Jumping the tens

Submitted by lishevita on Thu, 09/23/2010 - 17:28
Tags: 
warm ups
category: 
Ice skating

Continuing in this week's theme of warm ups for ice skating practice, I want to share an exercise I call "jumping the tens". Depending on various factors, you might want to change this to "jumping the threes" or "jumping the fives". In general I'd say either do fewer jump types with more reps or more jump types with fewer reps. Of course, your personal fitness level or injury profile should also be taken into consideration when you decide how many reps to do of each jump.

This exercise will hone your jumping technique, work your muscles something crazy (if you do high repetition numbers), improve your stamina, and generally help you to be a better jumper.

As you might have guessed, this is an exercise where you jump each jump 10 (or 3 or 5) times in a row before moving on to the next jump. Like the spin cycle, it makes sense to put jumps next to each other in the progression that will combine like skills together.

Your goal is to make each jump in the series better than the last. So, let's say you start with a waltz jump. It's pretty good, decently high, and nothing to sneeze at, but the next one has to be stronger, higher, better. And the next one should be better than that. Some jumps will be pretty wimpy. Don't fret about that. Just make the next one better.

As your muscles get more tired, you will have to rely more and more on proper technique and less on just throwing yourself into and around the jump. If you find that your jumps get worse and worse in this exercise, you need to go back and review proper technique for the whole jump: take off, landing, body position in the air. Then, decide to concentrate on just one of those points to make it better for an entire repetition cycle and see how you do on that one issue as you progress through the reps.

Here's an example "jumping the tens" progression:

  1. Waltz jump with straight legs in the air
  2. Sal Chow
  3. Waltz jump with a bent knee (what I call "pre-axels")
  4. Axel
  5. Double Sal Chow

Here's another progression you might try:

  1. Waltz jump
  2. Sal Chow
  3. Toe Loop

Or the more complex version of that:

  1. Axel
  2. Double Sal Chow
  3. Double Toe Loop

What progressions do you think would help you with your goals right now?