Though snowfalls haven’t been as heavy as many ski resorts would like, some are already open for business and more will follow in the next couple of weeks. While the temptation is to load up your skis or snowboard, dust off your winter jacket and rush out onto the slopes at the earliest opportunity, you should first consider if your body. Is it ready? Riding snow requires generating power across multiple planes and changing direction quickly while maintaining motor control and stability. This is one of the reasons so many people mess themselves up the first few times they punch their passes. Though no gym routine can simulate the unique experience of riding steep pow, here are a few exercises that can go towards preparing you. Perform these exercises as a circuit with no breaks between them. Take 90 seconds of active rest between 3 to five rounds.
Photo: Oxygen magazine
Overhead Lunge
When we picture ourselves on the slopes, we’re flying downwards or carving turns. Too often we forget the need to decelerate and do so without popping, straining or tearing something. The lunge is the best movement for training the hips, knees and ankles to decelerate in a unified sequence. Adding an overhead component increasing the torso stability demands by raising the center of gravity. To do this lunge variation:
—Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and a weight plate in both hands
— Slowly press the weight overhead by extending both arms. Each arm should be aligned just behind your ear and stay there for the duration of the movement.
—Take a large step forward with your right foot, being sure to keep both feet neutral (straight)
—As your right foot makes contact with the ground, push it out slightly as you would during a squat. This helps maintain a vertical shin. Make sure the forward knee doesn’t go past your toes. If it does, you need a longer stride.
—Repeat on the right side, for a total of 20 steps. Keep looking straight ahead at all times with your abs engaged and your shoulder blades pulled back and down.
Side-to-Side Bound
Every variation of skiing and snowboarding involves lateral movement, the need for which is increased when ducking in and out of trees and dodging rocks in the back- or sidecountry. So we need to get your body used to moving from side to side. Before trying a more intense and ballistic bound, jump rope for a couple of minutes and then try some single-leg hops, whereby you takeoff on your right foot and hop to your left, landing on the ball of your left foot and then kissing the ground with the heel. Then go back from left to right. Once you’ve collected 20 hops, then go into these more intense, two-foot bounds:
—Stand with your feet together
—Pull your hamstrings back, hinge slightly at the hips and slightly bend your knees to load your lower body for leaping
—Extend your ankles, knees and hips simultaneously and as you do so, swing both arms upward
—Use the momentum to leap to your right
—Land on the balls of both feet, let your heels gently touch the floor and then explode back to your left. This entire sequence should take milliseconds
—Accumulate 20 jumps
Dumbbell Snatch
A key to skiing and snowboarding explosively is generating power from the hips, and being able to rapidly fire major muscle groups from your feet all the way up to the shoulder. This is where the dumbbell snatch, a simpler variation of the Olympic lifting exercise, comes into play. To do it:
—Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and holding a dumbbell in your right hand with an overhand grip (knuckles forward) and positioned between your legs
—Repeat the loading sequence from step 2 of the side-to-side bound
—As you perform the triple extension (ankles, knees and hips) with your lower body, powerfully shrug your shoulders
—Use the momentum to fling the dumbbell up over your head (while maintaining your grip on it!)
—Finish with your right arm extended above your head and in a quarter squat, with your knees pushed out and feet straight
—Repeat with your left arm and then with your right, until you have performed 10 repetitions
