Dryland: a shock, but a good one?

The week before my racing finale we lost all our snow. But I was itching
to get a couple workouts in anyway. So I tried some dryland ski
imitation. I tried to be as smooth as possible and did some ski walking
with poles on the yard trails, and tossed in some flatland bounding as
well---but it was smooth bounding, not going for explosiveness or
anything. I was just trying to imitate skiing as much as possible, with
no impact. Then I did some poling-action on my rubber bands hanging in
the tree. That felt good and realistic, too.

The next day I was SORE.

Now, doing something like running or anything that makes you SORE in the
week before a big race is a BAD IDEA. But I thought I was doing some
dryland that was nearly identical to skiing. If I'd done any of those
workouts any longer or harder I may well have wrecked my race.

I suppose these exercises got at my muscles more than skiing does. Maybe
this is a good thing? Not for a first-time before a race, but maybe this
is why JD says to keep up the exercising and dryland even during the ski
season.

It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense but maybe it would really help
power/muscle development to do a few minutes of elastic-pulling and ski
bounding after our regular ski sessions (and before our stretching
warm-downs...ha).

--

Jeff Potter
****
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