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Exercises for New Skaters

Kimberly Wheeler • August 24, 2023

Build up your strength, stability, and confidence on skates

Welcome to roller derby! Many people who join have little to no skating experience and certainly no roller derby specific skills. This can make learning challenging, and you might feel like your body just isn’t “getting it.” If you are one of those people, this is the right place! I’m going to help you navigate off skates exercises that’ll improve your skating from a basic level, with no prior roller derby or gym experience necessary.

The first key is muscles. Roller derby uses a lot of different muscles, some which may feel like they have never been used before, or at least not this much. The biggest and most obvious muscles used are your legs. As a new skater, you are likely being put through a vigorous training plan, including lots of falls and your legs will feel it. Specifically the quads (front of the thigh) are engaged constantly in getting you back up from the ground. With that in mind, you need to add some leg training to your workouts.

Your glutes (butt) will also be engaged during skating, this one you might not feel as much since they are large muscles that are used daily for walking and regular activity. Keep in mind the skating stride uses the side of the glutes more than running. Still, they remain a muscle you will want to train to ensure they remain strong and build up to more challenging skate moves.

Your abductors (hips) and adductors (inner thighs) are likely a big surprise, especially with all those plow stops. Skating is actually a hip driven movement, pushing out to the side gives you the most efficient skate style. Developing these muscles will add a big benefit to your skating.

Finally, the classic core! If you are feeling off balance, flail a lot, can’t get up off the ground without placing your hands down, or your lower back starts to ache after skating, your core needs strengthening. Even if you don’t feel all those things, core is still vital to training and comes into play once you are making contact hits.

You’ll notice upper body muscle groups haven’t been included. While they are all still important, and the importance increases with contact hitting (especially game time), this post is focused on beginning skating, so I will leave them out. You can always add in upper body exercises to your routine. For roller derby specific, aim for the muscles that stabilize your shoulders and collarbone, as those are likely impact points for hits.

If you are new to working out, start with simple moves and little to no weight. If possible, have someone check your form. You want to make sure you have the basic movement and form mastered before you get more complicated, such as heavy weights or jumping.

With every exercise, ensure you are bracing your core. Pull your belly button in and tighten your muscles as if someone is going to poke you in the gut. When doing core moves while laying on your back, push your spine into the ground and try to flatten your lower back as much as possible.

Exercise List

Squats (Glutes, Quads)

Leg Curl Machine (Quads)

Side Lunge (Glutes, Quads, Adductors)

Reverse Lunge (Glutes, Quads)

Glute Bridge (Glutes)

Clam Shell (Abductors)

Hip Abductions - Machine or Side Lying (Abductors)

Hip Adductions - Machine or Side Lying (Adductors)

Single Leg Balance (Core, Calves, Ankles)

Dead Bug (Core)

Plank Hold (Core)

Bench Leg Raise (Core)

Toe Reaches (Core)

Heel Taps (Core)

Sample Workout

In order to build muscular endurance as well as strength, complete all exercises then rest before starting another set.
As a beginner, do 3 sets of everything. You can increase it to 5 as you become more comfortable with the exercises.

Move	Reps
Squats	10-12 reps (add weight when ready)
Dead Bug	8 reps each side
Side Lunge	8-10 reps each side (add weight when ready)
Toe Reaches	10 reps
Clam Shell	10 reps each side (add resistance band when ready)
Plank Hold	10-15 seconds

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Train to Take a Hit

By Kimberly Wheeler • April 23, 2024

Become so stable you never go down

Training Intensity for Roller Derby Round 2

By Kimberly Wheeler • June 24, 2021

In my last blog post , we went over how to judge the training intensity of a specific workout. But that’s not the only intensity you should track for your training. Your entire training schedule should have a cadence to it, and if rests aren’t built in, your body will begin to feel the fatigue of constant training. For athletes, periodization training is the go-to method to schedule long term training. Periodization training works by breaking down your year into different sections, aiming to be in peak condition for a specific major event or events. Periodization training is divided into cycles, to better plan your time. These are called Macrocycles, Mesocycles, and Microcycles. The Macrocycle covers your full year, it will show all the training plans you have. The Mesocycle is a specific training block; often designed around a training period, like pre-season, or a training goal, like endurance training. Each Mesocycle is typically 3-6 weeks. The amount of weeks will depend on the individual workout intensities of your plan. For example, if you are training for increased power and doing a lot of plyometric workouts, you will likely only be able to do those for 3 weeks before needing a rest. Finally, the Microcycle is a single week of training. This is where you will break down your daily activities and add in your active rest days.

Training Intensity for Roller Derby Part 1

By Kimberly Wheeler • April 14, 2021

You have a training plan. Maybe you made it yourself, found something online, or purchased it. Regardless, now you have a plan and you are seeing it through. However, an often missed component with most workout plans is the lack of direction regarding intensity. If you are looking for that kind of direction, you’ve come to the right place. Intensity is measured via your heart rate zone and your perceived level of work. For this blog I’m going to break intensity down into Low, Medium, and High: Low Intensity will be defined as being able to easily maintain a conversation while doing an activity. Stretching is a great example of low intensity. Medium Intensity is being able to have short exchanges during activity. Jogging for many people falls under medium intensity. High Intensity will be impossible to have a conversation during activity and only being able to say a few words during your rest. One last definition I want to give is Training. Training is doing an activity/workout that directly relates to your sport and goals. Cleaning your house is an example of activity that is not training, whereas sprinting is an activity that is more often training. Now that the definitions are all squared away, let’s get you to the right intensity. Does all training need to be high intensity? No! Absolutely not, and it shouldn’t be. Instead, the important thing is to match the correct intensity to the workout.

Transitions and Spins at the Gym

By Kimberly Wheeler • March 11, 2021

Being able to transition (switch between skating forward and backwards) on roller skates is a fundamental skating skill. But how you learn as a rookie skater does not exactly transfer to what you do on the track. A casual transition is smooth and often you are standing fairly upright, with perhaps some dramatic arm-twirly flare! In a game your transition becomes more of a spin, you use it to get around an opponent, dodge a hit, or to catch up and get back in front of an opponent. In all of these scenarios, you want to be stable and low so no one knocks you off your feet as you turn. The fundamentals of transitions involves shifting your weight from foot to foot while also turning. It sounds simple enough, but where most people struggle with this skill is the weight shift. As we all have a dominant hand, we also all have a preferred leg and putting all of your weight on the other leg feels wrong and uncomfortable. So a big skill you will want to work on while off skates is balance and comfort level being on each leg individually. Any and all single leg exercises will help with your balance and ability to shift your weight between legs. Bringing the transition over to an in-game spin will add on height changes, ie getting low, as well as center of balance. Remember, in-game you are often spinning to avoid being hit, so stability is key for spin moves.

Stronger Backwards Skating Off Skates

By Kimberly Wheeler • February 11, 2021

Although the majority of roller derby is played in a forward motion, backwards skating is critical for pushing your game to the next level. Backwards skating can be used by blockers to catch a jammer or support a team mate. Jammers will use backwards skating to escape a hit after spinning around an opponent. No matter what position you play on the team, you will find yourself skating backwards at some point. Practicing the technique and working on skating backwards is your best bet for training, but you will also need to train on your backwards skating and balance off skates during the off-season or because you don’t get much on skate time to work on it. The main focus areas for off skates training will be on muscle building, balance and movement in a backwards direction. We live our lives facing forward, which can make moving backwards feel uncomfortable. So let’s get uncomfortable!

How to Improve Your Balance and Stability

By Kimberly Wheeler • December 7, 2020

Remember watching that amazing game and seeing that great skater take a huge hit and lose their balance? But the REALLY amazing part was that they didn’t even fall! They were able to take that hit and recover so fast the opposing blocker didn’t have time to reset. In order to understand how they were able to stay up, let’s take a look at the physical aspects, specifically balance and stability. While linked, they are not the same thing. Balance is your core ability to maintain equilibrium against outside forces. Stability is the ability to maintain or return to a desired position when hit with oncoming forces. To give some examples specific to roller derby, the skater staying on the track while riding the curve on one leg is balanced. The blocker skating backwards with their feet staggered when they get hit is stable, whereas the blocker skating backwards with their feet together will get knocked over. How do you train balance and stability? To start off with success, you want to have a strong core and good posture. Balance is about making sure your body is perfectly aligned. Take a moment to try the following exercise: Stand up and hunch over, have a friend push you from behind. Notice how you felt and how you absorbed that push. Next do the same thing but stand with proper posture. You should be able to feel the difference in your stability between the two. To train better posture, you need to find your weak points. There are professionals that can give you an assessment. Main areas most people need to focus on are: increased abdominal strength, less reliance on their lower back, and stronger shoulders. Some great exercises for these are Planks, Plated Twists, Scapula Push Ups, and Back Flys.

Returning to Roller Derby

By Kimberly Wheeler • June 30, 2020

As COVID-19 restrictions are starting to be lifted, a lot of us are excited about returning to roller derby practices. However, before we can dive head first back into practices it’s important to review what that means for your body. You, and your entire team have been away from practices for 3 or more months. That’s the same as being off skates for a minor injury. So what could this mean for your return? Injury risk is going to be higher. While you may have been doing some home training during the break and may even feel fit, you should still consider: Were you consistent with your training each week Did your training start to dwindle in the last few weeks Was your training as intense as a full 2 hour practice or scrimmage Was your entire team training as hard as you One of the leading factors to injury is fatigue. We have all been in those practices where near the end the coach calls the drill off because everyone is getting sloppy. That sloppiness is the fatigue built up over practice and can lead to foggy heads, slower reaction time, mistakes and ultimately injury. Taking fatigue into consideration, when you are returning to practices with your league consider making them shorter or keep the overall intensity low. It will take weeks of consistent practices for you and your team to return to the intensity level you were at pre-COVID-19.

What Your Coach Really Means When They Say "Get Low"

By Kimberly Wheeler • June 1, 2020

We’ve all heard it before: “Get lower,” “You’re standing too tall,” “Bend your knees!” So you bend down and squat as low as you can and your muscles start to burn. Your skate strides become short and awkward, so you stand back up. But here’s the secret: your coach doesn’t want you to squat as low as you can. So what do they really want from you? The simple answer is that they want you to have more power in your legs. This does come from a lower stance, but not the LOWEST possible stance. Think of your leg muscles like springs. When you’re standing straight up the spring is at rest. When you get lower, the spring is compressed, ready to snap back once you let go. If you get too low the spring is crushed too far and can no longer snap back into shape.

Workout Your Plow Stops

By Kimberly Wheeler • April 17, 2020

The plow stop is one of the two basic stops you learn to pass minimum skills. But just because it’s learned right away doesn’t mean it’s not important! If you can’t stop in front of a jammer, how do you expect to stop them? Here is the WFTDA Minimum Skills video showing the plow stop. In this video they show a one footed plow stop, and how that is advantageous when blocking with a teammate. Skaters should be able to do a plow stop with either foot forward and entirely even, because sometimes you don’t have a friend to block with. How can you improve your plow stops? First and foremost, is to keep practicing them on skates. But what can you do off skates?

Sprint Training and Skating Starts

By Kimberly Wheeler • December 12, 2019

In order to improve performance. all athletes should be focusing their training to specifically enhance motions utilized in their sport or competition. With regards to Short Track Speed Skating, race times are heavily affected by a skaters start. Ice skating sprints starts have a similar motion and acceleration as dry land sprint starts. It is therefore surmised that training dry land starts will benefit on ice starts. Researchers from Australia worked with nine elite and trained short track speed skaters utilizing a four week dry land starts training program to test on ice start improvement. Athletes completed both dry land and on ice sprints to gain a control number followed by specific sprint start training and then re-doing the dry land and on ice sprints. Figure 3 below shows a comparison of an athlete’s dry land sprint time, to on ice sprint time. Both sprints were measured at time to cross 14.43m. The open circles and dashed line show the results during the control period and the black circles and solid line show the results after specific training.