Going skiing this year? Here’s how to make sure your body is ready to get the most out of your winter fun.

Skiing can certainly be one of the most fun, exhilarating holidays on offer, but you do need to be prepared if you want to get the most out of it. That doesn’t only mean ensuring your ski equipment is well maintained – it also means developing a level of fitness and flexibility to ensure your body is up to the task!

You’ll need to build up cardiovascular fitness – not just for the act of skiing itself, but to help you deal with the thinner air at altitude – and this is something you will have to work on over time.

In addition, skiing uses a lot of muscles that we don’t typically focus on: stabilising muscles that require specific attention and that, depending on what you normally do at the gym, you may be almost starting from scratch on.

“Skiing and snowboarding are very complete sports, which require good cardiovascular capacity, plus strength and endurance in the muscles of the lower body and the core.”

Dominique Bosca, Personal Trainer at Aspria

The Aspria wellbeing team stresses the importance of incorporating technique into your training. “At Aspria Avenue Louise, we run a series of circuit-based classes designed specifically for those getting ready for a ski trip. These workouts incorporate legs, core, stability, balance, flexibility and cardio, but I also help members get to grips with some of the fundamentals of skiing, using exercises that simulate some of the moves they will need to do on the slopes. For ski turns, for example, we work on transfer of body weight, keeping the weight forward rather than sitting back, and isolating the upper and lower body. In the end, strong legs aren’t enough to make you a good skier. You need good technique too – and some of this can be developed in the gym!”

Kjell Mailleux, Wellbeing Manager and Floriane de Maere, Wellbeing Advisor, show you some of those exercises for ski preparation.

© Travel Tomorrow https://traveltomorrow.com/

Sessions on the rowing machine are a great full-body workout, builds your general fitness and stamina through cardio, as well as working your quads, hamstrings, glutes, core, arms, and back muscles.

Highlighting how important it is to do exercises that challenge your balance, Kjell recommends doing exercises standing on one leg in order to build up stabilising muscles, or performing them while standing on a Bosu. “For example a simple squat is far more challenging when you’re trying to maintain your balance at the same time”, he explains.

The ViPR ice targets the outer thighs as well as (although to a lesser degree) the biceps, calves, forearms, glutes, groin, hamstrings, hip flexors, lats, lower back, middle back, quads, shoulders and triceps.

The primary benefit of Power Pull TRX exercises is back strength, as it develops the large muscles in the upper back.

This is a great abdominals exercise which promotes stability and coordination as well as strengthening the core.

As always when exercising, stretching is key. Florianne reminds us, “Don’t forget to work on your flexibility. Regular stretching before your ski holiday – as well as gentle stretching before each day of skiing – will not only help your performance on the slopes, with your body more able to move freely. It will also help ensure a fall – something that might cause a holiday-ruining injury if your body has no ‘give’ in it – is no more than a minor hiccup from which you can get up and carry on skiing.”