Safety in winter sports through preparation and training
Winter is approaching. However, those who love sports like telemark, snowboarding or skiing also know the risk of injury. What many do not know: You can influence the risk of injury yourself. Physical fitness is considered a key factor in injury prevention.
Professionals have prepared intensively over the summer half-year and are entering the final phase of preparation. For all other winter sports enthusiasts, fall is a good time to start preparing with targeted strength, endurance and fitness training. In this way, the stresses that joints in particular have to withstand in winter sports can be better absorbed, thereby reducing the risk of injury.
Relative performance factors winter sports
Strength is considered to be the most important factor in any athletic performance, just as it is in winter sports. Other elements such as endurance, agility, technique, but also nutrition and psyche play an important role in each case. Fitness must be right all around in order to perform well in the snow. Performance to be able to provide.
The methodical training focus health / performance
Someone who skis as a competitive athlete trains differently than someone who pursues the goal of prevention for skiing. Therefore, fitness training mainly distinguishes between health-oriented and performance-oriented training.
Health-oriented is trained exclusively strength endurance and muscle building.
Performance-oriented, strength endurance as well as muscle building are the basics, which are supplemented by other training methods: Elements that focus on speed strength and maximum strength are added. The last and proportionally smallest training component is reactive strength training, a form of high-speed strength that affects the shortening-stretching cycle.
The specific preparation
First, the goal is defined: Is the focus on performance or health? Then, depending on the sport, the body parts that play the main role from a coordination point of view vary. In many winter sports, these are the legs, torso and back, with the focus on strength and speed. The winter preparation usually starts with a general build-up strength training, which is continuously increased in intensity. Priorities are set for specific sports. In freestyle snowboarding, for example, the focus is on core strength, which ensures stability and compactness of the body during landing, release and all phases of flight. In preparation, a movement sequence from everyday sports, such as the downhill squat, is never imitated in the weight room. Specific strength training always involves the whole body in order to do justice to the complex movement sequences of each sport.
Strength training: tips for the beginning
Anyone who starts strength training should build up slowly. This means: start with two 30-minute workouts per week, perform movement sequences in a controlled manner and with little weight in order to achieve the highest quality workout possible. When choosing exercises, it is important to remain versatile: To consider and train agonists and antagonists, such as adductors and abductors, equally. It also makes sense not to train only on machines, but to incorporate other exercises that are more demanding in terms of coordination.
As proven strength and athletics experts as well as winter sports trainers, we are happy to provide advice.