Preparing for skiing - fitness

Craig McLean is Chiro.London's Ski Doctor. He's been working with Ski Club to put together a series of posts on how best to prepare for your upcoming ski trip. This first blog focuses on your fitness and the best physical preparation for your body.

An early start will get you ahead of the game and ensure you enjoy your winter trip more, reducing the chances of injury and enabling you to cover more miles with less fatigue. Strengthening your leg muscles and improving your cardiovascular system will mean you'll tire less and have better control - reducing the risk of injury.

Cycling, walking and running are effective sports that can help simulate the same nature as skiing, with the 'efforts' of two to five minutes followed by a rest period (when you're on the lift). The aim should be doing something every day - cardio three times a week, broken up by strength sessions on alternative days. If you are super-motivated do a cardio workout in the morning and a strength session in the afternoon.

For the cardio workout, it is not enough just to go for a 30-minute bike ride. I recommend you choose your normal circuit and break the way you ride, walk or run into three sets of five minutes’ hard effort (out of breath, can’t-really-hold-a-conversation pace) and five minutes easy work. Alternatively this can be done as five sets of two minutes.

If you have a hill close by, bike, walk or run quickly up the hill for five minutes, then head back down. All this can otherwise be done indoors on a static bike or treadmill. Use the bike’s power or the treadmill’s speed settings to simulate these efforts.

For the strength training, split squats (or lunges), squats, scissor jumps (jump lunges) are all fantastic.

Read the full article here: Preparing for skiing - fitness