Not Training For Snow? You're Late!

By Wina Sturgeon

reprinted with permission from adventuresportsweekly.com

If you ski or snowboard, especially if you race or go for air in the pipe, you should have started training a month ago!

Brian Frost, a personal trainer in Park City, says "Skiers should have been concentrating on cardio and muscle endurance for at least the past month. You need to start setting up your base now, so you can lift heavier as the season approaches. Work on flexibility as well.

But if you have not yet begun training for snow season, don't make the mistake of trying to make up for it all at once, Frost advises. He says that is the quickest way to inflict dreaded 'microtrauma' on your tendons and ligaments, setting yourself up for an injury, either now or during the season.

To prepare your base, Frosts suggests power lifting. Squats, deadlifts and overhead squats with a bar will increase core strength. Whether on skis or a snowboard, core strength is essential to ride the snow fast and smooth, and get back in balance if you start to fall.

Overhead squats are done holding a bar overhead with arms straight up. If the 45-pound bar is too heavy, use a broomstick. It's not the weight, but the position that gives the desired results, that's why a bar is used instead of dumbbells.

"You don't get increased flexibility from dumbbells, because you can hold them separately in any direction. To hold a bar or broomstick overhead and squat takes a great deal of flexibility in your shoulders and back," Frost says.

But if you have to make up for lost time, he suggests doing multi-joint exercises rather than going for heavy weights. Do lunges with bicep curls, or lunges with dumbbell overhead presses. Do a step-up on a bench or platform while lifting a dumbbell up and out to the side with a straight arm. Use free weights rather than machines, because free weights require using your core for balance; an element that is missing when using a machine.

Frost, a Masters racer who usually makes the top ten 'Superseed,' used his own training advice to rise from a middle-of-the-pack racer to a competitive class winner. He says, "The main thing to remember is that lifting weights is a progression. You can't just jump into it without progressing from a base."

For those already in weightlifting shape, Frost says that the biggest thing to concentrate on right now is cycling. "Road biking helps with endurance because you go longer, mountain biking helps with balance. You are best off doing both."

When you can't bike, run. But instead of running on hard pavement, which shocks the joints, go trail running. The softer surface acts like a joint cushion. Frost tells his clients, 90 per cent of whom are skiers and about half of whom are racers, that running up hills and striding down them is the best thing a skier can do on days when they don't get to the gym, it
increases agility and balance.

Finally, do some stretching after every activity, when the muscles are warmed up and pliable. Both skiers and snowboarders have to be super flexible to get into the expert's position, and don't we all want to be experts on the snow?