The Wisconsin Ski Bunny and myself have just rejoined the YMCA. We were members for sometime but had essentially stopped using it years before. Now that it has been years since we have had an active exercise program we changed that. We rejoined and so far we are using the membership.
Our workouts are not major affairs, we need to treat our time as precious. I spend about 30 minutes in the cardio-vascular machine land. With 10 minutes on three of them, rowing, bike, and elliptical. Rowing is a great exercise that gets the upper body involved! All three are knee friendly none of them putting undue stress or banging on those ski-critical joints. I finish with one machine and then on the next machine with minimal time for recovery.
After that, it is to the weight machines. The Y we go to has a number of machines but less than a full set. I concentrate on the machines that workout my legs and core. This means 7-8 stations, again I setup and attempt to do as many reps in one minute as I can, when I am done with the station, I move rapidly to the next station and repeat.
The goal is not so much strength as it is endurance and perhaps more explosive strength. I find skiing is more about muscles being able to expend force at a moderate level for long periods of time, with occasional bouts of explosive power demands (e.g. yanking back an errant ski). I don’t ski bumps nor do I go airborne (i.e. jumps & tricks, flying off a headwall is a different matter). In addition, I keep the heart rate up for the entire visit helping out with my overall cardiovascular endurance.
Now, you go and do likewise!
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