Weight & Power Training for Skating - the #1 Rule

Strength & Conditioning is not just called 'weightlifting' or 'weight training' because strength & conditioning is more than that. Strength & conditioning encompasses the entire development of the athlete and what is needed to improve physical performance. This can include strength training, plyometrics, speed and agility training, endurance and core stability. Strength training is only one part of the full picture.

Exposure and adaptation

Your body is geared for survival. It's primary motivating force for change is its progressive adaptation to whatever it is exposed to. Your body defends itself through conditioning, and conditions itself through exposure. If you want to strengthen your seated ability to pick up something heavy and place it under your chin - then work hard on your seated bicep curls. There are a lot of 'athletes' in the gym who stack up, sit down, strap in and move mountains of plates every other day. Those same people could well put their back out getting back in their car: after all, that is a 1-leg lateral dipping twist often performed with a gym-bag in your leading hand.

If you want to use strength training to get more out of your on-skate performance, forget about isolated lifts and machine-stabilised exercises. The machines that fill your gym were developed so you would seek out the newest and best, and isolated lifts and exercises are the food of bodybuilders looking to maximise the size and 'standout' potential of each individual muscle. You don't get to brace yourself against a bench seat as you push hard on your skates, nor can you hold on to the handgrips - you don't even rest your bodyweight on a bike seat. As a skater you have to stand (in a very specific position), and deliver - high power, for long durations of high-frequency repetitions, while preventing postural instability and any counter-movements that dissipate the force you could otherwise be applying to the ground. You need the recruitment of a lot of muscles, often simultaneously, in a complex movement pattern with a high duty cycle.

Get specific

Your body will adapt to what it is exposed to - and every transitional step or complementary exercise designed to 'transfer' the benefits of a primary exercise over to your skating is another outlet where potential gains can be lost. You can choose to continually try to come up with ways to transfer any strength gained through bodybuilding exercises over to your skating, or, use your head and get creative with the exercises you do in the first place.

Spend your valuable time in the gym or weight-room performing skate-specific exercises - both bodyweight-resisted and weighted. Look for compound exercises that require multi-joint movement and so more muscle recruitment, in similar firing-patterns to those required by your skating, and involve a complex core stability component (hours spent crunching and -upping are one thing, but core stability that works together with your force generation and application is exactly what your skating needs).

Don't forget your spare parts

Don't forget spare parts. You wouldn't forget to bring your skates to a competition. You wouldn't forget to bring the wheels you plan to skate on (well, most wouldn't). You wouldn't forget your uniform, or your helmet...

And yet...

Almost incomprehensibly, there will always be a skater or two, at any meet, who is getting around with one old wheel on their skates amongst a set of new ones. Why? Because they can't get that axle off - the head is stripped and their wrench just turns in it. Their wrench is worn out of course, an unavoidable side-effect of constantly using worn-out mounting screws that damage its hex profile. Or another skater who is wandering around with a sad face, carrying their boot and frame asking if someone can help get their mounting screw off because its become rounded. Perhaps someone who asks you to have a shot at tightening their mounting screw because their frame keeps coming loose every time they skate (and it will be because the screw head is rounded and can't be tightened enough).

Then the prepared skaters get hit-up by their friends for their spares. Spare wrench, spare axle, spare mounting screw...

Not cool.

Skates need fastenings and tools just like they need components. Frames, boots, wheels and bearings are no use without mounting screws to hold them together, axles to assemble them, and wrenches to adjust and change them. You don't risk your safety or performance by racing with worn-out wheels that are close to failure, so don't risk damaging your skates with worn-out bolts, axles and tools.

Tip

Keep more than one wrench in your bag - and keep them sharp (so they don't damage screw and axle heads) by grinding the worn end off from time to time on a bench grinder. Keep 4 spare mounting screws in your bag - and be ready to change them onto your skates if your existing screws become worn, rusted or if their heads have a loose fit on your wrench. Keep a spare axle or two as well - your skates just won't perform well, and neither will you, if you have to leave a wheel out because you misplaced an axle at the wrong time.

And if your boots have microbuckles and index straps, keep a spare one of those with you too. They're relatively inexpensive, very easy to change on/off your boot, and save you skating with what feels like a loose sandshoe on one foot if you have a crash and damage one of your buckles.

Just like Chad?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result - Albert Einstein said that. Einstein was a German-born American Physicist, and that, one of his more quotable quotes, like his theories, was right on the button.

But you've arrived at what purports to be a skating website? A faster skating one at that (because let's face it, faster is almost always better) - so what am I doing opening with a quote from Albert Einstein himself?

Chad Hedrick (you know the guy, 50-time World Inline Champion and now Olympic ice Champion as well...) showed the World the effectiveness of what - during his Junior days - had been termed his ‘terrible technique’. Within a few short years (and a lot of over-slo-mo'd videos) of his 1994 World Championship debut, the speed skating world was ‘doing the Chad.’ It was a revolution where almost nothing happened – nobody but Chad (who was doing 'his thing' already) up-ended the World rankings, and nobody seemed to learn anything that saw them become devastatingly more efficient on their skates and dominate the competition… the World just looked like Chad.

'just' like Chad?

50 world titles and 8 years later (by Belgium 2002 and Chad's last stand), few skaters had learned enough about the key ingredient to the Double Push to make any real inroads on Chad’s success. We double-pushed because Chad did, the 'best' DP'ers were said to be those that were most 'like Chad' while few were getting Chad-like results.

Were we doing something wrong?

I think so.