drills and exercises
Yvonne Bontekoning
I am looking for drills and exercises which I could use to teach the
various classic techniques. Please let me know if you know any books
or websites with such drills and exercises, or maybe you know some
good ones by yourself. Books might be in English, Dutch or German.
Kind regards,
Yvonne Bontekoning
The Netherlands
Chris Cline
I would be interested in seeing what you put together,
particularly if it ends up in some electronic form
(i.e., website).
We have been doing XC strength and conditioning
classes in our ski club (The Utah Nordic Alliance) for
several years. we don't have anything written out,
but here are a couple of strength/balance exercises
and drills we use:
Back Strength:
Bench-Leg extensions: Lay face down on a bench such
that your legs are hanging off the bench in a
bent-knee position (start by kneeling in front of the
edge of the bench). Grasping the bench to steady your
torso, extend your legs one at a time (alternating) so
that your legs are parallel with the ground (or
elevated slightly from that position). Do 5-12
times/side, or alternately. This exercise takes a
fair amount of strength, so start with just a few
reps. It is probably not recommended for people with
weak backs.
Core strength: Abdominal exercises are very important
for XC skiing, because strong ab's are necessary to
stabilize against the large amount of lower back
muscle use involved in the kick phase of the classic
stride. Besides crunches, try "Lie Backs": starting
from a "sit-up" position with bent knees, roll down on
a slow 10-count to a position where you are lying on
the ground with your knees bent. Focus on keeping the
pelvic girdle tucked under, and getting your lower
back to hit the mat before your upper back does. Kind
of a "reverse situp." Hand positions: easiest: hands
extended in front of you (counterbalances your body
and keeps your spine curled). hardest: hands behind
head. Intermediate: hands on chest. This is a very
good exercise because you can really notice increases
in strength as you graduate from 5 reps to 20. Makes
a lot of those other abdominal exercises feel easier,
too!
Hand and leg raises: From a hands and knees position,
raise and extend out from your body your left
arm/right leg. When you extend your limbs, also look
up. Can do these repeatedly on one side (i.e., 10
reps) then change sides, or can do alternately.
Balance:
"Golfer's reach": stand on one foot, with your other
leg extended slightly behind you. Get balanced, then
(still standing on one foot), reach down to the ground
(as if you are picking up a golf ball). As you "pick
up the golf ball", bend your standing knee and pull
your free leg in slightly under your body (makes your
center of gravity a little smaller and close to the
ground, also simulates the "collection" movement that
happens before the kick push-off during skiing). As
you stand up, push up on your standing leg and extend
the free leg behind you (simulating the extension of
the kick), and "get tall" over your standing leg
(extend upward, with balance on the one leg, but don't
lock your knees). Repeat 5-12 times on each side,
focusing first on form, then on explosiveness on the
pushoff (standing back up). This exercise is very
good for getting people (and their bodies!) to
understand the concept of committing weight completely
to one leg.
Good luck! It will be interesting to see what you
compile.
Chris Cline
Salt Lake City, UT
--- Yvonne Bontekoning <y.bont...@hetnet.nl>
wrote:
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
Ken Roberts
http://www.roberts-1.com/xcski
then click on "Classic technique", then "Resources for Learning".
I'd be glad to add others to the list.
I recently wrote some detailed instructions for three exercises for balance
on ski:
http://www.roberts-1.com/xcski/classic/secrets/balance/exercises
I'd be very glad for suggestions and corrections about those instructions.
I'm not any sort of expert on ski instruction, but I think believe balance
is so critical for "breaking through" into some of the fun things in classic
skiing, that really wanted to make some try at making some very specific
help available in English.
Ken
Ski Hudson Valley
www.roberts-1.com/hvski/xc
Gene Goldenfeld
Success. Check abebooks.com and amazon.com's marketplace for
used/new copies closer to you. Also check out the website,
xcskiworld.com, for links to instructional information. One of
those links will be to an exceptionally good site with video
frames of appropriate exercises, the New England ski club's site:
http://www.nensa.net/training/training.shtml (page down to
"Dryland Classic Drills" and a few other links underneath). A
google search on this newsgroup will come up with some
suggestions for helpful video tapes. Note: I'd be very cautious
about using drills, exercises, instructional materials and such
from anyone who isn't a certified and experienced instructor or
coach.
Gene Goldenfeld
Rob Bradlee
below:
> with video
> frames of appropriate exercises, the New England ski
> club's site:
> http://www.nensa.net/training/training.shtml (page
NENSA is not really the New England ski club, but the
New England Nordic Ski Association which is the
governing body for nordic ski racing in New England
therefore the umbrella organization for all NE ski
clubs (we have over 50 clubs).
Rob Bradlee
Erik Brooks
bookstores and libraries, and have many a dozen in my home library. I've
only seen titles in English. The best book by far that I have seen that
covers what you are asking for is Nordic Skiing : Steps to Success , by
Laurie Gillion.
You can get it from Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0873223942/qid%3D1024355956/ref%3Dsr%
5F11%5F0%5F1/103-1422377-3730249
It was written in 1992, and seems to be out of print, but Amazon is showing
20 used copies available.
It covers both classic and skating, and covers beginning to intermediate
technique. It has lots of line drawings that illustrate the points in the
text.
There are LOTS of drills and exercises described in it. I think it is a
really great resource for your needs.
Good luck instructing,
Erik
Ken Roberts
excellent -- thanks for posting it, Gene.
If only we had more material of even half that quality up on the Web for
_on-snow_ exercises.
- (I have a suggestion about that further below.)
The place that comes closest that I know of is the Australian Ski
Instructors manual:
http://www.alia.org.au/~ivan/ski.manual/home.html
. . . full of great wisdom on helping skiers learn, and specific tips on
_leading_ some key exercises. But it is targeted for instructors -- not the
learning skiers themselves. So it (understandably) assumes that the reader
already knows the basics of how to do it and why.
www.xcskiworld.com has lots and lots of helpful tips and concepts, and _is_
targeted for learning skiers. The section on Classic technique shows great
promise -- but to me it feels like a "first draft" -- somebody needs to be
take it to the next level of depth, for it to become a truly outstanding
resource on the Web.
So my assessment of the technique and exercises available on the Web is that
there are giant gaps and inadequacies.
I think the beautiful and fun motions of skiing -- and the skiers performing
and learning them -- deserve more and better.
> Note: I'd be very cautious about using drills,
> exercises, instructional materials and such
> from anyone who isn't a certified and
> experienced instructor or coach.
By coincidence, I just wrote some exercise procedures and put them on the
web. And I am not certified and not experienced. I did it because I
thought the lack of detailed exercises for balance up on the Web was a
critical gap. Still, Gene's warning is well taken: be cautious.
I do have a suggestion for another way to help the skiing community, beyond
issuing warnings:
Write something _better_ -- and put it out in public on the Web.
Or you can _send_ the better stuff to me, and I'll put it up -- with full
credit to you, and full notice of your retention of all intellectual
property rights. (I will do that even if I disagree with most of it.) And
I'll announce it to this newsgroup, and send an E-mail to XCskiworld and ask
that they include your page(s) in their table of Links.
Or just write down some things that are _wrong_ or misleading or incomplete
in what I wrote: and I will put those up as a page on the Web. And I will
link to it from my page of exercises, with a recommendation on my page that
people read your comments.
That offer applies to Gene or anybody else who writes either a positive or
negative contribution about exercises for committed weight transfer and
balance on snow.
I would like to see the XC skiing community get to a place where we can
offer on the web something better to learning skiers than the information
that the best answer to their needs is in some book out of print.
Ken