With the mountain opening this month, it’s time to get those legs ready! Our trainer Kaitlin shares her top five exercises to build the strength and stamina you’ll need for an epic season.
Here are 5 exercises I program for my clients to help them get ready to crush big days on the mountain!
1: squats
Squats should be a priority in your program as they help you build strong quads, glutes, and adductors, all muscles you use daily on the mountain. While I’ll often program a Barbell Front Squat or Back Squat for clients, you don’t have to use a barbell to benefit greatly from this exercise.
Grab two dumbbells and hit a Front Rack Dumbbell Squat instead!
2: Romanian Deadlifts
I love the Romanian Deadlift to help clients build their posterior strength (glutes, hamstring, back).
When performing this exercise, I remind clients that it’s all about the hips. Think about moving from your hips. Your hips go back, your hips come forward, and the rest of the body is along for the ride.
3. Lunges or Split Squats
Single-leg exercises are TOUGH, no question about it, but they should be in your program.
Make sure you push yourself as hard on your single-leg exercises as on your squats and deadlifts. This is super important and something I think a lot of people could improve in their training.
Here are a few of my favourite lunge and split squat variations:
** While I am using a barbell for the Reverse Lunge and BSS, you could use dumbbells too.
4. Sissy Squats
The Sissy Squat is an advanced exercise to target the quads and exposes the knees to some ranges they may not usually get to explore.
If you’ve never done this exercise, place a small box or step on the ground to decrease the range of motion. Over time, build up to doing these right to the floor.
As you get stronger with these, you can even add some weight to them!
5. Plyometrics
I like to utilize a variety of bilateral and single-leg plyometric progressions with my clients, first focusing on absorbing force and then moving to producing forc
This could include exercises like:
Pogos
Box jumps
Seated box jumps
Depth jumps
Squat jumps
Lunge jumps
Broad jumps
There are a huge array of plyometric exercises you can choose from so make sure you start with something appropriate for where you’re at and progress from there.