- The best cardiovascular exercise for complimentary muscle groups is cycling. Any cardio is great for preparing for higher altitudes and improving blood flow in general.
- Stretch!! Pre-holiday, and pre and post skiing every day – especially for your legs, ankles, calf’s and whole body rotations for your core.
- Squats are king for skiing with a progression toward squats jumps. Lunges are also very important - try walking lunges for building robust endurance in the legs for those long ski runs. Vibration training is also highly recommended along with traditional strength training. Once you have built strength then you can progress to dynamic and plyometric type movements with the legs.
- Try jumping side to side over a line of rope or a hurdle, this will help you to get that fast side to side rhythm, balance and strength.
- Try going backwards on a cross trainer, this will simulate skiing bumps and really gets those gluteal muscles moving!
- Introduce twisting movements with upper and lower body isolation to your training sessions as when skiing the upper body, shoulders and chest should stay facing downhill as your legs twist separately beneath you.
- A Strong core is an essential for preventing bending at the waist.... It's a bit like lifting heavy items... Protect the back by activating your core and using your legs! Learning to deadlift or developing good Olympic lifting technique will certainly help.
- Swiss ball exercises, mat based abdominal work and Pilates are great for preventing back injuries. Look at adding some good core conditioning exercises to your sessions and progressing these through your training.
- Work on your hamstring strength in the gym. If you do allot of skiing you’re likely to become quite quad dominant. Posterior chain exercises will help balance your body for optimal performance and injury prevention.
- Nutrition. Keep an energy bar in your pocket - altitudes can do funny things in the first few days whilst you acclimatise - Eat properly and healthily with a hearty slow release breakfast to sustain until lunch. Limit or postpone apres ski alcohol consumption until you have at least one rest day to recover. Like any sport its best to prepare yourselves with sound nutritional principles.
Basically be as strong supple and as fit as possible!! If you are limited with time make sure at the very least you stretch!!!
