Leg extensions. Worth it or worthless

Has anyone really never had sore quads after skiing? If so, I suspect you're doing it wrong. Don't care how many squats etc. you've done to prepare - if you ski hard, you'll have sore quads (as it should be), spesh-lish in the early season (natch, and...no matter what).

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Originally Posted by I've seen black diamonds!

I'm going to try that pistol jump move just to remind myself of what I'm not. I should probably where a helmet. ]

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was curious myself so I just tried it. Not as hard as it looks — as with most single leg jumping, it’s all about the movement/momentum of the non-jumping leg. It’s actually easier than a controlled pistol (or high static step up) cuz you get that stretch reflex out of the bottom. Not trying to brag — I think we’ve established LVS, XavierD, and many other mags are stronger than me.

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Originally Posted by auvgeek

was curious myself so I just tried it. Not as hard as it looks — as with most single leg jumping, it’s all about the movement/momentum of the non-jumping leg. It’s actually easier than a controlled pistol (or high static step up) cuz you get that stretch reflex out of the bottom. Not trying to brag — I think we’ve established LVS, XavierD, and many other mags are stronger than me.

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I tried them at the gym today. Easier than they look. With saying that, they will be added to my routine.

Finally read this thread all the way through. I can hear the collective horror of rehab professionals everywhere... (regarding knee extensions)

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Originally Posted by bourbonisgood

Finally read this thread all the way through. I can hear the collective horror of rehab professionals everywhere... (regarding knee extensions)

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Heh. Wondered if you were going to chime in.

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Originally Posted by XavierD

I’d argue back skiing requires a lot. Ore out of your quads then glutes or back. Plenty of folks who are very capable squatters find themselves with very sore quads after skiing. They have failed to train their quad muscles adiquatly for the sport. While yes, doing more squats could help them prepare, it also requires much more recovery than just doing quad specific training. By focusing on just their quads they are meeting all of their training requirements, while also enabling more training and faster progress.

In my case, very few people would argue I don’t have adiquate back and hip strength, or under developed quads. At the same time I have never had sore hips or back after skiing. I have had sore quads, and had my quads literally fail on me while skiing early season pow days. This was at the same time I could squat north of 500lb, and could do sets of 20 300lb front squats. My quads were insufficently trained despite being a much more accomplished lifter than many on this forum will ever be. Squatting more was not going to be an efficient way to train my legs for skiing, perhaps massive quantities of leg extensions would have been a more effictive and efficient training strategy. It also would have left more room for training endurance running, which I had to sacrifice to get to a 500lb squat.

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Rear foot elevated split squat. Best quad dominant exercise I’ve found. When I was doing reps of 200+ (dumbbells not barbell) my quads didn’t really get sore even early season.

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Originally Posted by Dantheman

Those one-footed box jump to pistols were pretty boss.

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Yup. My knees started hurting watching those!!

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Originally Posted by XavierD

I’d argue back skiing requires a lot. Ore out of your quads then glutes or back. Plenty of folks who are very capable squatters find themselves with very sore quads after skiing. They have failed to train their quad muscles adiquatly for the sport. While yes, doing more squats could help them prepare, it also requires much more recovery than just doing quad specific training. By focusing on just their quads they are meeting all of their training requirements, while also enabling more training and faster progress.

In my case, very few people would argue I don’t have adiquate back and hip strength, or under developed quads. At the same time I have never had sore hips or back after skiing. I have had sore quads, and had my quads literally fail on me while skiing early season pow days. This was at the same time I could squat north of 500lb, and could do sets of 20 300lb front squats. My quads were insufficently trained despite being a much more accomplished lifter than many on this forum will ever be. Squatting more was not going to be an efficient way to train my legs for skiing, perhaps massive quantities of leg extensions would have been a more effictive and efficient training strategy. It also would have left more room for training endurance running, which I had to sacrifice to get to a 500lb squat.

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This is a really interesting post. I thank you for sharing this with us.

One of the things that I've learned along the way, from both reading through a lot of the peer reviewed literature on training and also from talking to people in various sports, is that you have to have a base fitness. Usually, that means aerobic fitness, like running, swimming, cycling or circuit training. Not anaerobic fitness, like sprinting, interval repetitions, plyometrics and weight lifting. Aerobic and anaerobic use two different energy systems in the body. Couple that base with regular range of motion stretching.

Since I learned about this, about fifteen years ago, I always maintain my my aerobic base and stretching first. Any strength work, including the judicious use of plyos, is periodized for ski/board season. For me, this has payed off.

William Freeman in the bible for multi-year periodized training plans for elite athletes, Peak When It Counts, stresses that the CORNERSTONE of any serious training plan consists of rest, moderation and consistency. A lot of the fucking bullshit junk "fitness" shit sold on tv is counterproductive junk gimmick shit with slick marketing.

But, I ramble ...

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Originally Posted by charles martel

This is a really interesting post. I thank you for sharing this with us.

One of the things that I've learned along the way, from both reading through a lot of the peer reviewed literature on training and also from talking to people in various sports, is that you have to have a base fitness. Usually, that means aerobic fitness, like running, swimming, cycling or circuit training. Not anaerobic fitness, like sprinting, interval repetitions, plyometrics and weight lifting. Aerobic and anaerobic use two different energy systems in the body. Couple that base with regular range of motion stretching.

Since I learned about this, about fifteen years ago, I always maintain my my aerobic base and stretching first. Any strength work, including the judicious use of plyos, is periodized for ski/board season. For me, this has payed off.

William Freeman in the bible for multi-year periodized training plans for elite athletes, Peak When It Counts, stresses that the CORNERSTONE of any serious training plan consists of rest, moderation and consistency. A lot of the fucking bullshit junk "fitness" shit sold on tv is counterproductive junk gimmick shit with slick marketing.

But, I ramble ...

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Yes

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Originally Posted by charles martel

This is a really interesting post. I thank you for sharing this with us.

One of the things that I've learned along the way, from both reading through a lot of the peer reviewed literature on training and also from talking to people in various sports, is that you have to have a base fitness. Usually, that means aerobic fitness, like running, swimming, cycling or circuit training. Not anaerobic fitness, like sprinting, interval repetitions, plyometrics and weight lifting. Aerobic and anaerobic use two different energy systems in the body. Couple that base with regular range of motion stretching.

Since I learned about this, about fifteen years ago, I always maintain my my aerobic base and stretching first. Any strength work, including the judicious use of plyos, is periodized for ski/board season. For me, this has payed off.

William Freeman in the bible for multi-year periodized training plans for elite athletes, Peak When It Counts, stresses that the CORNERSTONE of any serious training plan consists of rest, moderation and consistency. A lot of the fucking bullshit junk "fitness" shit sold on tv is counterproductive junk gimmick shit with slick marketing.

But, I ramble ...

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Additionally, the only way to build an aerobic base is low intensity cardio, like 88-90% of your cardio at a nose-breathing pace and 10-12% at a "fun hard" pace. This is a huge shift away from the "fitness gurus" who insist that intermittent HIIT is the only cardio necessarily, which is mostly true if you just want to look good naked.

I like Training for the New Alpinism, but I'll have to check into Peak When It Counts, also. I'd guess TFTNA borrows heavily from Freeman's text with additional applicability to mountain endurance sports.

Yeah dude, my favorite part of House's book is Mark Twight's essay, "There's no such thing as a free lunch".

I always knew that the high-intensity CrossFit type goobs were full of shit by claiming to be training effectively for endurance, because they get tired so quickly on long efforts, but that essay really drove it home.

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Originally Posted by Norseman

I always knew that the high-intensity CrossFit type goobs were full of shit because they get tired so quickly on long efforts, but that essay really drove it home.

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Sadly, I listened to Twight (pre-TINSTAAFL) and others for many years, and I didn't really get the message until I read the House/Johnston text. It's going to take a decade or more to undo the 6 years I basically stopped doing cardio.

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Originally Posted by auvgeek

Additionally, the only way to build an aerobic base is low intensity cardio, like 88-90% of your cardio at a nose-breathing pace and 10-12% at a "fun hard" pace.

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That's the gold standard, provided you can commit the time to it. The catch with all that super low intensity work is that it requires a lot of time to produce adaptations, 10+ hrs/wk for running and 20+ hrs/wk for cycling. This Lyle McD series has great info regarding the biological basis of aerobic endurance, the adaptations created by LISS vs. HIIT, the time commitments required for the pure LISS/Maffetone approach, the different training paradigms for endurance athletes vs. athletes that need endurance, and strategies for time-crunched athletes:

https://bodyrecomposition.com/traini...g-part-1.html/

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Originally Posted by auvgeek

which is mostly true if you just want to look good naked.

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Very true, IMHO. If you just want to be healthy and feel good when you look in the mirror, the amount of exercise you need to do is vastly overestimated by the majority of people. Get plenty of sleep, eat clean, minimize time spent completely sedentary as much as possible, do some kind of intense 15-30 minute full-body circuit 1-2x week, maybe a sprint sesh and a heavy lift or two and you're set. Two hours of "exercise" per week.

A couple other things worth noting:

-Sprinting (true sprinting, 20-30s efforts with 3-5 minute recoveries) and heavy lifts, AFAIK, stimulate test and HGH production far, far beyond anything produced by LISS cardio (basically a nonexistent response). That's a big deal if you're trying to stave off age-related muscle loss.

-Temperature stress (cold or heat, but cold elicits a stronger response) and Tummo/WimHof-style breathing elicit hormonal responses similar to exercise, but without the associated muscle damage and recovery load.

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Originally Posted by Norseman

I always knew that the high-intensity CrossFit type goobs were full of shit by claiming to be training effectively for endurance, because they get tired so quickly on long efforts, but that essay really drove it home.

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Counterpoint:

The best run I ever had in my life was when I ran the Wasatch Speedgoat 50k in 2010. It's at Snowbird so most of the course is above 9k and there was 12k of climbing. Finished in 8:01 (53rd/~200 with a 25% DNF rate), had enough in the tank to charge the final 5-mile technical downhill in 45 minutes and pass a ton of people, and was barely sore the next day. My son had just been born in January so training time was limited. I trained for it using a CFE-based program that consisted of 3 short/heavy metcons per week, 2 interval workouts/week, and one 3-4 hour run on Saturdays that had 4-6k of vert.

Sure, but I'll venture a guess that you had a solid base years in the making prior to your training downturn, plus real exercise science and nutrition knowledge to keep you rooted.

And a 4 hour run is far outside the realm of realistic for the handful of CrossFit prophets I know.

My earlier point was perhaps too pointy... I meant to deride those who stick to short bursts of high intensity as the ONLY training mode. Shit's great for getting strong, but it's not all-encompassing for mountain fitness.

Carry on

I’m also a big believer in long duration low intensity cardio at a 120-140bpm rate.

Building the ability to sustain your movement at that cardiac load is essential for any endurance event or activity.

Unfortunately it has a fairly high time requirement (duration of 60-90min at a minimum) and nutrition load for recovery. It’s often not feasible to fit in 3-4 such sessions a week while also dealing with life, and other sports training requirements.

I generally cycle through 4-6 weeks where 90-100% of cardio training is in zone 2, followed by 3-6 weeks at 50% and then 6-8 weeks at 20-30% enabling me to focus on really dialing in 3-10k speeds.

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Originally Posted by XavierD

Unfortunately it has a fairly high time requirement (duration of 60-90min at a minimum) and nutrition load for recovery. It’s often not feasible to fit in 3-4 such sessions a week while also dealing with life, and other sports training requirements.

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1. I've found it's easier to do 2x30-60 min during the week and then two longer sessions on the weekend. Maybe one long session midweek if you need the volume.

2. Cut out the nonsense in your life and be efficient with your time management. No TV, stop playing on your phone, stop posting on TGR (lol), plan meals ahead of time, show up to the office ready to be productive and ideally go exercise as soon as you stop being productive, tackle your hardest work problems first thing in the morning when you're fresh, don't procrastinate, hang out with friends while you train (climbing, hiking, etc), ride a bike or walk to work, etc. For me, I know that I'm more likely to get sick from too much volume than I am to run out of time ... if I've been diligent about my time management. But I don't have kids.

(Despite quoting you, this isn't aimed at you -- just general strategies that I use to find the time to train.)

PS. I want to ski with all you people, let's discuss this on the skin track. :)

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Originally Posted by Norseman

Sure, but I'll venture a guess that you had a solid base years in the making prior to your training downturn, plus real exercise science and nutrition knowledge to keep you rooted.

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More than your average Crossfitter, but was definitely not some super accomplished endurance athlete either.

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Originally Posted by Norseman

And a 4 hour run is far outside the realm of realistic for the handful of CrossFit prophets I know.

My earlier point was perhaps too pointy... I meant to deride those who stick to short bursts of high intensity as the ONLY training mode. Shit's great for getting strong, but it's not all-encompassing for mountain fitness.

Carry on

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Agreed.

Leg blasters for the win.

http://mtntactical.com/knowledge/min...trength-gains/

Interesting results.

I was ruminating on the quad failure XavierD brought up earlier while coming down on a quad-busting steep and technical trail run over the weekend. It seems plausible that quad strength, above a certain modest baseline, doesn't matter much in the context of the extreme eccentric loading of skiing. Maybe even "front squat 300 for 20 reps"-strong quads easily wilt in the face of unrelenting eccentric loads.

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Originally Posted by Dantheman

It seems plausible that quad strength, above a certain modest baseline, doesn't matter much in the context of the extreme eccentric loading of skiing. Maybe even "front squat 300 for 20 reps"-strong quads easily wilt in the face of unrelenting eccentric loads.

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Absolutely. You'll inevitably hit a point of diminishing returns with strength training if your goal is to improve performance in another sport.

Couple notes.

I like a lot of what the Rob Shaul and MTN Athlete or whatever they call themselves now come up with for training. Likely your best bet for sport specific off season training you’ll find for skiing/climbing/etc. I do find his studies a bit funny though. N=3, from a group who had all been through similar training for the last few years. I wouldn’t take much of anything from it.

I 100% agree that there is a point you don’t need to keep training for pure strength to go skiing, and need to focus on endurance and primarily stamina. I’d say this is true for all sports/athletics outside of Strongman, Powerlifting and Weightlifting.
In terms of raw strength (and pure aerobic conditioning) I am probably well beyond what most Professional skiers are at. I highly doubt I have the conditioning to make it down a DH course skiing as fast as I can.
My point was more focused on highlighting that it was my quads which failed, not my glutes or back, and perhaps the load distribution of conventional BB squats was not sufficient (by itself) to train the legs for skiing.

I like when my legs are burning so hard on a pow run it feels like they’re taking a lava infusion from the feet and it’s circulating/flowing upward to the thighs. Legs literally feel on fire. Kind of enjoy it.

I’m going to put this here. Basically train slow twitch muscles to help your fast twitch muscles recover faster. Train sport specific for tailored results. Leg blasters, lateral touch the ground and over and back box jumps, posterior chain strength and some cardio and weights will get you there. Leg extensions are a big no no for ACL reconstruction patients...
Great discussion BTW
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/
blog/what-is-lactate-and-lactate-threshold/


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Originally Posted by Self Jupiter

I like when my legs are burning so hard on a pow run it feels like they’re taking a lava infusion from the feet and it’s circulating/flowing upward to the thighs. Legs literally feel on fire. Kind of enjoy it.

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I've found focused, forceful exhales really helps with thigh burn. It's weird but it works. Perhaps one of the more scientist types could explain why. (Guessing placebo but whatever.)