Abstract

Technical skill seems to be the most important characteristic for successful performance in alpine skiers, however, technical ability cannot be expressed entirely without specific physiological requirements. Unfortunately, these characteristics have received little attention by researchers. Nevertheless, one may assume that performance in alpine skiing relies strongly on power from both aerobic and anaerobic sources. There have been various attempts to describe competitive performance by means of laboratory tests e.g. Wingate tests or incremental sliding tests. Although numerous papers addressing biomechanical and physiological aspects of single turns or runs including EMG measurements can be found, only few papers about intermittent exercise in the laboratory describing series of such a load representative of an on-snow training condition are available. As the quality of technique training in alpine skiing seems to be related to an optimal metabolic profile, training sessions should be organised to provide optimal conditions for a number of repetitive runs such as a usual giant slalom training which consists of about 6-8 runs with a duration of about 35-40s performed in about 2-3 hours. Aim of the study was to mirror the metabolic profile of a hard giant slalom training session under laboratory conditions and to investigate the time course of performance by means of EMG and selected biochemical markers such as lactate, pH and potassium. Einleitung (gekürzt und geändert)