How to prepare for the ski season

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

This is a golden time for alpine skiing enthusiasts, but before heading to the snowy slopes, you need to prepare your muscles. A special set of exercises, which can be performed at home or in the gym, will help to strengthen the body and do without injuries and muscle pain after skiing.

Like any sport, skiing or snowboarding uses specific muscle groups. During training, it is important to strengthen the muscles of the legs and arms, abs, prepare the ligaments in the ankle joint and develop balance.

The set of exercises will take from 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of approaches, so it won't take much time to prepare, the main thing is to train daily. By the way, at the end of the season, you can not stop training - the exercises will be useful throughout the year.

Exercises for the legs

To prepare the legs for stress, all winter sports lovers can be offered a range of exercises to choose from. It is important for skiers to strengthen the inner and outer thighs, as this will help them keep their feet in the correct position and quickly master the technique of descent.

Warm up

This is a simple exercise that warms up your ligaments and muscles. From a straight position, rise on your toes, inhaling, and squat without dropping down on your entire foot. From the exhale squat, simultaneously lower your heels to the floor and rise.

It is important to feel how your toes work. A common mistake for beginners in skiing is to curl their toes in their boots. Paying attention to your toes will keep your foot in the correct position while rolling.

In addition, calf raises and foot rotations help strengthen the ankle ligaments and prevent injury.

Twisting squat

Do a deep squat, during which your knees rotate first to the right and then to the left. During the exercise, the feet do not change position, and the arms are turned in the direction opposite to the knees.

You can also perform this exercise in a different way: first perform a squat, and only then turn your knees to the right, then return them to their original position and straighten. To complicate the exercise, you can perform it with jumps: squatting, turning the knees with a jump to the right, then with a jump to the left, straighten up.

The exercise is performed 4-8 times.

Pistol

Squat on one leg, the other is straight forward. You can hold onto the back of the chair while doing this. It is important not to lift the heel off the floor, stand on a full foot.

Walking and running

For training the muscles of the thighs, walking with a high rise of the knees, jogging in place, and lifting up on a chair are excellent.

Static

Take a skier pose and hold it for 30-45 seconds.

You can diversify the exercise with jumps in a deep squat. 10-20 jumps in a squat, 30 seconds of a static pose. This exercise can be performed in as many approaches as you can.

Hand exercises

During descents, your arms are practically not involved, but when you need to move between descents, carry skis and snowboards with you, you can overextend untrained muscles. In addition, on some slopes there are still drag lifts, from which there is also a load on the arms.

To strengthen the muscles, different push-ups are suitable, for example, on a chair: one hand is on the back of the chair, the other is on the seat. The exercise is performed in two sets of 10-20 times. Exercises for the arms and chest can be supplemented with push-ups in a wide and narrow emphasis (on biceps and triceps), reverse push-ups (on a chair with your back).

Exercises for the press and back

When descending, a special load falls on the spine, so it is important to strengthen the abs and back. Plus, good abs can help you maintain your balance.

One of the easiest back exercises is to lift your torso while lying on your stomach. For the press, crunches, leg raises with hold at the top, and other standard ab exercises are suitable.

Equilibrium

The "Swallow" exercise, familiar from childhood, is excellent for developing balance. You are standing on one leg, your torso and head are kept parallel to the floor, your gaze is directed to the floor. You can make the exercise more difficult by bending the supporting leg and holding the body in that position. The execution time is 60 seconds or more.

In addition to balance, this exercise helps develop the ankle and knees.

Stretching

To develop flexibility, the following exercises are suitable:

1. "Birch" with leg breeding. Lying on your back, raise your legs and body perpendicular to the floor, move your legs further behind your head, spread them and fix them in this position for a few seconds. Then bring it together and lower the body to the floor.

2. Sit on the floor with your legs extended forward, tilt your body forward, keeping your knees straight, your head touching your knees, your hands touching your toes.

Other stretching exercises will not be superfluous.

How to do it?

It is very important to warm up the muscles before performing. During the warm-up, perform all the exercises smoothly, without sudden movements, slowly tensing the muscles.

Don't chase the number of sets and remember that your goal is to prepare for the season, not set a record for the number of push-ups or squats.

In an amicable way, you should start practicing a few weeks before skiing, but if you missed the moment, you can start at least three days before the trip. In any case, it will be better than arriving at the descent unprepared at all.