am really addressing a very different issue.

For most of us the exercise you described and some of those in the link ARE super strength , mini-terminator kind of stuff. The average kid or adult does not come close enough to meeting the strength required to attempt a number of those exercises. That program in Shape is a random selection of exercises some of which are quite doable by someone of average strength and some which will injure someone if they do not have a sufficient strength base. Could it take someone from the 80 to the 95 percentile? Maybe. What happens to everyone well below the 80th percentile? Generating high loads by going on one leg or dynamic loading with the goal of building strength is not safe for anyone else. There is no reasonable progression there for the 50th percentile kid. I am not advocating super strength here, I am saying that the taboo against traditional strength training has removed the path that the average kid needs to take to be able to safely participate in strength sports.

Any exercise which looks like play tends to be considered to be safe for kids. It does not matter what the loading is or whether it was designed for Olympic athletes. The flip side is that anything which is obvious strength related is considered dangerous. The exercise you described could require a 150lb kid to be able to squat about 180lbs. Many parents would think their 150lb kid performing a 50lb barbell squat has performed a remarkable feat of strength and would discourage the kid from pushing higher. But the far more demanding one legged squat "looks" like something any healthy kid could do with a little practice.

There are legitimate reasons for these exercises, including power and flexibility for athletes who have achieved a level of strength. The problem comes when these exercises are being being pushed to cater for a cultural taboo that some coaches may not be aware of. I suspect that the casualties of this nonsense have been eliminated before many of you guys get to deal with them.

Now back to the OP. If he is an average kid strength wise, he could be set up for failure. A "scary" strength routine for kids may start off with an empty barbell bar and progress a few pounds at a time over an extended period (note: goblet squats are better for beginners, correct form tends to come more naturally). The "non scary kid safe" routine could be having them jump around with dumbbells of a few pounds and then loading them up to 200lbs without anyone knowing that they are even doing that. Not accusing any of you guys of this, as I said previously the casualties may have long since dropped out before they even get to you.
 
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fkb

fkb

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I think we are talking at cross purposes here. I am happy to defer to you on target ability levels, whether strength, power proprioception or otherwise. I am really addressing a very different issue.

For most of us the exercise you described and some of those in the link ARE super strength , mini-terminator kind of stuff. The average kid or adult does not come close enough to meeting the strength required to attempt a number of those exercises. That program in Shape is a random selection of exercises some of which are quite doable by someone of average strength and some which will injure someone if they do not have a sufficient strength base. Could it take someone from the 80 to the 95 percentile? Maybe. What happens to everyone well below the 80th percentile? Generating high loads by going on one leg or dynamic loading with the goal of building strength is not safe for anyone else. There is no reasonable progression there for the 50th percentile kid. I am not advocating super strength here, I am saying that the taboo against traditional strength training has removed the path that the average kid needs to take to be able to safely participate in strength sports.

Any exercise which looks like play tends to be considered to be safe for kids. It does not matter what the loading is or whether it was designed for Olympic athletes. The flip side is that anything which is obvious strength related is considered dangerous. The exercise you described could require a 150lb kid to be able to squat about 180lbs. Many parents would think their 150lb kid performing a 50lb barbell squat has performed a remarkable feat of strength and would discourage the kid from pushing higher. But the far more demanding one legged squat "looks" like something any healthy kid could do with a little practice.

There are legitimate reasons for these exercises, including power and flexibility for athletes who have achieved a level of strength. The problem comes when these exercises are being being pushed to cater for a cultural taboo that some coaches may not be aware of. I suspect that the casualties of this nonsense have been eliminated before many of you guys get to deal with them.

Now back to the OP. If he is an average kid strength wise, he could be set up for failure. A "scary" strength routine for kids may start off with an empty barbell bar and progress a few pounds at a time over an extended period (note: goblet squats are better for beginners, correct form tends to come more naturally). The "non scary kid safe" routine could be having them jump around with dumbbells of a few pounds and then loading them up to 200lbs without anyone knowing that they are even doing that. Not accusing any of you guys of this, as I said previously the casualties may have long since dropped out before they even get to you.


After letting this thread sit for a while I feel that I should properly address some of the questions and statements.

When It comes to strength, I'm in the upper percentile. Prior to now I haven't done much specific training but more general "keep me in shape" routines with biking and low maintenance exercises being the main components.

However, basing some of the research on @BGreen I've found various exercises both he, and other sites/people have recommended which are overall focused on plyometrics (fast high stress leg exercises) and core strength, (Russian twist, curls, etc...). These specific exercises will be compounded with a large amount of biking (1000 miles over the summer being a goal for me).

As I grow stronger i'll start working with actual weights and exercises based on such along with single leg and outdoor workouts with the weather picking up steam here in Minneapolis.
 

oldschoolskier

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I’m not going to give any advice on what to buy or what to do during your off season.

What I’m going to do is “TELL” you who to listen to.

@ScotsSkier followed by everyone else. Very few know their stuff as well as he does, or give advice with little or no bias!

If he’s offered you used equipment (and he has)....ask what he has or can get and take it, there is none better, beats new just about any day in the cost/quality department!
 

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