19 August, 2005
Fitness and Skiing Improvement - What's the Link?

As of late, as happens every year, people want to know what they should do to get fit for skiing.

First, a story is in order. This spring and summer I've had the opportunity to go on bike rides with three skiers we know. They are very good skiers, and multi-year followers of PMTS.

In some ways their progress, though steady last season, didn't break through to the next level. Let me explain - the skiers I am talking about can carve on blue terrain with strong edge hold and with very little skidding. They can ski all black slopes, but have difficulty linking turns and controlling speed when the going gets rough. For instance, where they have difficulty is in steep terrain, hard or icy snow, bigger bumps and changing terrain.

These skiers have good form and movements when they are not pushed or when they don't push themselves, but when they want to push themselves or when they get pushed, their technique - yes, even PMTS technique - starts breaking down.

So what's the answer? In the overall analysis there are a number of factors that need to be addressed in this situation. First and most important is motivation - is their motivation for this kind of skiing experience and their commitment to improvement up to the demand required to perform at this high level?

Next, is there an element of fear or apprehension entering into the equation that's holding back movement development, a mental-blocking-influence so to speak?

For these skiers, I know their movement skills are in place at the less demanding levels up to a certain level of difficulty.

So where is the problem? Will it take more practice, more time? Is more experience needed? Here are some answers that seem most logical. In addition to what I write below, bear in mind that if skiing in difficult terrain is only available to you during a camp or in an accreditation situation, this is not sufficient exposure to difficult terrain to build experience and proficiency quickly. I am not saying you won't learn to ski difficult terrain if you take it gradually, but it takes more time.

A few months after the ski season, while this situation was still at the forefront of my thoughts, something happened which gave me some insight. I was not yet completely sure why skiers were having issues with difficult terrain when this possible cause came out of coincidence. I had an opportunity to go biking with three of our skiers, not at the same time, but within a few weeks of each other. Did biking provide some answers to the learning situation for everyone, possibly?

It became apparent while we were biking that the strength of these skiers was several levels below strong. I am talking about skiers who are ten to fifteen years younger then I am. My own biking at that point in the summer, due to lack of riding time and my travel schedule, was not very strong. I compared their biking ability to mine and to Diana's. It was considerably lower. Then I began to think back to other skiers I had biked with. The really excellent skiers all were strong bikers, while the skiers who had difficulty with steeps and bumps were weaker by a large margin.

Am I saying you have to be a strong biker to be a strong skier? No - there are other forms of training that will build your fitness to a level where you can ski everything. However, if we take biking as an informal test of leg, hip, glute and lower back muscle strength, we do cover many bases.

Testing leg strength through biking becomes even more revealing when we ride in the hills or mountains. The muscles of the legs are first and most obviously part of both the skiing and biking equations. The hip flexors and lower back (erector spinae) are very important in skiing, as they are in biking, especially when climbing and standing, pedaling out of the saddle.

If we look at this situation in reverse, or from the point view of what results have we had with skiers who have taken on a summer-long, one-thousand mile biking program, what do we find? I found in my experience that skiers who began bike training made an outstanding improvement in ski technique and terrain skiing ability the very next season. Is this through strength gains alone? I would say no, it's not only strength gains. Biking gives you many other benefits, for example, when pedaling in a standing position, you need to balance and shift weight from one pedal to the other smoothly while keeping the bike from moving excessively. This is a highly underrated benefit of biking. When skiing we are always balancing from foot to foot, changing balance by pressure changes from one side to the other, and controlling the upper body from moving excessively.

So what should we do at this point in the season? If you want to make leg, hip and back strength gains, biking is a way to do that, but there are other ways.

Before you begin any training program you should be tested first, definitely for medical reasons and also to determine existing strength, weight to lean body mass and aerobic levels. Basically, what I did with these biking experiences was to measure or compare Diana's and my biking strength to other skiers. I found there was a substantial difference. Closing the gap in physical fitness surely could benefit many skiers who strive to reach higher levels of competency on difficult terrain, no matter what method or apparatus you use. It has been obvious to me for a long time that inadequate physical fitness is a liability when trying to attain higher skiing levels. But this is the first time I was able to compare our strength to that of several of our known skiers.

Here are some ways you can evaluate your basic strength. We do not do specific exercises to improve in these tests; they are just tests, not training exercises. I used Diana and myself to test if we could do the following:

** Sit in a solid chair with your legs extended straight out in front of you. Hold onto the sides of the seat with your hands. Extend your arms until they are straight, lifting you off the seat. Maintain this suspended "pike" position with your legs extended out in front of you. Can you hold this position for 5 seconds?

Start

Hold

** Lie on the floor face down with your arms by your sides. Lift your feet and legs from the floor (your shoulders and arms may lift slightly) and hold them above the floor. Can you keep them lifted for 20 seconds?

Start

Hold

** Stand about 12-18 inches in front of a solid chair. Place another chair beside you, with its back next to you. Hold onto the chair back lightly with one hand (this hand is to steady you, not to help with the squatting action). Pick up one foot and keep it off the ground for the duration of the test. While standing on one leg, squat down as if to sit on the chair behind you, but stop just before touching your behind to the seat; then stand back up straight. Can you do this 10 times?

Start

Squat

A skier who wants to ski all-mountain, black terrain should be able to accomplish these tests successfully. We can perform these tests without difficulty.

This article is meant to be motivating. Remember, if you don't do anything, you'll enter the ski season where you are right now or worse. If you do see a need for better physical preparation then you stand to improve your skiing. Even if you begin now, it isn't too late to make substantial gains before the season.

My suggestions are to start biking or to attend your local Recreation Center, YMCA, or YWCA, where you can get help and have the activities and facilities that will get you on the road to ski fitness. An overall, well-planned fitness program can provide you with further opportunities to improve your skiing.

The three skiers I describe in this article are on the cycling training program this summer. I can't wait to see what they do on snow this coming winter. For further info about training and cycling, see the PMTS.org web site: http://www.pmts.org/ind_fit.htm

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