Winter Sports Conditioning  01/07

A Wall-Sit Haiku:

Oh, the wall-sit burns

Changing my weak and small legs

Into power springs

   Any participant in winter sports knows that strong legs and happy knees make skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, or ice skating much more enjoyable. Few exercises that can be performed at home offer as much “bang for your buck” as the wall-sit. We all know the exercise. Many may remember gym class when the teacher lined everybody up against the wall until your legs shook and kids started falling over.

   Well, we are here to encourage you to not just view the wall sit as simply a disciplinary activity. It’s a great exercise that requires very little space or equipment, incorporating the principles of overload and progression to provide supported lower-extremity strengthening. The primary muscles used are the gluteus maximus, hamstrings, quadriceps, and gastrocnemius.

   Try the following variations on the basic wall-sit, but pay attention to your knee alignment - at the bottom of the wall sit, your knee caps should be directly over your toes. Also, keep the depth of knee bend in a pain free range of motion, and don’t hold the exercise in a deeper than 90? bend.

   Try holding each exercise 30 second for a beginner, 60 seconds for a nice intermediate workout, and work up to 2 minutes for advanced.

1.               Adductor squeeze wall sit – gently squeeze a small soccer or rubber ball between your knees as you sit to help focus the exercise on the medial quadriceps.

2.               Abductor pulses wall sit with tubing – wrap band or surgical tubing around your thighs as shown and pulse the knees apart about 1 inch as you hold the position.

3.               Unilateral eccentric/ concentric – practice lowering yourself into the wall sit position with one leg, sliding down the wall slowly, then returning to stand with one or both legs. You can repeat this motion as a wall slide.

4.               Wall Sit with alternating heel and toe raises.

   If you can perform these exercises with minimal muscle soreness, you most likely have the strength required to begin to incorporate some plyometric (jumping) types of exercises into your routine to start working toward spring sports like soccer or running.

Have fun!

By Megan Yount PT, MS, OCS, CMPT, CSCS and Jasmine Gustafson MSPT Lakemont Physical Therapy (Bellevue WA)