Circuit training has been popular among skiers for a long time, but modern skiing also requires strength training. Skiers should perform exercises as much as possible in an upright position, as this is how the sport is performed. Strength is direction-specific – the direction in which you perform movements is the direction in which strength develops. It’s also important to consider the position in which exercises are performed.

“If you’re in a crawling position or lying on your back, you’re good at doing things in those positions, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to skiing. If a skier is lying on their back on the ground, they have either fallen or finished. It’s great if you can get up using your abdominal muscles, but it doesn’t show up on the clock in any way,” says Rossi to Maastohiihto.com.

For a long time, it was thought that strength training wasn’t suitable for young people, with concerns that it might disrupt development. Therefore, circuit training has been considered safer for juniors. However, numerous studies show that even very young athletes can do strength training. According to these studies, strength training also helps increase healthy training days, improve technique, enhance performance efficiency, improve endurance, and is evident in endurance properties.

“Circuit training is good for very young juniors because, at that stage, everything develops. But quite quickly, body weight and resistance bands are insufficient; you must use weights to progress. If you do circuit training until your twenties, your strength levels are so low that you fall behind, and often load-induced challenges become an issue.”

“Maximal strength and maximal strength reserve are the foundational properties for all other types of strength. It’s pointless to do endurance-type training in the style of strength training because it doesn’t develop strength. First, you need to get your maximal strength reserve to a sufficient level because it’s the basis for speed and endurance strength. Maximal strength reserve is an essential aspect. It’s developed most effectively through maximal strength training.”

Endurance strength can be developed specifically through skiing techniques such as skating without poles and double poling.

Rossi describes circuit training essentially as endurance training done with strength exercises.

“You can’t put much load because otherwise, you can’t do it. Then you’re training endurance and completely forgetting about strength. The exercises suggested in circuit training often don’t really work. Endurance strength is better developed through sport-specific activities; skating and double poling on snow develop it much more than doing endurance strength in the gym.”

Common sense and getting the basics right go a long way. Strength training can start once a week with familiar basic exercises, from which progressive strength training can be easily built. If you want to develop strength, the load should be at least 80 percent of the maximum for one repetition. Then, do one to eight repetitions, two or three sets.

“You don’t need many exercises. 4-6 exercises per session are quite enough. You can get a good strength training session in just over an hour. Recovery periods must be taken into account. In strength training, you need a break in between. Not so that you do bench press and then do abdominal exercises in between. You don’t recover that way. During recovery, you really need to rest. That’s the hardest thing for skiers.”

“For example, you can start with a two-legged back squat, increase the number of repetitions, add weight; that’s already progression. Or add more sets. Then move on to lunges, then to Bulgarian squats with the back leg on a bench. That’s different levels already. You can build the same for every exercise. In bench press, you can do it with a wide grip or a narrow grip. Adjust repetitions, weights, series, do one-handed bench press with different weights of dumbbells, free hand up or down.”

How, then, to find the right weights for strength training?

“If a junior starts doing strength training, I would say use less than 60 percent of what they can estimate as their maximum and do many repetitions. The goal is to be able to lift weights to 80 percent of the maximum for one repetition and do six to twelve repetitions for a couple of sets. Then more than three sets, preferably starting light and going up.”

The article was previously published in December 2022. Read more training-related articles on the ProXCskiing.com website.

January 30, 2024 Photo: Schmidt/NordicFocus

Is it better for cross-country skiers and juniors to do circuit training instead of actual strength training?