Sunday, February 24, 2008

Top 5 Clubbell® Exercises For Skiers - #5 The Rock-It Drill

The Clubbell® Rock-It Drill is an awesome way to develop the ability to dynamically adjust the center of mass against outside forces while building awesome lower body strength-endurance. Many trainers favor "stability training" which utilizes implements such as swiss balls and Bosu to create instability from below, I much prefer an approach which creates instability from above and from external sources such as Clubbells.

As you can see in the following clip of Thomas Grandi, retired Canadian Alpine Ski Team member, we generally ski from a very solid base of an edged ski but need to make constant adjustments to the center of mass to make sure it stays aligned with the feet (base of support) throughout the turn.
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Canadian Skier, Thomas Grandi, on YouTube
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The Rock-It Drill requires constant adjustment of the center of mass front to back in order to counter balance the mass of the Clubbells. At the same time, the piston action of the legs driving the Clubs provides an excellent strength-endurance training effect while teaching effective recruitment of the lower body architecture (proper muscle firing patterns).

[Video has been moved to the SkiFlow Inner Circle member's area on SkiFlow.com]

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If you don't have Clubbells, check out this bodyweight workout for skiers.

2 comments:

Spyro Katsigiannis said...

Great drill, fantastic instruction Coach. Keep on posting great stuff!

Anonymous said...

Coach Steer,

The two videos of skiers you posted make it obvious how the Rock-it drill would apply to skiing. Those 2 skiers make it look so easy. I'm guessing the 2nd one is you.

That up and down "piston" movement would be great for strengthening the legs and hips for marial artists. In Aikido power is generated with the legs and hips, and the up-down movement is the simplest--and least obvious--way of doing that.

I think I'll try a little Rock-it drill in my work out tonight:)

Thanks for the great video tutorials you have been posting for us.

-Greg
www.aikido-utah.com