Ice or inline speedkskating requires much more than time on the ice or road. Skaters of all stripes understand the benefits of crosstraining, especially using road bikes to improve their conditioning and skills. Time is spent in the gym by elite skaters doing various types of lunges, plyometrics, squats and power cleans. However, the best known and most useful crosstraining protocol is land training, or dry lands as they are also referred as. Here is a Japanese team going through their drills with their coach.

Alexander Bont has a great article on Dry land exercises in the Feature Articles section at Bont.com.

It has been a while since I laced up the Bonts for a Back Bay skate and I picked a gorgeous day, if not a bit windy. I covered 15+ miles in 1:13. I know I will pay for this as my quadriceps haven’t been worked like this in a long time. In part, I suppose, is the work my legs have been getting doing the heavy lifting in the gym. Mostly though, the sport-specific work for skating has not been there. Maybe I need to get back with the dry lands.

The good news though is that in spite of the difficulty, I enjoyed the skate on a beautiful day and there was no residual pain or tightness in either side of my groin.

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