Increasing Strength and Endurance Through Balance Training

Increasing Strength and Endurance Through Balance Training

Recently I attended a lecture entitled “Powder Days without Fatigue – How ski conditioning leads to fun days in the snow”.  The presentation was given by Adam St. Pierre, MS of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine.  Adam’s main focus at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine is Exercise Physiologist and Gait Biomechanics. Adam specializes in coaching and training Cross Country Skiers, and is the Head Coach for the 8-13 year-olds of the Boulder Nordic Junior Racing Team.

Boulder Nordic Junior Racing Team

Although the lecture was focused toward the skiing audience, the basic principles that Adam spoke about cross over to many other sports such as running, ultra running, cycling, and any sport that requires balance and strength.  I found the lecture very interesting and by no means do I call myself a skier.  Adam’s lecture focused on how to have “fun” and stay injury free for an entire ski season and the type of conditioning that is needed for endurance sports.

So, what does FUN mean?

Fun is emphasized because everyone will have their own definition of what fun means to them.  Adam describes fun as the ability to ski without limits.  To each individual this might mean to ski any terrain or conditions, to be able to ski a certain number of runs per day, or to ski a certain amount of vertical feet.  The bottom line is that you should be able to accomplish your fun factor without fear of injury.

Different types of fun require different types of conditioning and preparation.  If your idea of fun is a long day of cross country skiing, then you need to focus on aerobic conditioning.  If your idea of fun is bombing down the moguls, then your conditioning will be more gymnastic based.  Skiing preparation and conditioning spans the entire spectrum of fitness.  So, no matter what type of skiing you participate in there are underlining similarities between all disciplines.  These similarities range from aerobic to gymnastic and everything in between.  This also means that the same conditioning for skiing carries over to many other sports.

What Do All Ski Sports Require?

All ski sports require balance and coordination.  To be a good skier you need to be stable and balanced in a variety of conditions and terrains.  To do this you need to have leg strength and muscular endurance.  You must have leg muscles that can withstand eccentric loading (just holding proper body position) whether you are skiing the deep powder, or a slalom run.  In some ski sports your legs muscles are your propulsion, they are pushing you forward. Also, all ski disciplines require some level of aerobic fitness.  The fitter you are the more runs you will be able to ski and as the day goes on, the later runs will be better than your first run.  Basically, if you are aerobically fit you will warm-up after the first couple of runs and then be hitting your stride.

Balance and Coordination

Balance and coordination are very important for injury prevention.  It’s simple, the better your balance the less you will fall.  The less you fall the less likely that you will hurt yourself.  Hence, balance is one of the best ways to decrease your risk of injury.  Balance and coordination will also expand your boundaries and you will be able to ski more terrain under different conditions.

How to Improve Your Balance and Coordination

The simplest balance exercise

One of the easiest methods to improve your balance is to just stand on one foot.  Really, it is that simple. Just stand on one foot for 5 to 10 minutes alternating feet.  To make this simple exercise a bit harder, close your eyes.  It is easy to incorporate into everyday activities: brushing teeth, preparing dinner, etc.  I even do this when walking Simon.  When he is sniffing things, I use this time to stand on one foot. (FYI, Simon is my pup).

To make this simple exercise a bit more difficult you can introduce implements to make it a little more complex.  Some of these implements are: wobble boards, Bosu balls, air discs, and balance balls.  Wobble boards come in two basic varieties, 1) lateral balance, and 2) full-range of motion balance.

The lateral balance board

The full motion wobble board

With all three it is recommended that you start your exercise routine using two feet before advancing to a one footed exercise.  Once you become comfortable with the particular balance implement you can move to a one footed exercise.  For both one footed and two footed exercises there are ways to make them even harder by incorporating such things as: squats, twists, bending, playing catch with a ball, etc.  You can use a Bosu balance ball to do push-ups, balance on your feet, do squats, etc.  What all these exercises

The Bosu Ball

do is introduce instability which increases the proprioceptive requirements of standing one stable ground.

Proprioception: Unlike the exteroceptivesenses by which we perceive the outside world, and introceptive senses, by which we perceive the pain and movement of internal organs, proprioception is a third distinct sensory modality that provides feedback solely on the status of the body internally. It is the sense that indicates whether the body is moving with required effort, as well as where the various parts of the body are located in relation to each other. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception)

Interesting Studies on Balance Training

Standing on One Foot

One study found that balance training alone leads to the same muscle gains as strength training.  The study was conducted with two groups.  Group 1 did strength training with weights. They followed a typical weight training program and exercised doing multiple reps for each exercise three times per week.  Group 2 did a balancing exercise.  They stood on one leg 5-10 minutes each day, three times per week. Both groups were pretesting for max strength on the leg extension, and then post testing for max leg extension.  What the study showed was that the two groups improved exactly the same.  In other words, the neural improvements in being able to control muscles were the same for both groups. These tests were done on your typical “untrained” subject.  So, your average weekend warrior type of person, not on elite super athletes.  So, if you have no other options (such as weight training) balance training is a simple way to improve your balance and strength.

Swedish Wobble Board Study

The study was conducted in Sweden, so they took a bunch of Swedes and had them stand 5-10 minutes at a time on each leg 3 times a week on a wobble board.  What the study saw was an incredible improvement in muscular strength; about a 20% improvement!  To read all the details of the study go to: http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/proprioceptive-exercises.html

Another Swedish study took two groups that have never skied before and had half of them train on a wobble board, the other half took ski lessons and trained on the bunny hill.  Then after two weeks they put the groups together and had them do slalom runs.  The performance test showed that both groups performed the same.

In summary: balance training improves leg strength, improves balance, normalizes strength and balance differences between legs, and most importantly it is an easy thing to do to prevent falling and hence prevent injuries when skiing.  It sure sounds like there is something about this balance training stuff.

Strength and Endurance of the Leg Muscles

As mentioned earlier, in some ski sports leg muscle are responsible for propulsion, and in other they are responsible for maintain a good load. One of the biggest benefits of having stronger muscles are that they help protect joints; particularly your knee joint.  This is the one joint that gets injured a lot in skiing. The stronger your muscles, the better able you are to support your joints.

During your strength training you want to concentrate on flowed, controlled eccentric motion.  In general this is the lengthening motion or the down phase in squatting.  And then concentrate on a more explosive and faster concentric motion which is the shortening motion where the muscles are contracting, this is the up phase in a squat.  In general free-weights are best for strength training.

The Squat

Although squats are better than a leg press machine.  You might not be able to lift as much weight doing squats, but the benefit of having to control the weight during a squat in three dimensions is more beneficial than a leg press machines two dimensional lift. Also, the squat incorporates more neuromuscular control.  The bottom line is form over function.

Strong quads, hamstrings, gluts, calves, and core are really important for preventing injury.  It is important to know how each of these muscle groups work.  For instance there are people that will work out on the leg extension machine building huge quad muscles.  The problem with this is that the tendons of your quads attach in a lateral fashion.  They supply no lateral support for the knee. So, doing leg extensions do not really supply your knee with any lateral support.  The hamstring tendons and your glut tendons come in and they sort of wrap around to the side of the knee. These are the real muscles that will give your legs lateral support. Not to say that the quads are not important, because they are.  The quads are taking the brunt of the shock absorption (as when running downhill), but the hamstrings and the gluts are what are really protecting the knees.  If you are having issues with IT pain, this is most likely due to weak glut muscles. The same principle for strong glut muscles goes for cycling, running, and pretty much every major sport where the gluts are doing the work.

Wrapping it all Up

It pretty simple:

Proper conditioning = more fun = less injury = allows you to push yourself to your limits = reduced fear.