- Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:21 pm
#399269
For me, even with a lot of leg training before hand, my legs became a bit sore. Perhaps not as sore as Roberts, but they were sore. But I've felt far worse.
My landings were the toughest on the legs since they were mostly stuck landings. I became quite adept at those, but the legs suffered because I think I didn't bend my knees enough upon landing. So I switched to a 'lightly drag the toes, crescendo flare at trim +1 second, and ease it in GENTLY with a two-step landing'. That method was much kinder to my aching quads. Practice jumping up or off a low platform, and then deeply bending your knees while landing. Exactly like "box jumps." Look it up. This may save you much grief.
I did have one terrible 'landing' that pretzelled both downtubes, but I felt no pain and continued to train after the DT's were replaced. That evening, my right quad was black and blue and somewhat swollen from my crotch down past my knee. After plenty of icing and aspirin, the training continued the next day. My launches were fluid and my landings became super, silky-smooth for fear of waking the screaming quad monster. Thankfully, the muscles healed quickly with plenty of icing, aspirin, and exercise on the training hills. This was at the tender age of 54 years young.
Nope, we are not sadists. Once you get the taste of flying like a bird, you will understand. Very little will keep you from mounting that wing and flying off the hill.
Most of all... train your brain! Read all you can! Try your best to understand and visualize the sequence of events of launching and landing that you read in the books. The first day on the hills will make it all worth it.
RobertKesselring wrote: ↑Sat Jun 24, 2017 2:35 pmYes Mike, do all your running/sprinting on soft surfaces such as grass, sand (beach), or dirt. Never on concrete or even asphalt surfaces.MikeyHG wrote: ↑Wed Jun 07, 2017 9:40 am I will try not to overdo the training and get injured. For all sprinting, I'm sticking to grass so that I don't have to deal with a hard impact. i want to get fit for other stuff beside hang gliding hill training as well.Do lots of squats.
You'll be squatting a 50 - 60 lb glider 4 or 5 times per training flight, 10 or more flights per day, so, 50 ish times per training session. I was more sore than any other time in my life before or since.
For me, even with a lot of leg training before hand, my legs became a bit sore. Perhaps not as sore as Roberts, but they were sore. But I've felt far worse.
My landings were the toughest on the legs since they were mostly stuck landings. I became quite adept at those, but the legs suffered because I think I didn't bend my knees enough upon landing. So I switched to a 'lightly drag the toes, crescendo flare at trim +1 second, and ease it in GENTLY with a two-step landing'. That method was much kinder to my aching quads. Practice jumping up or off a low platform, and then deeply bending your knees while landing. Exactly like "box jumps." Look it up. This may save you much grief.
I did have one terrible 'landing' that pretzelled both downtubes, but I felt no pain and continued to train after the DT's were replaced. That evening, my right quad was black and blue and somewhat swollen from my crotch down past my knee. After plenty of icing and aspirin, the training continued the next day. My launches were fluid and my landings became super, silky-smooth for fear of waking the screaming quad monster. Thankfully, the muscles healed quickly with plenty of icing, aspirin, and exercise on the training hills. This was at the tender age of 54 years young.
Nope, we are not sadists. Once you get the taste of flying like a bird, you will understand. Very little will keep you from mounting that wing and flying off the hill.
Most of all... train your brain! Read all you can! Try your best to understand and visualize the sequence of events of launching and landing that you read in the books. The first day on the hills will make it all worth it.