Benefits of Resistance Training for Skiings Prior to a Trip

Improved Confidence

Confidence for beginners when they are skiing is one of the biggest hurdles, especially when you’re an adult learning a new, rather intimidating skill like skiing. Being physically prepared for skiing can enable you to feel physically competent and able to deal with the challenges that skiing provides.

Increased Stamina

Skiing can be a very physically demanding sport, especially for beginners who can’t use their technique to mitigate fatigue. You will likely find that you’ll be very tense and this can take its toll on the body. So being physically capable outside of skiing, being both strong and having high levels of endurance, can drastically improve the quality of your skiing trip. This is an important argument for using full body resistance training and endurance training in conjunction with each other, they will have a generalised impact on your ability to endure other physical activities, rather than just focusing on skiing specific exercises.

Injury Mitigation

Skiing can be a particularly difficult sport for injuries, which cannot ever be fully prevented but through proper strength training they can be mitigated. Making your muscles, bones, tendons and ligaments stronger and more resilient can only ever be seen as positive when it comes to mitigating injury and this is what full body resistance training can provide.

How To Use These Exercises Effectively

These exercises can be used in two different ways, firstly they can be added to or part of a full body resistance training programme. This style of programme puts emphasis on using multiple movement patterns or muscles groups within the same session, allowing us to build the body as one system rather than splitting the body into muscle groups and targeting them on different days in the way that bodybuilders do.

Why Generalising Beginners Can Be Difficult

Beginners can be broken down into so many different categories that prescribing exercises for beginners can be very challenging. Just because you’ve never done free weights and are technically a beginner doesn’t mean you’re not extremely athletic and can pick up all the movements very quickly. While another beginner might have been extremely sedentary for the previous ten years and can find walking a challenge. So take these exercise prescriptions with a grain of salt and make decisions about what exercises your going to use based on you and your needs.

The 6 Skiing Exercises for Beginners

The DB Squat in Lunge is a great way for beginners to learn to lunge with light weights. Building single leg strength prior to going skiing is a great way to both mitigate injury and improve performance. This exercise allows a simplified version on the db reverse lunge which requires more balance and confident foot placement.

The KB deadlift is one of the simplest deadlift variations available for beginners, making it a perfect place to start. It develops strength in the posterior chain which will be highly beneficial for your skiing and overall health. Start light here and make sure you are putting a great deal of emphasis on your technique, specifically the placement of your lower back.

The Front and Back Reach is a very challenging exercise for beginners when performed with precision and control. If it is rushed however it will be very easy and will not have any of the desired adaptations to stability and balance.

The A-Stance Hold is a challenging isometric hold that aims to improve both balance and stability. This is the ideal exercise for beginners to master before a ski trip, as you need to get used to spending time on one leg when skiing, making it this single leg exercise highly specific to skiing.

Bird Dogs are a great way to build the muscles of the lumber spine for beginners. This exercise can also help build muscle and strength in the glutes, however if you rush this exercise you will likely created very little stimulus, so make sure you are adding a little pause to the end of each repetition and squeezing the glutes. One mistake people make regularly on this exercise is having the knees very narrow, so make sure your knees are hip width apart and you will be able to better stabilise the movement.

Kickstand Hip Thrusts are a great and novel way to grow the posterior chain without having to worry or learn the hinge movement pattern which can be a complex process. The set up of this exercise can be a little challenging, the mid back needs to be against the bench and stay there throughout the entirety of the movement. The glutes need to be squeezed at the top of each repetition for this exercise to be effective also.