Gym question

[Sessy]

I can't jump right now but I can go to the gym. My question is, is there any way to build jumping muscles (and not just in size, but in effectiveness) in the gym?

Say the leg press machine, would I need to like, put a lot of weight on it and do it quickly, or slowly? Or put very little weight and repeat a lot of times? Again, quickly, or slowly? What's better for jumping muscles?

What other exercises are good for skating?

[hepcat]

Squats with a bar bell. I've heard that for jumping you can do more of an explosive movement on a Smith machine (also squats, but the bar is on a track and you can't tip sideways).

Plyometrics (http://www.exrx.net/Lists/PowerExercises.html) is what I always hear, too. I would ease into that, though, because without a trainer you're running the risk of injury.

Here's an excellent site for general weight training info because they have animated gifs of all the exercises. http://www.exrx.net/

Here's a good article on improving jumps:
http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/article_fab15.htm

Of those, I do the hyperextensions, squats, and leg presses. I only got into weight training to build strength in general, though, not to improve jumps.

[Caris]

Plyometrics are great for buliding explosive power. You can do them at home by standing on one leg with the other out infront and your hand on the same side as the bent leg resting on something hip to waist height.
Start in a half squat, using only the quads (not leaning on the arm) jump up straightening your leg then land again in the squat position. Do ten reps then change legs, complete three reps.
As you gain strength the squat gets deeper both at the start and end of the exercise, and the number of reps build up to 20.

You can also jump up onto a step at home, starting with legs bent, jump up and land on the step with bent legs, then jump UP off the step, not just off it. Repeat 20 times building up to 50. Again three sets.

The whole idea is the muscle starts off contracted, then stretches, then contracts again on landing building the muscles' power.

I've only used it in teaching gymnastics, but looking at the skating jump, plyometric training would be an excellent aid, being that most jumping is infact a plyometric exercise in it's self. bent knee into the jump (muscle contracted)
quick fast lift from the ice (muscle stretched) back to bent again (muscle contracted).

There are many other exercise you can do at home too to bulid explosive power in the same way.

Sessy I don't know what your injury is so am not saying Oh yeh do all this It'll be fine, only you and your doc can judge that of course!

If you're at the gym, remember fewer reps with heavier weight builds bulkier powerful muscle, light weight higher reps gives long lean muscle.

It depends on the result you're after as to which to choose.

Sorry for the total waffle on there!

[Sessy]

I know plyometrics, it's part of the off-ice stuff at our rink, but I can't jump at *all* (as in, I'm not even allowed to step off stairs too fast with that foot for the first few months) so that's not an option. And after the year I'm told to stay away from jumping the muscle will be gone, which is an idea I don't like. Hence, the gym.


If you're at the gym, remember fewer reps with heavier weight builds bulkier powerful muscle, light weight higher reps gives long lean muscle.


Yes, I know, but which one of that is better for jumping?

[Sessy]

Squats with a bar bell. I've heard that for jumping you can do more of an explosive movement on a Smith machine (also squats, but the bar is on a track and you can't tip sideways).
Oh we have one of those, but the sports teacher said these ones were better, and the same movement: http://www.fsc.edu/reccenter/images/legpre3.jpg
But then she also claimed you can't stretch for 24 hours after weights training and so I'm not very inclined to believe what she says.


Here's an excellent site for general weight training info because they have animated gifs of all the exercises. http://www.exrx.net/

Here's a good article on improving jumps:
http://www.defrancostraining.com/articles/archive/article_fab15.htm


Thanks!

[Caris]

Which Is better for jumping? Well I'm not a skating coach, I'm a gymnastics one so I'm only offering opinion not fact here, but I would say you want explosive power so you want to go for the low reps heavier load if you were going to pick one or the other. You want to go for about eight, with the eighth being very hard, but not pushing so intensely you risk hypertrophy as it's not I look I've ever seen in skating!

Personally I like to use a combination of both methods.

[hepcat]

The reason I favor squats with a barbell over the leg press machine is that it works your balance at the same time you're working your quads. A weight machine is good for isolating a muscle, but compound movements such as squats will put to work all the muscles it takes you to stabilize and not tip sideways, forwards or backwards. I think it translates better to real life than using machines.

Having said that, I do both squats and leg presses. Leg presses machines are really good machines, but in general if I'm short on time or it's mostly an upper body day I will only do squats, not leg presses. Squats are aimed at your glutes primarily, then your quads and and hamstrings. If you turn your feet out a little bit you work your adductors. Plus, all your core gets some work just because you're trying to maintain the right form. More bang for your buck.

About stretching - you generally want to warm up before doing weights but you don't want to stretch beforehand. Afterwards, though, you want to do long stretches (no bouncing). I've never heard someone say don't stretch for 24 hours.

[Sessy]

Thankies guys!!! :) :) :)

Well that's what the woman at the gym said. I thought it sounded ridiculous as well - she had some story about little ruptures in your muscles after weight lifting and that's why you shouldn't stretch and instead do 10 minutes of cycling or crosstrainer.
Which seems strange to me, cuz if you're lifting to the point of getting little ruptures in your muscles, a) you're not gonna be able to do it more than once a week and b) you should consider doing less strenous exercise... But then that's just my humble opinion.
And if you're not getting ruptures, then what difference does it make when to stretch: after an hour of less strenous exercise or after 10 minutes of heavy exercise? In both cases the muscles are warm... Besides, if I look at the legs of the elite figure skaters at our rink, they're more muscled than your average gym person, and they can stretch just fine afterwards...

I get the part where you should do the 10 minutes of crosstrainer afterwards anyway, that's called cooling down, but why that should be incompatible with stretching I don't get. :?? Anyway people are weird sometimes.

[coskater64]

I find pilates very relaxing which is why I have a reformer/cadillac in my basement. The TV is on the wall at the end, I just watch the local and national news and do pilates. After 3-4 years of private pilates lesson I have a slight clue about what I am doing and it makes the kittens happy to jump on me as I am inverted in some hideous pose.:twisted: :twisted:

[kayskate]

Do you have access to a trampoline? I have a big one in my backyard that I bought at WalMart for ~$100. It is absolutely great. Low impact and I can jump like crazy on it. I work on positional jumps (splits, etc), vertical height, and rotation. I also do aerobics on it. The trampoline allows you extra time in the air (like a harness), so you can hit positions like the split that require strength in addition to flexibility.

Kay

[Sessy]

Do you have access to a trampoline?
Kay

Thanks, but as I clarified earlier, I'm not allowed to jump *at all*.

[karliey]

For the record, more weight and less reps is always better. There is no such thing as bulky/lean muscle requiring different types of weight training. I believe this misconception comes from twitch muscle fibres being thinner than slow muscle fibres but that is practically on a microscopic level. Lifting small weights is just less exercise for your muscles, so it's going to be inconsequential once you adapt. In fact, women who want the lean toned look actually need to lift about as much as bodybuilding men do since muscle build up is slower. You're not going to build huge muscles unless you eat massive amounts of protein and take steroids. 3 sets of 8 reps is a good target to aim for as a female. Below is an article that covers this misconception.

http://newbie-fitness.blogspot.com/2006/12/women-weights-redux.html

And a good site for learning to lift as a female is here, you might be able to find some good workouts for your leg muscles there. If you're going to do weights may as well do it properly.

http://stumptuous.com/cms/index.php

[Caris]

Really? I have always found that the way you exercise your body produces completely different results.

For example, in gymnastics the boys program conditioning is geared toward building large muscle mass, for both explosive power, and sustained high strength moves (example vaulting, and holding a cross on rings). They will have huge quads, biceps, triceps and deltoids.

The the girls need just as much power for vaulting and tumbling, but want long elegant muscles for beautiful lines.

Both sexes condition for about an hour a day, using some weights, and a lot of their own body's resistance, the girls however will also do about an hours ballet a day which fits into the light load more reps catagory stretching out the muscles.
As I said, they are both conditioned intensely, but conditioned differently to produce different physical results. Gymnasts that are specialists on only one or two apparatus will also look completely different from all around gymnasts as they are conditioned specifically to have the areas of strength and muscle mass needed for those pieces, and not the others.


I do completely agree with the article suggesting many women don't like to weight train as they believe they'll end up bulky. It's all about how you train and what you want out of it. You can still look tiny, but with and increadibly high strength to weight ratio

I believe in my very limited knowledge of skating that the sports are fairly similar in the ideal type of body needed, and therefore some of the conditioning that would be helpful. I know there have been a fair few world level gymnasts that started off as skaters, and I think a few the other way round.

[hepcat]

If you want to bulk up, you have to be eating more - you just have to. Mass doesn't create itself out of thin air. So a woman lifting isn't going to get huge unless she is consistently eating to gain muscle. That includes following a program of eating a certain amount of protein at optimum times, etc.

I've been weight training at a calorie deficit to lose weight. I got into it to help weight loss by speeding up my metabolism. My legs have definitely changed shape, but they are not bigger, just leaner. I've been doing routines that focus on lower reps - higher weights. I used "starting strength" by Mark Rippletoe mostly. I have friends who are runners and other athletes but not many of them have rock-hard thighs - that's what mine are like. (I'm not trying to brag, just trying to be descriptive - for the record I am a big girl!) No need to fear the weights.

Sessy, the micro-tears thing is real, but it's normal. You do rip up your muscle which is why you never work the same muscle group the next day. When your body does the natural work of repairing those microtears you add to the muscle that was there. :)

[kayskate]

Thanks, but as I clarified earlier, I'm not allowed to jump *at all*.

Sorry. Must have missed it. I read about the plyometrics and thought you just were not able to jump on the ice.

Kay

[Sessy]

Sorry. Must have missed it. I read about the plyometrics and thought you just were not able to jump on the ice.

Kay

Sorry about flipping, I just ehm, am very frustrated at the whole thing which is why maybe I sounded a bit harsh.

[Sessy]

If you want to bulk up, you have to be eating more - you just have to. Mass doesn't create itself out of thin air. So a woman lifting isn't going to get huge unless she is consistently eating to gain muscle. That includes following a program of eating a certain amount of protein at optimum times, etc.

No wonder I can - and do - eat a horse (well pieces of it, but a whole chicken is no problem) after training... Proteins! :bow:
No wonder I build muscle from virtually no exercise too... (well maybe the fact that I'm very hairy helps with that as well).
But if I don't, I'll just stay hungry. It's like a vampiric thirst for blood, the need for meat...

Thanks for the perspective! And don't worry - even if you wanted to brag about muscles, it's allowed ;) Sports forum after all :) :) :)

[jenlyon60]

There's several balance exercises that can help with skating.

If you can get a Dyna-Disk (like this at Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Fitball-FBBD-FitBALL-Balance-Disc/dp/B000NGRLXA/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-9422179-8570449?ie=UTF8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1192325161&sr=8-2

), practicing 1-leg partial squats will help with strength and balance. Or take a piece of plywood about 60 centimeters long and 30 centimeters wide, put some anti-slip tape on the short ends. Then lay the piece of wood across the dynadisk and stand on it, like standing on a surf board or snowboard. There's all sorts of balance and strength exercises one can do, then.