Fitness STANDARDS

Re: Fitness STANDARDS

Postby alpinebaseline » Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:30 am

This is a really interesting discussion and my thoughts are that Heluva is on the money here. Everything else equal, stronger is better.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, a key contributor to athletic performance is an athletes ability to generate power, defined as as force x distance, divided by time. The controllable variables are force (aka strength) and time (aka speed, aka explosiveness/the number of motor units that can rapidly be recruited).

Explosiveness, tested by things such as the standing vertical jump is not very highly genetic & not very trainable. A 10% improvement would be considered significant.

Strength is highly trainable. A 300% improvement within 1-2 years is not unusual.

'Natural' athletes tend to have very high explosiveness. They excel at sport as children and are the ones who make the big leagues.

It would be a mistake to look at a natural athlete, observe that they are not neccessarily that strong and then summise that we don't need to be either.

Acquiring strength benefits everyone, but particularly those of us who are less genetically blessed.

If anyone is interested more about this, Mark Rippetoe has written a lot about it (see Starting Strength method & website).
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Re: Fitness STANDARDS

Postby HeluvaSkier » Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:40 am

HeluvaSkier wrote:1.8x-2.0x body weight squat and 2.3x-2.5x body weight dead lift or higher, if-possible.


I think my point here may have been misunderstood... Those numbers are MY performance level required for MY level of skiing. NOT expert PMTS skiing. As JB rightly stated, this isn't a requirement to be a PMTS expert.

That said, I think evidence will show that the PMTS skiers many here admire, are very fit, not overweight, and yes, do spend time in a gym doing weighted compound lifts (Harald included). Even light weights of those kinds of workouts are going to produce huge dividends in one's skiing, especially in one's ability to flex, co-contract, and absorb (vs. push/brace). Skiing is a strength sport. In skiing strong is safe. So, don't discount the value of strength training at any performance level.
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Re: Fitness STANDARDS

Postby jbotti » Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:03 pm

Maybe its time to clarify explosiveness vs strength and/or bulk. Pushing the upper boundaries with weights produces a result which is different than doing solid Plyo work twice a week which aids explosiveness. WC racers definitely hit the weight training hard but its only a portion of the work that they do which is heavy in plyos, agility, balance and flexibility work, not to mention the cycling/stationary bike work they do to aid endurance. Power is great. Power to weight is equally important.
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