Skier Fitness Training -- More Modern Approaches

Many years ago when I was training for a ski team in a school, our skier fitness training started with jogging on a track and on village streets to build cardio-pulmonary fitness. This lasted 30 – 60 minutes, and was followed with inside strength building. They looked at wall-squats, building to 60 second holds followed by various stretching exercises while standing and lying on the floor. The stretches were meant to build strength and agility in the core of the body. While these were effective in building strength and agility, Michael Geary in Avalanche Ski Training has modernized the approach in a number of improved approaches. For example, he does not encourage isometric exercises such as wall squats as being somewhat counter productive in the muscles that are developed. Road work is not as effective as his well-designed exercise sets; however, for me and other seniors, brisk walking, especially at higher altitudes, is extremely valuable for the cardio portion of the training. Note if higher altitude is not available, one should find gentle to steeper hills to walk up and down until the pulse and respiration rate is only moderate and recovers quickly with a short rest.
Core strength can be built with standing/bending stretches, and swinging arms forward and overhead. On the floor, one can raise and bend legs, hold legs about 6 inches above the floor (for abs), twist lower extremities side to side while holding shoulders on the floor, and doing classic push ups. Note that Geary has improved approaches to core training. I recommend his book to all serious skiers.

Click here for Michael Geary's Avalanche Ski Training