The months of September and October are a great time to get started with your pre-season base training for ski season. It is always a good idea to do about 4-6 weeks of base fitness training before jumping into a sport specific program. Coming into a ski fitness program with a good strength base will help you benefit more from the sport specific training. You will progress quicker and your body will not become as sore as it does when first starting a sport specific program.
The following exercises are some of my favorite to get your movements and base strength ready for ski fitness class. These are great exercise to incorporate into your program year round.
Front Squat- This is one of my all time favorite exercises for skiing and all sports in general. This is a great exercise to teach you how to squat properly. When you have the weights in front of you it is hard to collapse forward and enforce bad squat technique. This goes for the same in skiing better mobility me ants better ski turn! So if you have a good front squat position this will transfer into skiing better too! This can be done with KBells as well as a barbell!
Dumbell thruster- This exercise takes a front squat position and helps generate power. this will help guid explosiveness in your legs and get your glutes, hamstrings and core firing on all cylinders this is great dynamic exercise. You can use Kbells and a barbell too if you prefer in this exercise.
Hamstring Hell- This is a great exercise that can be done anywhere all you need is a bench, couch or chair. This is a great exercise for getting the each hamstring firing by itself. A lot of us compensate on one side or the other so it is good to work each leg independently.
EOs- This is a great core exercise that in my opinion works the entire core. Training your core is incredibly important for all sports for injury prevention and performance. We need our core in all sport movements but it does not necessarily get strong unless it is trained!
Box jump- This is a great exercise that is done to increase power and agility. This can be done at any ability level just start with a lower box and work up accordingly. Keeping our fast twitch muscles going is very important especially as we age.
Here is a link to videos of all these exercises:
Sample workout
with these
exercises
warm up
3 rounds
10x squats
10x situps
10x pushups
5 rounds
5x front squat
5x box jump
instep stretch
10 rounds
30 sec dumbell thruster
30 sec rest
3 rounds
10x ea EOs
15x ea Hs hell
pigeon stretch
Remember to warm up well and do a good cool down.