Ski season is almost here! Are you prepared? Skiing can be a lot of fun, but it can also be very dangerous. Every year, thousands of people are injured while skiing. In this blog post, we will discuss how to get your body ready for ski season and prevent common injuries. We will also cover how to recover after a day of skiing. Skiing is a great way to get some exercise and get outside, but it's important to take these steps to make sure you stay safe on the slopes!
exercises for skiing
The first step to getting your body ready for ski season is to focus on strengthening. Skiing requires strong and flexible muscles, so it’s important to start conditioning your body well before the season begins. Some key muscle groups to focus on include the quads, hamstrings, calves, lower back, and core. If you are interested in talking to us about an injury prevention program give us a call and we will get you scheduled with the HIDEF Physical Therapy clinic near you. Some of our favorite exercises for skiing:
3-way Slider Lunge: This one is key to making sure that your quad and glute are strong enough to hit the slopes. The key to this movement is keeping the knee in line with the toe. When the knee goes too far inside of the toe, especially when the knee it flexed it puts you at risk for ACL injuries and meniscus tears.
Side plank Clamshell and Hip Abduction: If you are looking to build the core and hip strength needed to control your knee alignment here is a go to series of movements you can try. Add a band around the knees if you want even more resistance.
90/90 Heel Touches: This is one of my favorites to improve core strength. Core strength will help you maintain proper body positions and not lose balance on the slopes. This is a great way to prevent injuries.
Common injuries in skiing
If you have been skiing for long you know there are quite a few injuries that can happen as a result of skiing. Many injuries on the slopes can be prevented with a well rounded training program. Most often, we see clients who have been injured near the end of the their day of skiing. This is usually the result of fatigue and lack of ability to control body position.
If you train for skiing you will be much less likely to be injured when skiing.
Here are some of the most common injuries we see:
ACL tear
High ankle sprain
Quad strain
AC joint sprain
Whiplash
Spinal injuries
Other ways to avoid injuries on the mountain
Once you have done all the necessary training before ski season there are a few ways to further prevent injury while skiing.
Make sure to warm up and stretch: One of the most common things I see out on the mountain is people getting out of their car and straight into the lift line without any warm up or mobility work. Taking a "warmup run" is not adequate when it comes to warm up. You don't have to take it to the extreme but think of how much warm up an olympic skiing does. Even 10-15 minutes can go a long way.
Take adequate rest between runs: We know you paid a lot for your ticket and you are excited to be up on the mountain, but make sure to take rest between runs. Take some time to stretch anything that got tight or sore from the previous run
Work up slowly: The first few times you go up try and do a half day if possible. Another way is to count the amount of runs you do and slowly work up. You wouldn't go out and run 10 miles after having sat on the couch for months. The same goes for skiing.
Make sure to hydrate: One of the best ways to stay fresh is hydration. Even a couple percentage loss of water leads to a massive loss of force and power production of your muscles. This loss of strength could lead to you getting into a bad position on a run and getting injured.
If you are looking to get a performance and injury prevention evaluation reach out to us. We have a lot of experience with injury prevention programs for a variety of sports including skiing and snowboarding. We have physical therapy clinics in Renton, WA, Seattle, WA, and Bellevue, WA.