Lifestyle

Train like a champion: Seven super exercises to fortify your game

Just because you’re not racing on the World Cup circuit doesn’t mean your skiing can’t benefit from the same exercises the pros do. “Regardless of the level of skiing you are, everyone has the same basic needs when it comes to injury prevention and fitness: a strong core, strong legs and good balance and agility,” says Matt Price, director of sports science for the national alpine ski team. “The best guys in the world do the same exercises I would prescribe to any skier.”

Price’s workout (below) is used by athletes such as world champion Erik Guay, Manny Osborne-Paradis and Robbie Dixon. Do it two to three times a week and Price says you won’t fatigue as quickly. “You’re going to feel a lot better after lunch and get a lot more out of the afternoon. And the muscles you strengthen will help you prevent injury,” he says. “We see a trend with our World Cup athletes: Most injuries happen in the afternoon when guys are fatigued. If you warm up properly and you’re less fatigued toward the end of the day, you’re going to prevent those injuries.”

• 1 • The warm-up
What it does for your skiing: The plyometric demand of jumping rope is a great way to prime the nervous system and prepare the large muscles of the hip, knee and ankle for the eccentric loading patterns experienced while skiing, says Price. He also notes that increasing blood flow and core temperature will ensure your mind and muscles are firing and ready for action. You don’t warm up before you ski? You should, and the jump rope exercise below, followed by a hot shower, will have your muscles and ligaments ready to pound through moguls and avoid injury.

The Exercise: Jump Rope
Skip rope 100 times, mixing up two-footed and alternating single-foot touches. Do three to five sets, resting one to two minutes between each set.

• 2 • Work the core
What it does for your skiing: A strong core — the muscles of the abdomen, back and hips will help stabilize the pelvis and allow you to increase the forces you apply to the ski.

The Exercise: Swiss Ball Front Bridge with Roll Outs
Place your forearms on top of the ball and form a bridge between the toes and the elbows. Contract all of the muscles of the abdomen and lower back and hold this bridged position without allowing the pelvis to slump downward. Roll the ball away from the body until the angle between the body and upper arm creates an angle larger than 90 degrees. Return to the neutral position. Try a roll out every 5 seconds for 30 seconds. Do three sets, resting for two minutes between each set.

• 3 • Strengthen the Hamstrings
What it does for your skiing: “The hamstring is a multi-joint muscle that produces high amounts of force in hip extension and knee flexion,” says Price. “Having strong hamstrings is certainly going to help your skiing by stabilizing the knee and preventing injury to that joint.”

The Exercise: The Supine Hamstring Curl
On a hardwood or linoleum floor, place two hand towels under each heel of your feet. Lie back and form a bridge between your heels and shoulder blades. Brace the core and pull your heels in toward your butt. Keep your hips pressed as high as you can throughout the entire range of motion. To increase the degree of difficulty, try doing alternating curls. Complete 2-3 sets of 10-15 reps.

• 4 • Build the legs
What it does for your skiing: “In skiing there is certainly a higher demand on eccentric [muscle lengthening] strength than in many other sports,” says Price. “On top of that, when linking turn after turn, you alternately rely on one leg and then the other to do the work for you. Choosing a single-leg exercise that demands eccentric strength can enhance your skiing performance.”

The Exercise: The Single Dumbbell Lunge from Box
Standing atop a step or a low box (maximum of 8-10 inches) and holding a 10- to 20-pound dumbbell in one hand, step forward and off of the box with the leg opposite of the side holding the dumbbell. Quickly drive up and backward to the starting position. To advance this exercise, try stepping onto a Bosu ball from the box. Complete 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps.

• 5 • Create power
What it does for your skiing: While strong muscles allow you to hold certain positions on your skis and help prevent injury to bones and ligaments, power in your legs, hips and core allows you to bounce through powder and moguls or explode out of a deep arc.

The Exercise: Alternating Scissor Jumps
With your right foot in front of you and your left foot behind you, jump up as hard as you can, using your arms to generate upward momentum. While in the air, switch your feet so the left leg is in front and the right leg is behind you. To further challenge your balance and increase the demands on your muscles, keep your hands on your hips or hold a set of light dumbbells. Complete 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps on each leg.

• 6 • Increase balance
What it does for your skiing: It goes without saying that having good balance is key to being able to ski well. But, says Price, creating balance can also help keep you injury free, giving you the ability to stay upright when the terrain shakes you out of your comfort zone.

The Exercise: The Standing Single-Leg Hip Opener
Stand on one leg, holding the other leg up so your thigh is parallel with the floor (90 degrees at the knee). The leg you’re standing on should be rigid with a very slight bend in the knee. Hold your hands over your head, keeping the trunk tall, and engage the core. Swing your trunk forward, until your fingertips touch your toes of the leg you’re standing on. Your other leg should remain bent and swing behind you as you reach forward. As you rise to the starting position, press your bent knee forward to maximize the extension of your standing hip. Complete 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps per leg.

• 7 • Become agile
What it does for your skiing: “I like to use agility drills that challenge my athletes to move laterally over short distances,” says Price. “Agility training will utilize the strength and power you have developed and channel those abilities into more speed-oriented movements.”

The Exercise: The Lateral Cone Shuffle
Set small cones three to four meters apart. Shuffle as fast as possible to the other end and back without crossing your feet. You can train this drill for time or lengths, but either way should be kept to a maximum of 10s. Try shuffling while holding a 4 kg medicine ball, or try racing a partner shuffling face-to-face. Complete 3-5 sets of 6- to 10-second shuffles.

— Gordy Megroz

Smart eating on the road

Healthy eating while on the road is like getting exercise on an airplane. It can be done, but not without a fair amount of creativity and willpower. Here are some suggestions for living on a budget and achieving optimal nutrition on your next ski trip:

Tap water in a bottle: Bottled water is expensive and a big waste.
To avoid chlorine, let your tap water sit open overnight in the fridge before putting the lid on, and for a different fresh taste, add slices of lemon or cucumber.
Buy what you can eat: When purchasing fresh produce, buy only what you will eat in a few days so you don’t waste any due to spoilage, or purchase produce that has a long shelf life in your fridge, such as carrots, cabbage, celery, potatoes, apples and oranges.
Avoid convenience foods: Choose regular rice and oats instead of the quick-cook varieties; the more processed, the greater the cost.
Pack your own lunch: Avoid processed, packaged and single-serving foods. It might be a bit more work initially to make your own sandwiches, soups or salads, but the effort will save you money while also controlling your meal ingredients.
Limit pre-packaged sport foods: Sport bars and beverages might be convenient and nutrient- dense, but they are expensive and can easily be made from scratch. Look online for low-fat energy bar recipes.

— This nutrition tip was supplied by the Coaching Association of Canada and the Sport Nutrition Advisory Committee.

Post-workout tips to maximize your performance potential

Walk into a hotel gym at a ski resort these days and you’ll see a growing trend: Guys slowly riding stationary bikes, trying to flush the lactic acid and hydrogen ions out of their legs so they can prevent soreness and ski hard the next day.

“Recovery is as important as preparation,” says Per Lundstam, former head trainer for the U.S. Ski Team who now oversees training for some of Red Bull’s best athletes, including Simon Dumont and Tanner Hall. “When you’re trying to learn a new skill, you’re going to be better at learning that skill day after day if you’re body is fully recovered.”

And that’s not just true on the slopes. As you begin your summer activities, remember these five tips for improved recovery (Bonus: A post mountain-bike beer can actually help you get up and go the next day).

Keep exercising
Hop on a bike, jump in the pool or go for a jog for 20 minutes after you’re finished with your main workout. “If you’ve done an intense sport like skiing or biking,” says Lundstam, “you’re trying to get the lactic acid as well as the hydrogen ions out of the muscle fibers and into the bloodstream so that that waste can filter into the liver. Left in the blood it makes you sore and causes inflammation.” During your 20-minute purge, go slowly, then sprint for five or six seconds every three minutes. “If you just sit there and spin slowly, you’ll only draw waste from the slow-twitch muscle fibers,” explains Lundstam. “The short sprints help get waste out of the fast-twitch fibers, too.”

Refuel correctly
After you’ve finished your workout, you have about two hours to restore the carbohydrates in your body for them to be used effectively the next day. Lundstam is even more careful, recommending people replace glycogen stores —the muscle’s primary fuel source during exercise — within 30 minutes after finishing exercise. “You can get the other nutrients you need — protein, certain vitamins and minerals — later when have a real meal,” says Lundstam, “but you need to replace glycogen stores right away to have anything in the tank for your next activity.”

For endurance sessions such as a long bike ride or a game of tennis that last an hour or more, Lundstam encourages athletes to eat one gram of carbs for every kilogram of body weight. Not sure what that looks like? Each snack in this list contains about 50 grams of carbohydrates:

24-32 ounces of a sports drink such as Gatorade
16 ounces of fruit juice
1 banana sandwich
1 honey sandwich
3 pieces of fruit
Half of a blueberry muffin
Half of a sports bar
16 ounces of low-fat yogurt
50 grams of hard candy

If you’re lifting weights, Lundstam acknowledges that you’ll need to add some protein to your recovery meal to help repair muscle fibers, and suggests that 7-15 grams of protein and 30 grams of carbs are ideal. The best meal for the job: Cottage cheese. “It has lots of protein but not a lot of fat, which can get in the way of allowing absorption of the nutrients you need,” say Lundstam. Not your thing? Grab a chicken or fish sandwich.

Have a cup of joe
Washing your recovery meal down with a cup of coffee might help you go even farther and faster. A 2008 study out of Melbourne’s RMIT University found that ingesting caffeine helps athletes retain even more glycogen than those who don’t. Athletes who did ingest caffeine had 66 percent more glycogen in their muscles four hours after an intense workout.

Turn up the cold water
And, sadly, get out of the hot tub. Sitting around in one after exercise will increase inflammation in the muscles, making you sore and sluggish the next day. One key to recovery, recently being employed by many professional athletes, is the contrast shower, a 32-minute shower that alternates between hot and cold water. “The hot water dilates the blood vessels and the cold water contracts them,” says Lundstam. “This increases circulation, one of the keys to recovery.” To do it, shower under warm water for four minutes, then switch to cold water for four minutes. Repeat this three more times, finishing on cold water. “Ending on cold ensures that your muscles aren’t inflamed,” says Lundstam.

Tip back a cold one
There’s no need to avoid a post-ski, post-ride or postgame beer with your buddies. The carbohydrates in one light beer (about 6 grams) help restore glycogen stores in the muscles. But keep it to one: Alcohol is a diuretic and too many will dehydrate you, preventing recovery.

— Gordy Megroz