Skiing is here! As exciting as that is, it’s painfully obvious to some of us that we’re just not ready. The extended patio season we enjoyed was great while it lasted, but how it now lingers on our waistlines, not so great.
Everyone’s talking fitness. All the local gyms and trainers are hawking their get-fit-quick schemes, but let’s face it: in this drive-thru, on-line world people have become slow and soft. So where better to look for fitness tips than the old school, when everything in life was harder, especially the muscles?
Fret not. We’ve scoured our collections and found some retro ski manuals with some fitness tips from the heyday of freestyle. They’re certain to have you schralping the slopes in style, pirhouetting around your panting pals. Here we’ve compiled the 5 most essential training techniques that we gathered from our archival research, free for your benefit:
Tip #1: First off, it’s essential to do your ski workouts ON SNOW.
Working out in a cushy, climate-controlled gym just won’t cut it. To get maximum ski performance out of our bodies, we need to train them in the appropriate environment. Too cold? Tough.
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Tip #2: Fundamentals. Before you dial-in your double corks, you need to learn how to do a proper helicopter. Muscle memory is key, repetition is your friend.
Tip #3: Strength is over-rated. Too many athletes-in-training neglect flexibility. Develop a well-rounded stretching program and stick to it. A good rule of thumb: the more uncomfortable and ridiculous the stretch feels, the more ridiculous and uncomfortable it looks.
Tip#4:
Tip #5: Proper turn technique is way tougher in a full-body cast. Practice falling like a Hollywood stuntman and you’ll be shrugging off your yardsales as if they’re the latest hot trick.
BONUS TIP!: We all know that in reality skiing is little more than a fancy, convoluted mating ritual. So work on your kip-ups. They never fail to impress the opposite sex at apres.
So ignore what your personal trainer has to say about interval training, vo2, anaerobic threshold, and all that jazz. This isn’t rocket science. With these 6 simple rules and a little ol’ school gusto, you’ll charge harder, ski longer and be the envy of your crew. As the saying goes, “first call, last chair!”
Love it. Especially the outfit! Great that the exercises were performed on the snow – hope he warmed up properly. Nice to get back to basics rather than the ski pilates we have now.