The Vastus muscles are three of the four muscles that make up your quadriceps. They wrap around the front and sides of your femor. You use them to extend your leg and your thigh at your knee. These muscles are essential for skiing strong, because they help you carve your turns. You leverage off these muscles to keep pressure on your skis as you arc through the turn, because these muscles keep your outside leg longer than your inside one. They help you keep your skis on the snow—you use them to reach into a shallow or as you pass a steeper section of a slope. Simple enough, right?
You can argue with me if you wish--in my opinion, about 30% of ski lessons are spent teaching skiers not to be so thigh dominant. Over-reliance on our thigh muscles is the source of strained, tired muscles and frustrated skiers. It causes the windshield wiper effect, where the skier leverages their turns off their tails instead of the center of the ski.
Okay, that doesn’t mean don’t exercise our quads—in fact, an important purpose of the Ski Muscle of the Week concept is to remind you of ALL the muscles used in skiing and how to strengthen them. And when you feel how the Vastus muscles extend your leg, you will be better able to perform the same muscle action while you are skiing and carve like never before!
Simple contraction. While standing, contract your thighs for 10 seconds at a time.
Lunge. Keep your knee above your ankle. Don’t allow your knee to pass ahead of your ankle.
You guys are familiar with the following exercises so I won’t repeat how to do them:
Squat.
Knee extension machine.
Leg press machine.
Leg extension.
Jump rope.
Bicycling.
Stair climb.
See you next week!
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