 Poster: A snowHead
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Firstly you are also trying to lose weight at the same time
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Nope. Wrong. In terms of coping with skiing leg-burn, "losing weight" has no relevance. Building muscular strength (which IS what you need to be doing to cope with leg-burn) causes muscle growth i.e. MUSCLE "weight" gain. And that's the case even if the exercise encourages FAT "weight" loss.
Eat all the protein you need. The "best" is high quality, low fat beef.
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| gym instructors suggest 'days off' to rest the muscles .... is there a [legal} supplement which promotes muscle recovery as suggested for creatine above? |
Yeah, it's called a good diet.
Lactic acid ain't the problem.
Current theory about muscle soreness is that exercise, and especially resistance training, creates miniscule tears in the muscles - you need rest days to allow your muscles to heal from this "breakdown" - it's in this phase that muscles litterally "grow" due to scartissue forming in relation to tears. Your body takes as long as it takes to do this.
Food suppliments will do very little to improve it, but shoddy food intake will delay it. The best fuel for your body in that phase is a good well-rounded diet, including well-placed nutritious meals before working out (to provide energy for the workout) and after working out (to provide energy for the body to recover).
BTW, re: protein suppliment powders: You can easily do without them simply by eating a proper diet.
But if you can't be arsed with that, then there's nothing more magical in the pre-prepared formulations than milk powder and sugar. At least buy the raw ingredients yourself at a fraction of the price...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Oh dear; I stop checking the site for a while and come back to find all sorts of idiocy being quoted.
An exercise undertaken with the aim of improving muscle function involves three stages; overload, recovery and adaptation.
Recovery is not enough as fresh overload inhibits adaptation. The recovery and adaptation are whole body functions not just the muscle groups overloaded so split routines interfere with the recovery and adaptation. Some of the exercise routines quoted in this thread involve overtraining which slows improvements.
The average diet contains more than enough protein without a need for protein drinks.
Incidently the latest research indicates that the burn is not lactic acid build up but probably some unidentified metabolite but I bet it takes decades or even generations for the fitness industry to stop stating that it is lactic acid.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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John Yes.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Get a mountain bike and use it a couple of time a week, works for me.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Arno, I'm suprised a bit by the heartrate levels, they seem a bit low. I use 120bpm as a warmup rate, and would hope to be able to cycle at that rate all day (with food/comfort/stile breaks of course).
For a full hour I'd cycle at about 150bpm and for interval training would look to have short regular periods of up to 170/180bpm. But that's based on training to cycle, rather than cycle training to ski.
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Get a mountain bike and use it a couple of time a week, works for me.
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The gym I train at is used by a well known local rugby team, some of who play for england.
The athletes use it every day for hours on end, just about everyone of them uses a legal supplement and I see them using it in the changing room.
These are big guys and very fit, they seem to know what they are doing.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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doogoo, I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but if your suffering thigh burn then i'm guessing your technique may need modifying to help you.
I once had an instructor who cured it for me by making me ski a run with a spoon against each shin. I was trained to make sure I kept myself riding my cuffs ALL THE TIME so the spoons did not drop. This combined with hanging my skeleton off the cuffs made my skiing a lot less effort and improved my overall technique.
The above combined with some gentle bike exercise should make life a lot easier for you.
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Royal, no doubt those guys are big and very fit but that does not mean that they know what they are doing.
This is one of the problems which distorts perceptions about exercise and it is usually caused by the bodybuilders and the extreme atheletes.
If you want to be big and strong the most important thing by far is to chose your parents wisely. It is about genetics. If genetically you are predestined to have big muscles it hardly matters what type of exercise you do - you will still have big muscles even if you exercise really,really stupidly (and some bodybuilders do).
Unfortuneately the less genetically gifted copy these big and strong people on the basis that they must know what they are doing because they are big and strong.
Rugby is bedevilled by players overtraining but it is so widespread that everyone thinks that it is the norm and correct.
It is essential to have adequate rest between exercise sessions - how much is adequate varies with each individual but for most it is at least 48 hours. If you are older or stronger it can be three or four days (stronger means that you can stress the body more which requires longer rest). If you are really strong and at your peak the rest required could be as much as 10 days.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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john wells, I fully understand what you are getting at, but I have had to push my limits as, I had so much wasted muscle and imbalance. The only way I have been able to get back in shape (balanced) is to put in 2.5 hours x 4 days, plus walking at weekends. To beat the fatigue, I have used Soya Protein. Much of my work has been "one sided" since the distance between sternum and shoulder was significantly narrower on one side (16 weeks of broken collarbone). I am starting to see the benefits, as the dreadful old ladies "bingo wing" has gone from the right tricep.  October, will see me switch to ski specific preparation. All this does not make me a body builder, far from it, but my medical advisers have consistently advised me to push the limit, and work through the pain.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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john wells, the coach lives next door to me, he's obviously not short of a bob or two.
Someone must know what they are doing and gets paid o good whack too !
As an ex marine, I can tell you we trained just about every day, 4.5 days a week for hours on end, not just in the gym but outside in all weather.
You dont need at least 48 hours rest, it would be nice, but your body and mind adjusts and you get into it.
The forces have trained like this for a lot longer than sports therapists have been around and we have the best armed forces in the world.
A good diet is essential for any lifestyle in the corps you get 4 massive meals a day and plenty of beer at night....
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Royal, there is only one study that I know about comparing fit young men in the armed forces and that was done at West Point in 1975 by Arthur Jones. The study was under the control of the Army to prevent bias. One group trained the Jones way, high intensity strength training only and plenty of rest, and the other group trained the usual army way. Both groups were sports people so they were already very fit and accustomed to train hard.
At the end of the trial the Jones group were stronger; query about the margin of this result as this group were also more accustomed to the machines which measured strength. What was more striking was the Jones group improved their 2 mile run times by a much better margin than the other group despite not doing any cardio vascular training.
End result - Jones did not publish a report because he considered that his group had not trained with the best form he advocated and that the result should have been even better. The army published an internal report which recommended a revision of the army training. As far as I know this revision was never implemented because of resistance from people who believed in the traditional training despite evidence to the contrary.
If the British armed forces revised their training they would probably get better results and would reduce the number of injuries during training.
The fact that trainers can get great results and have done so for years does not mean that their training regimes could not be improved. There is very little proper research done concerning fitness training especially for the non-sports person.
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You know it makes sense.
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right so your basing your info on one report at an american military academy 30 years ago ?
Your understanding of the british forces is just as outdated.
Training is constantly evolving and being evaluated, the beauty being, there are hundreds of recruits being trained at any one time different methods can be adopted and evaluated.
The services accepts that young recruits coming into the services in recent years is no where near as fit and healthy as they were ten years ago and the training as a result has changed to accomodate that.
Training is also evaluated to ensure that the impact on the body does not outweigh the benefits and injuries are kept to minimum.
The Royal Marines had to substantially lower the required standard for entry as they were(and still are) not getting enough recruits to CTCRM. The initial 15 weeks of traing changed to accomodate this but the end product is still the same @ 30 weeks.
As far as I can remember the advice to recruits getting fit was exe a min of 3 times a week, resting a day between and training different body parts each time, giving the body time to recover.
This of course has nothing to do with long run burn !
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Royal,
I once ran a school football team at secondary age and I was amazed how unfit they ALL were.
The ramifications of school kids being unfit will haunt the NHS for in future years IMO.
I can always remember that after a summer holiday of playing football the first 6 weeks of games was cross country to get us fit...and what have they done...abolished it....
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Poster: A snowHead
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and asthma ? they all have asthma !
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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boredsurfin,
Don't remember the teachers ever doing it....but...
the kids certainly couldn't..
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Royal, as someone who has served in the army (not the british), it seems to me that the basic training has more goals than to make the recruit fit. Discipline, hardiness, pride (in reaching the end of a period of agonising intensity), group cohesion etc. So even tho the army can experiment with different training strategies they might frown upon 2 hours of intensive training every 48 hours followed by rest. This is not to say that soldiers are not fit, but them being fit does not mean that they train in the most efficient way (physiologycally). About the asthma: due to more air pollution, some say more chemicals in the food the number of repiratory disfunctions is on a rise, regardless of the level of physical activity
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Royal, the relevance to the long run burn is that for most recreational skiers a quick physical solution, as opposed to a technique solution which might be a better way to tackle it, would be to improve muscle strength and endurance using training methods which produce fast results and do not take up too much time.
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john wells, i agree.
sugardaddy, i agree.
Training the forces is like a production line, its the quickest, safest way to train as many people as possible to a certain standard in the shortest time.
My point was not everyone needs 48 hours rest between exe, a good balanced diet goes hand in hand with fitness but for some food supplements are an aid to their training.
Its not an exact science and Im sure opinions will have changed a few times more i the next ten years.
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Royal, there is a lack of science at the moment and not much research on the horizon either. At the universities the medical research tends towards pharmacology and curing disease; the physiology research tends towards genome stuff, basic research not including the skeletal muscles or disease research again; for the systems physiology at sports biased universities the research tends towards the extreme athletes needs.
We do not even know what happens when a muscle increases its strength or increases its endurance except in very general terms. It is difficult to do this research as humans have this unhelpful tendency to object to frequent muscle biopsies.
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john wells, would you consider compiling a fitness FAQ?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I'd agree that general fitness is important, but I think a lot comes down to technique. I used to suffer very badly from "quads of fire", but this year for the first time I was able to ski fast all day without stopping. Through changes/improvements in technique I've gone from my legs hurting after 2 hours of skiing to the point where I can now ski hard for 8 hours non stop (in Jan I recored over 100km in a day without ever stopping for more than a toilet break). This has helped me enjoy skiing even more than I used to 
I've found the difference is partly better technique, but also about changing technqiue. Physicists will tell you that that energy is never lost just transferred (1st law of thermodynamics). Whenever you break or slow down, the kinetic energy (the energy of your mass moving at speed) has to be transferred into heat (primarily) or sound. In simple terms that heat is what makes your legs burn.
I focussed on being "soft" with my skies on the snow, relaxing my legs, and turning constantly with shallow smooth turns. Carving but allowing a constantly gentle slide rather than a hard carved turn on "rails". I worked on trying to go down runs from top to bottom at a constant speed; avoiding any big hard turns by checking my speed with a small amount of slide on each turn.
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My legs are fine when I ski. I go to the gym 3/4 times per week and do a lot of running and cross training. I find it's my back and shoulders that ache after a couple of days. Any tips for this?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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its probably due to holding a certain position for extended periods and also those muscles aren't used to the exertion.
If you go on a long walk you don't usually get leg burn.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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beanie1, warm up before and cool down ??
Try bending and stretching exercises before skiing and not just a quick 5 minute one. I'd also try cooling down slowly after each run instead of 5 mins hard exe then suddenly stopping for 15 minutes sat on a cold lift.
You should try exe in the gym to increase the strength in back and stomach, the later being very important for bad backs.
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Mon 12-09-05 20:20; edited 1 time in total
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Yep, bad lower back normally means poor lower abs, not sure what else they are called.
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You know it makes sense.
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| JT wrote: |
| Yep, bad lower back normally means poor lower abs, not sure what else they are called. |
beer belly ?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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my students who complain about "quad burn" typically exhibit three qualities;
1. just past the apex of the turn they become "braced" against the hill.
2. they are static. not much athleticism or movement.
3. they are "over terrained", tense, tired.
the cure;
1. appropriate/active management of pressure via flexion/extension
2. keep moving
3. provide terrain choices where the pitch does not ramp up anxiety.
one last point. quad burn is often a symptom of a boot alignment issue and/or a student hanging on/levering the front of the boot. too much forward lean, ramp angle, delta angle or all three. we need to support ourselves on skis with bones as oppsed to soft tissue.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I agree with Rusty Guy, leg burn becomes much worse when you're fighting the mountain rather than flowing down it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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back to the army training over the more modern stuff.. surely the marines want people able to cope with running up hills in the freezing rain on 3 hours kip for days at a time carrying 50 kilos whilst still staying alert and being up for a ruck.. i cant see how doing a couple of hours every two days is going to get you ready for that physically or mentally , regardless of your 2 mile time..
im sticking with the old mantra.. 'dont fk with the royal marines'.. especially when thay have had a drink !
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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CANV CANVINGTON, as has benn mentioned by sugardaddy, the training is about the mental as much as anything. For the physical alone there are better methods.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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CANV CANVINGTON, you cant do that every day of the week, there arent enough hills !
There are lots of other things that need to be learnt such as weapon handling, navigation, section battle drills, shooting etc etc.
Then there is the tarzan assault course, the longest ariel course in the world, the bottom field "assault" or to be more PC "obstacle" course and the famous endurance course.
H&S is a big head ache these days. Every thing has to have a risk assessment before it is done. the MOD(N) decided to do generic ones but the the mighty H&S told them this wasnt good enough and they had to go back to thr drawing board.
Now an instructor cant make anyone do something they dont want to do, so they "invite you" to go over a certain obstacle and if something goes wrong its the corporal who gets his ass kicked.
Its true to say though being a marine needs "strength of mind" however their recent ad campain backfired... "only 99.99 % need apply..."
no one thought they were good enough and recruiting nose dived again!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| doogo wrote: |
| At this early stage in the year, what are the tips (technique, fitness, guts etc. all welcome) for countering the burn in the thighs that comes on during a long continuous run down the slopes |
As others have said, I'd say technique and balance first as skiing in the backseat and fighting the hill = thigh burn. A balance device (e.g. BOSU) might help here.
Next would be fitness and muscle strength. (Often the hamstrings are neglected)
With many others sports pain doesn't affect your performance as much (e.g. you can run with pain but when you ski with pain, the pain drowns out the feeling / feedback). I think this is why Herman Maier trains his body to get the maximum performance at a given lactic acid level.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Royal, heheh i can imagine a marine instructors invite!
if say, you dont fancy the underwater tube thing you have to get through and give it a miss, or the jumping through the hole in the ice with full kit on can you still pass out?
also do they still do the bit in the backof the truck where they see if you can handle being captured and interrogated?
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| CANV CANVINGTON wrote: |
Royalif say, you dont fancy the underwater tube (a smarty tube) thing you have to get through and give it a miss, or the jumping through the hole in the ice with full kit on can you still pass out? NOPE ! Winterwarfare isnt carried out in basic or commando training phase, but if you want to complete a course you need to complete it !
also do they still do the bit in the backof the truck where they see if you can handle being captured and interrogated? There are lots of excercises along those lines and run for different branches of the forces. I believe the RAF like to train their air crews for such circs. |
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Try bending and stretching exercises before skiing and not just a quick 5 minute one
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Oh dear. Not that fallacy again.
Royal please if you want to stretch then fine, but keep your ill-advised "advice" to yourself.
To properly prepare the body for exercise, it's essential to warm it up by way of cardio - ideally jogging round the block for about 15 minutes until your lungs and heart feel ready to take on more strenuous exercise.
Firstly, stretching of itself doesn't achieve this end.
Secondly, there is a study which suggests that (at least amongst professional athletes) stretching PRIOR to exercise causes hypermobility -in layman's terms, the body isn't able to hold good form because it's too floppy.
Thirdly, even if point 2 above is in future proved to be bollox it remains the case that an "unwarmed" muscle, when stretched, is more likely to tear than a warmed muscle.
Basically, it is important to stretch to elongate fibres in the muscles which may have contracted following use in exercise.
But it's NOT good practice to rely on "stretching" as the way to warm up.
Leave stretching until AFTER you've come off the piste. Before you've completely warmed down, then take at least a good 30 minutes to stretch out all the main muscle groups.
If you really must stretch in the morning, at least stretch AFTER you've properly warmed up. And then stretch again after you come off the piste.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Manda wrote: |
Oh dear. Not that fallacy again. |
personally i dont have a problem with fallic things...
sorry, your obviously an expert.
But... I dont recally saying you should only bend and stretch, but hey I only tried to help, sorry if you took the "hump".
(or perhaps thats what you could do with ?)
was there really any need to post in such a way ?
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 16-09-05 16:44; edited 1 time in total
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Manda, seconded - partly due to sports specific activities, there has been an over-emphasis on stretching.
To add to the information:-
The benefit for ordinary mortals from stretching is to reset the muscle's end point of its range of motion when there has been a sustained activity which uses only a partial range of motion. The classic is shortened hamstrings due to walking or running.
If anyone attempts to stretch beyond the muscles' natural range of motion what is happening is that the ligaments and tendons are being stretched and elongated - this is classified as a bad thing as such stretching can lead to joint destabilization.
Stretching is best done when the muscles are fully warmed up after execise. The research for what it is worth concludes that stretching before exercise, even on warmed up muscles, has little or no benefit.
For the average person, if greater flexibility is desired, it is often best to lose some fat.
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FAQ
