Build Strong Landings With These Exercises | Figure Skating

Hi and welcome to Next Edge. In this lesson today I'm going to be giving you some exercises to strengthen up those landing positions. So today we'll be looking at three exercises to strengthen up those landing positions and give it that extra sparkle. One thing that I always know notice on the ice is that someone might do a beautiful jump or a beautiful spin with a really bad exit. You want to make sure that that exit matches how good that spin or that jump is. So today's lesson we will be giving you those exercises so that you can execute everything beautiful. Okay now we're going to look at this first exercise and this first exercise is all about strengthening the free leg because that's the thing that we see on the ice is that beautiful leg extension and we need to have a strong leg to finish everything very beautiful. It's not so much about the upper body. Yes we are always going to focus on our upper body being nice and pulled up but this is not the main focus. The main focus is strengthening our free leg. So let's take a look at this first exercise. I'm going to put my hands down. Again you don't have to rest your hands on anything. I am just so that you can really grasp the leg position. I'm going to do a turnout. I'm going to pull my leg up then from here I'm going to go out with the knee back in and down. I'm going to show you that one more time. My free leg is very much turned out. My standing leg you can keep it nice and straight or you can have a slight turnout. It's completely up to you. I'm going to balance on my right leg. I'm going to pull my left leg up. Notice I keep my knee turned out. I tip forward, pull back and down. Again up, out, in, down. Now this looks very simple but actually the more that you do you will feel it strengthen your whole entire leg. Again I'm also going to do it with a bent knee just to challenge myself a bit more. And there you have it. That is our first exercise. All right now we're ready for exercise number two and with this exercise you want to make sure that you have a lot of space around you so you don't hit anything. Now I'm going to use something to hold on to just so that I can get that beautiful extension, nice free leg, working my muscle, lifting from my hip. So let's take a look at it. So I'm going to be down in my knee. I'm going to stretch my upper body. I'm focusing on my chin up. I'm not going to allow my chin to roll down. I want my chin up looking where I'm going. I'm going to stretch my free leg back and then we're going to arch our back a little bit and we're going to lift our leg. We're going to go one, two, three. Now we're going to bring the leg in. Now leg to the side. One, two, three. One more set. Flip back. One, two, three. Now to the side. One, two, three. Now with this exercise I'm focusing on turning my hip out with a nice pointed toe. I'm not allowing that hip to roll in here where we lift the leg because when you have a rolled in hip it actually doesn't allow you to lift the leg up as high as you want. So this exercise is focusing on lifting from the hip while keeping a nice pointed toe and just allowing your leg to work. Then to the side the same thing allowing your leg to work again and you will feel this exercise strengthen up that landing position. That's why I love this one so much. All right now we're ready for this third exercise and this third exercise is all about that extra finish. That is what I'm looking for on the ice is that finishing your landings or out of your spins. So let's take a look at it. You're going to hold in that air position nice and strong. Nice strong upper body. You see me pull up but the main focus is going to be quick and hitting that position out and holding. Now this is a great balance check. As you can see I went out and I had a little bit of a wobble but I tried to regain it. Hold it for a split second before I come down. It's always about if you mess up learning how to challenge yourself to get everything back because on the ice during competition sometimes we're not perfect but it's about figuring out and trying to make it look beautiful. So let's do a couple more. So I'm in this nice tight air position. I'm going to come out and finish and hold. One two three and again holding in that nice air position pulling up through my body. The free leg comes around arms come in front and up and hold. One two three. Let's just do one more. Nice air position pointing the toe down around and out hold one two three. Now with my upper body because this is the main focus is this upper body I want you to work on it in front of the mirror because you can do 10 of them and look like this. Yes you have a nice free leg but there's nothing special going on in that upper body to finish those landings of your jumps or out of your spins. So focus on those hands coming around and holding with a nice chin up focusing on that upper body pulling up. I have nice soft hands through my fingers nice stretched out. I always want to make sure that I finish through my fingers. It's very important because you can do this nice landing position and then here with the hands and it just there's something not right about that yeah. So we want to make sure that we finish through the fingertips when we hold on this landing position. Okay so there are your three exercises to help you strengthen that landing position and also focus on that upper body. Now with all these exercises you want to make sure that you do them at least two to three times a week. It's the only way that they're going to improve. You can't just do it one time and expect them to all of a sudden be amazing on the ice. You have to work on it off the ice so that on the ice it's muscle memory. Now that concludes our lesson today. Hopefully you enjoyed it and got something out of it. Thanks for watching Next Edge Tutorials.