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What do you do when your ski day is rained out?

18 Apr 2011, Posted by Ski NASTC in Latest News

You wanna go skiing but it is raining so miserably out, it is not even worth putting on your thermals.  Plan B?  Hit the gym!!
How your ski season next year pans out is dependent on what you do in the off-season, which starts in the spring and runs through the fall.  This is the time to start working on the bottom level of the performance pyramid that Chris Fellows describes in his book Total Skiing.  Functional Movement takes place in multi-planes of motion with the use of multiple joints. These movements require the firing of multiple muscle groups in various positions, ranges of motion and varying intensity to achieve a common goal. They are both everyday activities/movements and sport specific movements.  By developing and training these movement patterns we not only gain greater stability and range of motion, we also gain longetivity.  Longevity is key for skiers, we want to survive our weeklong ski trips, make it through the season injury free,  be able to ski season to season as pain free as possible and continue to avidly particpate in the sport that we love even as we age. 

Here are a couple of exercises to incorporate:
World’s Greatest Lunge – move into a lunge position, place both hands to the inside of the forward foot and rotate your spine once to each side.
Backwards Lunge – reverse lunge while raising the arm that is opposite to the leg you are stepping back
Hand walks – reach down and touch the ground with your hands or fingertips, slowly walk your hands out till you are in a plank position, then begin walking your feet towards your hands
Lateral lunge
Iron cross
– begin by standing with both feet side by side, out stretch your arms to either side with thumbs pointing to the ceiling, next extend one leg behind you until your hips are parallel to the floor and maintain a flat back position.
Knee hugs – take one step forward, and you swing through with your other leg bring it up to your chest, maintaining an erect spine and toes pulled up toward the knee, grasp your knee with both hands and maintain your planted leg straight and fire the glute to aid in stability. 
Hip/knee rotations – raise one knee up and rotate it outwards, as if you were drawing a letter “C” in the air with your knee, repeat with the other leg and then reverse the rotation so that it is going inwards.
90/90 stretch – lay on the floor on your side, take the upper leg and bend it at a 90 degree angle, keeping the other leg outstretched, hold your arms out in front of you then sweep your upper arm to the other side of your body so your arms form a “T” (follow the path of your hand with your head, depending on how much thoracic mobility you have you may not be able to touch your hand to the ground, though this is the goal).  Repeat with the opposite leg and arm.

If you are starting out, it is best to start with lower reps and work into doing more.  5-7 reps is a good starting point.