Fitness Training for Skiing and Snowboarding

Prepare Properly with a Specific Fitness Training Programme for Skiers & Snowboarders

Dust off your weapon of choice and sharpen your edges, it’s time to prepare for the ski season ahead.

For most skiing and snowboarding are sports we take on once a year, for a week or two at most. It doesn’t matter if you have all the new high tech skiing or snowboarding equipment, as it is useless if you lack the strength and fitness to fully utilise it.

The more physically prepared you are, the better and longer you’ll be able to endure each day in the snow and the lower your risk of injury. Now is the time to develop your fitness so that this year you get maximum return from your limited time on the slopes. Below are the 4 key components any good ski and snowboard strength and conditioning programme will address:

Core Conditioning

An integral part in any good ski or snowboarding programme, effective core conditioning gives you the strength and stability to support quick, powerful and dynamic movement. Incorporating a range of appropriate swiss ball and Bosu exercises will help developing core strength, stability and control.

Strength Training

Strength training in a ski fitness programme will allow you to dominate the slopes, with stronger more powerful legs as well as better muscle control and coordination. You’ll get through a full days skiing and feel like you have the strength to keep going for hours longer. Whether you are a snowboarder or skier will determine which fundamental movement patterns (squats, lunges, deadlifts etc) will form the basis of your programme, however both disciplines demand functional compound strength exercises rather than machine based movements.

Flexibility

Flexibility is probably the easiest area of ski conditioning to totally neglect, but one which may give you the best chance of getting through your a long day on the slopes injury and pain free.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so the time you dedicate to the stretching component of your programme may be enough to keep you from spending a frustrating day in a café, while your friends are out enjoying the snow.

Aerobic Conditioning

Interval training has the most carry over to skiing and boarding fitness as it stimulates both your cardiovascular and neuromuscular system. An interval training session involves increasing your speed or resistance for a set period of time at a level that is hard to maintain, then reducing this to a comfortable level while you recover and prepare for your next burst of high intensity. This replicates the highs and lows in the intensity that snow sports demand.

Agility

At some point in your ski training programme there is a need to address the agility side of conditioning, as skiing and snowboarding require you to be highly in tune with your body. Agility exercises will increase your quickness and reaction speeds as well as your coordination. An alternative option to these final two components (Aerobic Conditioning and Agility) is to participate in sports that challenge your cardiovascular system, coordination, agility and reactions, much the same as skiing and snowboarding do (e.g. squash, tennis, touch rugby, indoor football etc.).

A skiing and snowboarding training programme should not only be fun but will leave you physically capable to breeze through a full day on the slopes. It should incorporate and progressively develop all the key components over the 2-3 months leading up to the ski season. Far too often people leave their training to the last minute and expect miracles, so if you are going to do this, do it right. The sooner you commit to a ski or snowboarding training programme that is specific to the sport and your unique situation, the better for you.

Take a look at our comprehensive 12 week SKI FIT programme, designed to develop the strength and endurance you need to attack the mountain like you own it!

By Hamish Abbie BPhEd, BComm, CHEK L1, XLR8 Coach, REPs