Balance, core strength, muscular endurance: how to block off-ice training across the season, retest every two months and make your workload measurable.
The periodised programme of an Olympic curling team names exactly three primary trainable attributes: balance, core strength and muscular endurance [1]. Not maximal strength. Not jump power. Three qualities — and all three take months, not weeks.
That is precisely why off-ice work in curling is a question about your year. In Germany the season runs roughly from October to March [6]; start building core strength in November and you are building it in the middle of competition. The Olympic programme does the opposite: it periodises from general strength towards sport-specific drills and checks progress with repeated tests after two and after four months — among them a wobble-board balance test and endurance tests for upper body, abdomen and legs [1].
And the demand you are building for is unusual: overall, curling sits at about 4 METs — the order of brisk walking — while hard sweeping drives heart rate in measurements into the region of 170 beats per minute [5]. So you are training neither for continuous load nor for one big effort, but for hard islands in a calm sea. The Olympic programme answers that with an aerobic base plus interval training, explicitly to improve recovery between the fatiguing sweeping phases [1].
Balance, core strength, muscular endurance [1] — nothing else is on the list. Every exercise you pick has to feed one of those three, or it goes. That is the most uncomfortable rule in this guide and the most effective.
The build runs from general strength to sport-specific drills [1]. Translated into your calendar: spring and summer for general strength and an aerobic base, late summer and early autumn increasingly curling-specific, and from October maintenance rather than build [6]. A block is a month, not a week.
An aerobic base plus interval training, with the stated purpose of recovering faster between sweeping phases [1]. The reason comes from the sport itself: a calm overall game at about 4 METs, punctuated by sweeping intervals with heart rates into the region of 170 beats per minute [5]. Train the recovery, not just the effort.
Resistance, endurance and balance training run side by side in the Olympic programme, explicitly including instability stimuli such as the stability ball [1]. The reason lies in the delivery: it relies on coordinated activation for hip abduction, knee flexion and extension and external rotation, and the biomechanics derive from that a recommendation for targeted strength and stability work for hips and knees [3].
Session RPE — your own effort rating after a session, multiplied by its duration — was tested in Olympic curlers against external loads and biochemical markers: the index correlated significantly with external load measures (p < 0.01) and with cortisol and creatine kinase (p < 0.05) [2]. It therefore counts as a valid, sport-specific workload measure — with psychosocial limits, and collected in a small group [2].
Not every week, not once a year: after two and after four months, with the same battery as the first time [1]. Wobble-board balance, endurance for upper body, abdomen and legs — same exercises, same order, same time of day. A test you change is no longer a test, it is an opinion.
The reason for all this effort is uncomfortably concrete: in the only larger survey among competitive curlers, 79 per cent reported musculoskeletal complaints — knee 54 per cent, back 33, shoulder 20 — and sweeping and the delivery were among the most frequent triggers [7]. Off-ice work here is not performance cosmetics, it is the answer to a loading problem.
Two things are association and physiotherapy practice rather than study evidence: at least five minutes of warm-up before and after play, general plus curling-specific dynamic movements, and a strengthened trunk, because back loading arises above all from a back that is not straight in the deep lunge [4]. Deep positions additionally require mobility in calves, glutes and hip flexors [4].
And the limit of the numbers: workload research in curling works with very small groups [2]. It gives you a measurement method, not a threshold and not an injury forecast for you personally. No guide replaces coaching, performance testing or medical assessment.
Keep a load column next to your training plan: after every session, perceived effort from 1 to 10 multiplied by the minutes. At the weekend you add the values up and compare the week's total with the average of your last four weeks.
In research, exactly such session-RPE series are turned into a risk classification via an exponentially weighted moving average, which in an elite sample reached an accuracy of 90.0 per cent (AUC 0.899) [2]. That is classification quality in a small group — not a forecast for you. What counts for you is only the simple version of it: if your week sits well above your four-week average, that is a reason to look, not to add.
The delivery relies on coordinated activation for hip abduction, knee flexion and extension and external rotation — from which the biomechanics derive targeted strength and stability work for hips and knees [3]. At programme level the three target qualities are balance, core strength and muscular endurance [1].
Through technique, core strength and warming up. Knees, back and shoulders count as the most vulnerable zones [4], and 54 per cent of the competitive curlers surveyed reported knee problems [7]. Recommended are at least five minutes of warm-up before and after play plus a strengthened trunk [4] — practice recommendations without an effect size, but with a clear direction.
Not to start, but yes for a season. The overall game sits at about 4 METs, yet sweeping intervals drive heart rate in measurements into the region of 170 beats per minute [5]. That is why the Olympic programme specifies an aerobic base plus interval training — for recovery between those phases [1].
After two and after four months, with the same battery: wobble-board balance plus endurance tests for upper body, abdomen and legs [1]. More frequent tests measure daily form; rarer ones stop giving you anything to steer with. The load in between you log via session RPE [2].
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