Hey

I skate, and I got a little bit of muscle showing, especially the calf and the quadriceps.

And then I joined cheer, which has crazy physical training. I did so many star jumps, scissors jumps, leg lift etc that my quadriceps is getting pretty big. There's campus run, and the works.

I like muscle, just not a huge bulging one that makes me need to rethink about wearing that nice pair of jeans! (Frustrating when you have to jump to pull up the jeans but it's still loose at the waist.)

How do you build strength and not bulk? How do you lose that bulging muscle? The mass is already there!

I'm just a 18 year old girl, not Mr. Incredible Hulk-to-be!

ETA: I skate about 2-3 times a week, and skate pretty intensive for a few hours. I do cheer twice a week. It's like Wed - Cheer, Thurs - Skate, Fri - Cheer, Sun and Tues/Mon - Skate.

Pilate is your friend and lay off the stairmaster and legcentric exercises like squat, press, leg curl.

Are you a base in cheer? Holding people up over your head will bulk up your legs due to the significant weight you are supporting.

Keep exercises to low load, higher reps, meaning no weights. To progress difficulty of an exercises, add balance challenges to it. For example, when doing a lunge, start with basic position, progress to putting your back foot on a step, then add a balance disc under the front foot. To really challenge yourself, put the back foot on a blown up physioball, roll it back and forth as you lunge. You don't need weights to make an exercises more difficult, just a balance challenge. To work on hamstrings, try single leg dead lifts and progress to adding a 1/2 foam roll or balance disc under foot. This exercise will strengthen and elongate the muscle at the same time.

None of my skaters that I have ever trained have developed bulky muscles. With our programs you become stronger AND leaner.

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That's something I'm always struggling with. How to build strength without adding weight. I haven't figured out how to do it yet. The lighter weight boxers seem to know how to do it. They're ripped and they can control their weight to within a couple pounds.

I'm a flyer, but we all do the same training. We do some plyometric hops and jumps that are fine, no issues. Then stretches, which are good. Then there's the 10 sets of 10 different types of crunches (100), which kills me at the end, but no muscle build-up from that. There are also push-ups which I can't do yet because of my wrist injury, so coach has me doing star jumps. They did like 50 push ups, so I had to do 50 star jumps. It really hurts my quads. Then for punishment pumpings, I substitute with star jumps too. There are also the squats that's done against the wall, held for a minute.

I need to lose the muscle bulk. I'm rotating with less ease for off-ice (but could be due to muscle fatigue). Those trainings are compulsory, but how do I not gain muscle in bulk?

Huge leg muscles don't look appealing to me. I had toned muscles from skating, but it just gotten bulky from cheer.

You are doing to much jumping. Star jumps are considered plyometrics, and you are A few sets of 10 of squat jumps and single legs jumps, a few times a week, is plenty of plyometric strengthening. Jumping will strengthen the quads more than the majority of quad exercises, so if you want less bulky quads, seriously cut down the jumping exercises. You are also setting yourself up for overuse injury by developing muscle imbalance between the quads and hamstrings. You do two sports that are quad and glut dominant, and if you neglect the hamstrings and other hip stabilizer exercises, you develop an imbalance.

We have developed a comprehensive workout program to create symmetry of all muscle groups, to prevent injury and improve skating performance.

Also stay away from the stairmaster and exercise bike- both wil build and tighten your quads. Feel free to ask any other strength training questions.

__________________
Visit www.sk8strong.com for complete off-ice training information and sport specific DVDs for figure skaters

I find this an interesting topic in the fact that some people just build more muscle than others,--its just a genetic thing. Muscles = Strength destroying muscles by going to anaerobic isn't healthy. I find pilates and yoga work as a good balance to skating, I also do ballet (pointe) for strength and balance. What works for one may not work for another, and changing how your body builds it strength seems like a bad idea.

I would consult a doctor or a Pt for better ideas that are appropriate to your body type.

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