Ski Fitness & training

Importance of strength and conditioning

We’ve all been there. Usually it’s early to mid afternoon on that second or
third day of the ski trip. The legs start to feel a little heavy and you can’t quite
hold the edge at speed you could yesterday. Your technique starts to become
a little rough around the edges and the dreaded ‘A-frame’ and ‘backseat’ start
to rear they’re ugly heads. Your friends have to stop and wait for you more
often and all you can think about is a sit down with a hot chocolate or a vin
chaud.
Why is this happening? Maybe it’s your boots, or those skis the guy in the
shop sold you. it’s not and you know what the answer is; it’s you. A little bit of
hard work on your strength and conditioning before you go away can help to
prevent all of the above. We’ve put together some helpful hints, tips and
exercises for you get on with to help you get the most out of your trip.

How to train:
We want you to get the most out your holiday and your time is precious, and
so any time you do have to prepare for your trip should be used wisely. In
order to do that we need to maximise the transfer of training, namely make
sure that what you do in the gym, has as big an effect on what you do on hill
as possible.
So first of all, you don’t ski sat down, so why sit down to train for skiing. You
also don’t use one muscle group at a time, so we can forget about all those
leg extension and hamstring curl machines. We want to use movements that
keep us in contact with the ground and use multiple muscle groups including
your core together, being able to do this is massively important for skiing
technique.
Skiing is a sport that occurs in all 3 movement planes (think
forwards/backwards, side to side and rotations) and so we want to train in all
3 planes. Using diagonal, sideways and single leg movements will help to
achieve this and will make sure you’re prepared for those direction changes
when you’re away.
As you enter a turn, you have to absorb force, this is called eccentric loading.
Think of this as the downward movement in an exercise like a squat. It’s very
important to control the eccentric movement on the way down as well as push
back up (concentric movement). In the strength exercises below, count 3
seconds in your head on the way down to make sure the muscles are
switched on as they have to be while you initiate the turn.

Increasing strength:
Strength is arguably the most important quality to a skier. The ability to
absorb, control and generate force is vital. Here we’ve included 8 exercises
that you can use to help increase your lower body and core strength before
you go away.
Back squat – A classic for developing lower body strength. By using free
weights we get more activation of the core to help maintain posture. Keeping
postural control, with particular attention on the lower back is a non negotiable
for all these exercises. Look to do 3-4 sets of 5-8 reps to increase strength.

Lateral squat – most movement in skiing happens side to side. This
exercises helps develop strength in that plane.

Split squat – It’s very rare in skiing that the loads going through each leg are
the same, that is why this is a great exercise. It offers a brilliant core and
balance challenge too.

Stiff leg deadlift – A great exercise for developing hamstring strength, a
muscle group that is often overlooked.

Drop landings - The aim of this exercise is to improve force absorption and
movement mechanics. Stay upright and aim to keep the knees inline with your
second toe on landing.

Side bridge – All 3 of these core exercises are aimed at developing core
activation and endurance, that way, even at the end of a long day, you can
still hold good form.
Curl ups.
Glute bridge.

Conditioning – ski fitness
So you wake up (or are woken up) at 7am, you open your curtains to see that
it snowed 30cm last night and it’s a bluebird day. A full day of pow lines
beckons until you get 20 turns in and your lungs and legs are burning. A bit of
conditioning work beforehand could have prevented this.
If you examine most people’s ski day you’ll see it’s quite intermittent with
periods of moderate to high intensity exercise (that’s the skiing), interspersed
with periods of rest on chairlifts, looking at piste maps and the occasional
refreshment stop.
As such, interval training offers a great transfer to your skiing, periods of
higher intensity exercise followed by rest periods. You can play around with
the work and rest times. As a starter though try 2 mins of hard work followed
by 2 minutes light intensity. Completing 8 of those is 32 minutes of exercise
so a short sharp session that crosses over to skiing brilliantly.
You can use intervals in a variety of activities we’ve listed below.

Skiers edge
Cycling (try intervals on your way to or from work during your commute, 2
birds with on stone. Stretching is particularly important after cycling)
Running
Cross trainer
Rowing machine
Ciruits

If your holiday is going to consist of touring and or hiking for your lines,
interval training will still help. You’ll also benefit from putting on your walking
boots and heading to the hills over here.

Flexibility for skiing
So, you’ve done your strength training and your conditioning work but no
matter how hard you try, you can’t flex your boot or get your weight to the
front of the ski. Sometimes, if you don’t have enough flexibility you’re just not
going to be able to ski well. Here we’ve included some key stretches to target
the usual suspects, common areas of tightness we see that hold people back.

Some key stretching exercises:
Calf
Hamstring
Hip flexor
Piriformis
Hip adductor
Lats

Balance:
Balance is the ability to keep your centre of mass over your base of support.
When you are skiing your base of support is essentially a big rectangle
running from outside edge to outside edge and the length of your skis, that’s
pretty big. But when we start moving at pace and particularly later in the day
when conditions can become a bit choppy and uneven, keeping balance is
more difficult and is when balance training can really come to the fore.
Here some drills you can use to start improving your balance. You may find
that starting on a flat floor is enough to start with before progressing to uneven
surfaces like balance boards and stability pods.
Try introducing them to your warm ups in the gym or for a real challenge
during your rest period in your conditioning intervals.
balance board split squats
Balance board balances/single leg
Skater hops

Thanks to Neil Welch MSc, ASCC currently strength and conditioning coach for the England junior ski team and consultant coach with nwconditioning. He has worked with British alpine skiing, ski-X and snowboard athletes as well as recreational skiers and snowboarders.”
Neil is avalable for private training/group sessions @ ‘Profeet’ contact him directly or through Profeet – neil@nwconditioning.com

www.tinderboxskischool.com

New for next winter ‘Avalanche awareness courses‘ from Tinderboxskischool!

Private ski lessons – Piste ski courses – All mountain ski courses – Backcountry ski courses

Tinderbox ski School Avalanche awareness course 2011/12

A over night ski tour with Tinderbox to the  Gran Paradiso, this awesome area has a huge range of ski touring options and great mountain huts from where to base yourself. We recently travelled to the very comfortable Benevolo hut. 3hrs to the hut on skis from the car park through stunning mountains.

The hut is in a fantastic location and the perfect place to base yourself for a few days ski touring

Below is our first glimse of the Benevolo hut and our home for the night

Fantastic slopes to be accessed from the hut

Fresh tracks!

The team on day two head up for some turns

Afternoon at the hut

Ski touring on powder snow, no better!

Gear drying out at the hut after a fun day

More great terrain

www.tinderboxskischool.com ski touring courses

First day out on a recent Ski Touring Intro course, run over three days we started off at La Tour with a day skiing great powder snow. A quick walk up the Autannes ridge to access some great snow.

Getting ready for the first run

Skins on for another lap of fantastic powder snow, with plenty left for everyone!

Day two and another tour in the La Tour area, this time up to Col de Autannes and the awesome ski down to Trient in Switzerland.

Skin track gets a bit steeper, learning to kick turn is a must

Fresh tracks again for the team

Day three at the top of Col de Crouches

The atmospheric ridge to the Notch

A happy looking team at the top of the final climb!

www.tinderboxskischool.com ski touring course

We’ve had to change the name of the ski school, www.tinderboxskischool.com check it out!

‘How To’ do a ‘test profile’ snow profile and compression test.

First of all find a slope in a safe spot with untouched snow.  For our demo here I chose a slope with a similar aspect and altitude to slopes I’m interested in skiing this season. So the profile will give me an idea of the snow pack and the ‘compression test’ will give me and idea of how well the snow pack is bonded.

1,Probe the area to check the depth, dig a hole big enough to reveal a shaded side wall to test and a back wall to later use for the compression test, That would be around 100cm square.

2,Make the shaded wall as straight and smooth as possible, and dig down enough to give yourself a test wall around 80cm tall.

3,I’ve placed my shovel in the snow to make a patch of shade, this makes my snow surface temp reading more acurate.

4, Below you can see my test wall is all ready to go, I need to place the ruler so ‘zero’ is at the snows surface.

5, I’m taking notes on the snow surface temperature and air temp, location, elevation, and weather obs. Can you see my snow crystal card pushed into the snow to keep it cool?

6,Slope angle, not to steep!

7,Nice spot to play about in the snow.

7, I find the layers in the snow pack by sliding the crystal card through the snow,  feeling a change in how easy or dificult it is to move the card I can feel different layers. Once I’ve found a layer its marked with a wooden stick next to the ruler.

8,Temperature is taken at 10cm intervals, next to the ruler. I test each layer for its hardness and note the crystal size and type. I take a small amount of snow from each layer and look at it through a ‘loop’ so I know what type of snow crystrals are in each layer.

9,My note pad shows all the information I have collected.

10,Now its time for the fun bit, I need to clear the back wall down to about 90cm.

11,Using the snow saw I start to cut a column 30cm X 30cm X 80cm

12,Placing the shovel gently on the top of the free standing column I begin with 10 light taps from the fingers. Followed by 10 taps from the elbow, followed by 6 taps from the shoulder. For this test the result was CTH6 (compression test hard 6taps) Most skier trigered avalanches are atributed to ‘Easy’ which would be around 10-15 taps.

13,The snow spray from the column is a layer releasing!

For more detailed information on avalanche safety contact us for your specific Avalanche or Backcountry safety needs!

‘Whirlwind’ is a good way to describe the start of the season, from the weekend of the 11th/12th of December when we hit town we’ve not really had time to stuff a squirel.

We seem to have a nice base out on the hill at the moment, although the recent snow falls and high winds have moved a great deal of snow around. Please be super careful out there and keep clear of well loaded lee slopes and wind slab for potential avalanche hazards. If in doubt ask the local ski patrol. Skiing on and off trail is fantastic at the moment although the slopes are filling up with holidaymakers this week for New Years.

Cannock Chase trails are super fun at the moment, it will be a while until I get out on the bike again so I braved the elements today for a quick whip around the Monkey trail. Snow was crisp and grippy although you didn’t want to get too lateral as things started to get a tad slippy, just adds to the fun though!

Heading out to Chamonix on Friday, I’m super excited about getting out for a ski especially after seeing all the images around at the mo of people out in the early season snow. First thing on the list is to get out and stretch my legs on the touring set-up for a few days in preparation for our first All mountain course starting on the 20th of December. We still have a few places left if you wanna come along.

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

Whilst we leave our mark on the mountain, others find inspiration from the darker side of the winter! Inspiring words and images. To do something worth remembering with a photograph or a scar!