Off season training

A.0.spin

Member
hey, so I just thought to write something real quick and spread some knowledge. backstory:

I hurt my knee march 08 and never got it checked out. fucked around during summer playing soccer, attempting to work out, running and what not. skied very uncomfortably almost every weekend w/ a hurt knee. come march 09 i got hit by a car while walking by what most think was a drunk driver, breaking 8 ribs, collapsing a lung, lacerating my spleen, and fracturing my hip. took 7 weeks before i could do anything.

I looked at myself after this downtime and realized I would never be able to do the sport I loved if I didn't fix myself up. I mean I was in terrible shape. All that time I had been favoring my bad knee making it weak and my upperbody had atrophied from an allready sad state of neglect. I had approximately may - november to do this. I had my knee operated on to repair a torn meniscus at the end of may (revealing a partial tear to my acl). This was another 3 weeks down.

since then I have been in the gym 4-5 days a week. 1-1.5 hours is all it takes, no more because you will be doing more damage than good after that amount of time. start with a quick 7-10 minute warmup either rowing, biking, jogging. then depending on the muscles you want to stress, perform your workouts. don't do the same muscles two days in a row rather split it up into working different parts of the body each day. To gain strength as fast as possibly you want to be putting in 100% of your intensity into a very low amount of reps. This means working to failure. 4 sets of 5-7 is all you need. its hard to explain but you want to feel powerful when you are doing these not explosive. This means smooth steady application of power over a large range of motion. When you are done, immediately go eat a healthy, natural meal.

That is a quick guide to getting in great athletic shape fast. Don't spend all your time in the gym, however. As a skier you just need a moderate ammount of strength to control your body precisely. Flexibility and durability are where you really need to shine so work on these things by biking, rowing, diving, swimming. I find soccer is probably the best way to cross train, since it works your knees more than most other sports.

hope this helps. I wrote this because I am sitting here 30 days from when the first mtn near me will open and I am in the best shape of my life. wanted to share why and how. I think its gonna be a great season.
 
hell yeah man, there's nothing better than working out. well for me at least. I love it, and it works wonders for so many areas of your life.
 
word. I got back to the gym this summer after 3 years off and Im so freakin glad i did. best way to get lean and mean
 
Great someone is highlighting the importance of offseason training, it plays a huge role in keeping your injuries to a minimum. Sorry you had to go through all you went with all your injuries, but atleast you have gotten something positive out of it.
 
For me, most of it is accessibility. I prefer hiking and climbing over a gym, but for convenience sake, the gym is a lot easier to do while working full time. Of course, if the opportunity for a hike, ect, arrives, im all over that
 
I can't say I limit my training to the off-season. I'm definitely not perfect nor am I the Adonis I'd love to be, but I love running and swimming year round. I do lots of biking in the summer and I landscape in the summer too. The landscaping is sick. I work with one of my best friends and we are always pushing each other to carry more bricks and run faster with our wheelbarrows full of dirt/rocks/whatever. Lately I've been hitting the weights more and it's been awesome.

My eating is my biggest problem. I love cooking and when I take the time to cook (pretty regularly) I cook very healthily. My problems lie with portion size (I love the food I cook too much) and fast food. It's not that I particularly love fast food, but I am definitely lazy from time to time.

All that being said from the middle of Jan to the end of June I lost about 45 lbs and have been about the same since.
 
i play soccer every day but in a few weeks i will start up with just basic core training, we do a lot for racing dryland also so that helps
 
I can't stand going to the gym, so I just bounce on my trampoline or sesh my backyard rail for at least 1-3 hours a day. Or I lift tires on a two by four in my garage, no big deal.
 
I guess that because my parents sort of forced me to play team sports (soccer) for 18 years of my life I just started hating them. Honestly, I will never play a team sport again in my life. I just fucking hate it.
Also, in high school i was small and skinny and I hated getting pushed around. So after a few years of lifting and seeing how much more of a difference it made than playing soccer did, I never looked back. I just love being in the gym and being in my zone doing my own thing. I guess that's rare because I don't know many people who can stand doing that. most people are the same, they'd rather get out and do an activity instead, which is totally awesome and I enjoy that also...but for some reason being in the gym is just my happy place for me haha
 
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