You can be an even better athlete this winter!
By: Chris Fellows
As director of the North American Ski Training Center and father of three active kids, I don't have large chunks of time to spend in the gym. However my skiing performance and fitness is important to me. I'm guessing that's the way you feel as a passionate skier too?
By staying healthy and fit throughout the season, I can provide my clients with solid skiing instruction and demonstrations and I can keep the wheels from coming off the cart mid-season due to overuse injuries, bad alignment, or illness due to lack of recovery time. Don't forget well-fit boots and the right skis in your quiver complete the perfect relationship: good fitness, good equipment, and good technique = lots of fun, excellent skiing and reduced risk of injury. Thanks in advance for reading.
The following tips keep me moving athletically throughout the ski season and help prevent injury.
- Exercise fads come and go. Make a commitment to keep fit and make exercise a part of your daily routine.
- Posture, good or bad, can effect your athleticism. Pay attention to your sitting, standing, walking and exercising posture. Poor posture will result in poor performance; good posture will help you perform like a top athlete.
- Focus on a strong core for stability and flexible hips for skiing mobility. Limited range of movement and weak core muscles can over-stress connective tissue. This will limit your performance and body durability.
- In the winter, cold weather tells your body to pack on fat for survival. Don't let it go too far. Eat fresh vegetables and fruits and don't overdo the high carb foods. Diabetes runs in my family and I’ve seen the damaging effects of the disease. From a young age I have tried to eat healthy and exercise regularly.
- The biggest technological breakthroughs in sports in the next decade will include advancements in human performance through food. This will come in the form of body enhancement foods or super foods. Like the tobacco industry 15 years ago, the food industry will be under the microscope over the next 20 years and will be expected to clean up its act. Athletes are ahead of the game and are adjusting their diets to exclude starches, sugars, industrial additives, pesticides and dyes. Athletes’ diets are rich in nutrients and proteins, like raw locally grown fruits and vegetables, nut, whole grains, yogurt and smaller portions of meat.
- Change up your work out intensity. Mix up your high intensity days with low intensity days and don't skimp on sleep for total body recovery.
- Ski athletes focus on total body work outs. The best weight training program for ski athletes is NOT the muscle specific routines of bodybuilders, but instead sessions that work out the whole body.
- Keep your aerobic engine active throughout the winter. You aerobic levels will slowly dwindle if you forget to get a run in, go for a cross-country ski or backcountry climb regularly. Your aerobic fitness is the furnace that fires your athletic abilities, without it you are running on fumes.
- When crunched for time, up the intensity of your work out. Skip rope fast for ten minutes or do 100 split squats for a personal best time. High intensity workouts will force the issue and teach your body to adjust to high power output. Skiing is high power output.
- Energize yourself with the youth! Work out with people younger than you. My kids force me out of my comfort zone. “Daddy try this trick on the tramp”, or “Dad, race me to that pole and shimmy to the top, let’s see who wins”. Younger partners will make you rise to a higher level of performance.
Most importantly, remember to have fun with your workouts. This is the single largest indicator that you will continue them regularly throughout the ski season and off-season.