Health & Fitness: Training for ski season (from LA Monitor)

Health & Fitness: Training for ski season

KIM LAZARUS, D.C. Special to the Monitor

With the hopes of a good ski season, training now will pay off later. Some of the areas you want to focus on when training for the ski season are balance, lateral movements, flexibility and strength training. Explosive exercises like plyometrics are also good training.

Downhill skiers turn with lateral movements that involve many muscles from the hips to the ankles. Being able to compensate for these obscure movements involves the ability to bring the muscles back to a neutral position.For example, if you were to run and suddenly fall into a small hole, would you twist your ankle or would your muscles compensate and return back to neutral without injury?

The ability to do this is called proprioception. Proprioceptive training involves exercises that have a wobble factor to them. A wobble board, theraball and a foam roller are a few examples of devices that can be used for these exercises. When a muscle gets challenged to compensate for imbalance, the properly conditioned muscle seems to gain an ability to compensate when put under pressure.Flexibility training can be important in the prevention of a strain syndrome. When a muscle is under stress in its contractile state and cold weather becomes a factor, a muscle tightens up, pulling on the tendon, which can cause tearing.

Because you are sitting on the chair lift in between runs, the tendency is to tighten up. Moving your legs while on the lift may help keep blood flowing to them. Proper supplementation and staying hydrated can also assist in the prevention of injuries.Strength training for the arms and legs is critical. Two leg workouts per week at least two months prior to the start of ski season is recommended. Squats, lunges, extensions and leg presses are a few good strengthening exercises.

A personal trainer could be extremely helpful in organizing a good program for preseason training.When strength training is combined with speed and agility training, a skier will add explosive power to their skiing. Interval training and plyometric exercises are examples of this type of training.Plyometrics are exercises that involve quick, explosive moves and may be mixed with more moderate cardio types of moves to achieve higher performance for the skier.Other exercises that have been used include wall sitting. This exercise is an isometric exercise to strengthen the thighs. Lean against the wall with your back flat to the wall and slide your back down the wall. Your feet should remain about shoulder width apart and out away from the wall. When you slide down, make sure your feet are out in front of you and your knees do not extend over your feet. You will feel your thighs burn within the first minute.

Strengthening the shoulders, arms and abdominal muscles will keep your balance in tact as well as preventing fatigue throughout your ski day.No off-slope conditioning is as good as the actual art of skiing, but your ski season will be more rewarding if your physique is conditioned prior to the season. Now is the time to get started!

Dr. Kim Lazarus is the co-owner of the Los Alamos Fitness Center and a local chiropractor.

More Tremblant Details

I've been looking into flights, and prices out of the NYC area on the Friday before MLK weekend are a little high, for such a short flight. I am thinking I might just fly up there Thursday night, using frequent flyer miles, and return a little earlier on Jan 15. As a practical matter, it means the schedule for me would problably look like

Jan 11 Thursday (evening) fly/drive to Tremblant
Jan 12 Friday ski
Jan 13 Saturday ski
Jan 14 Monday / MLK (mid afternoon) drive/fly back to NYC

I am going to call them to find out what rates/availability are for in village suites or condo's are like. Hopefully not many Americans will be up there so holiday rates and crowds will be kept down. I'll revert back, but I'll probably look for a two bedroom suite.

Arv

PS: here's a picture of mid Vail as of today which was a place we often had lunch during our last trip there

Can you identify the movie?

Ray, people will ski Ray. They'll come to Mad River for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up in the parking lot not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at the single chair as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you ski, you'll say. It's only $35 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and trees they lack. And they'll ski Paradise; hit the woods all afternoon. They'll find some glades and fresh track,. And they'll ski bumps and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic powder. The snow will be so deep they'll have to brush them away from their faces. People will ski Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been Mad River Glen. America has rolled by like an army of groomers. It has been groomed to cordouroy, tracked up and groomed again. But Mad River Glen has marked the time. This mountain, this single chair: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will ski Ray. People will most definitely ski.

From an amusing thread over on epicski.
http://forums.epicski.com/showthread.php?t=40868&page=2

Colorado sees early snowfall

WINTER PARK, Colo., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Colorado had an early snowfall in thehigh country over the weekend, getting residents revved up for ski season, KMGH-TV in Denver reported.Winter Park saw heavy snow Saturday, good news for Winter Park Ski Resort. Although the resort does not open until mid-November, the snow is a sign thatcrowds will be back soon." Oh yeah. There's a lot of people who start jumping up and down and breakingout their skis and tuning up their equipment for sure," says Darcy Morse,spokeswoman for Winter Park Ski Resort. Steamboat Springs got about six inches of snow Saturday. The Colorado Department of Transportation had snowplows out, but said verylittle snow was sticking to the roads.

Some descriptions of Tremblant (lots of click throughs)

I hope these whet your appetite a little bit for our winter jaunt to Tremblant:

This is a pretty good description from FirstTracks
First Tracks on Tremblant

And here is Ski magazine's puff piece
Ski mag on Tremblant

More puffery about honeymooning there, but a nice picture
Revisiting Tremblant

And of course, it wouldn't be complete without a comparison to the Whistler of the East
Whistler of the East

Ski Trip 2007 ?

A few of you have started to inquire about possible ski trips in 2007, so here's some quick thoughts on this.

As most of you know, I'm getting married in March of 2007 (details forthcoming) and that will affect future ski trips in a variety of ways. I'm going to be using up a chunk of vacation time for a honeymoon, which generically reduces 07 season ski travel, but hopefully we can fit in a trip in the early part of the season.

These jaunts are truly one of the highlights of the year for me, and I don't want to end this ancient and honorable tradition, so I hope people can still find the time/resources for a compact adventure. It's always been appreciated how much people have sacrificed and juggled their lives around to get to these ski revivals.

I hope we can still reunite for an extended weekend in the first half of the season. Hypothetically, what do you guys think about

Martin Luther King Weekend
January 12 - 15, 2007

I'd like to meet at an easily accessed mountain, and stay ski on/ski out, even if we'll pay for that privilege. For a short trip, I begrudge the air/ground travel time even more than normal. I once had a great trip to Mont Tremblant in Quebec and would suggest that, although there are other mountains that meet the requirements. For a place that is not so far away , it feels remarkably European. Tremblant's village is probably more festive (and couples friendly -- even for non skiiers) than the places we usually go to. So consider this an opportunity to bring along significant others, whether they ski or not. We had a great time on the last ski trip to Canada when Guano brought his bitch, Midnight, along for the ride. She was a Very Good Girl and didn't snoop in the trash once.

Here's their official web site - Tremblant link

Anyways, let me know what you all think.

Okemo owners to switch to 'green' energy

Joining the trend of other ski areas in going to renewable power. I'm not sure what this really means other than flaunting moral superiority. Until people really want to live lower energy consumption lifestyles (less travel, less imported goods, smaller houses, just generally less of everything) none of this is really going to make a material dent in energy usage. But I guess it helps for marketing or something.

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Okemo owners to switch to 'green' energy

August 19, 2006

By Johanna Sorrentino
Southern Vermont Bureau

LUDLOW— When it comes to addressing the worldwide problem of greenhouse gas emissions, Okemo Mountain Resort Owner Tim Mueller said, you've got to start somewhere.That's why Mueller and wife, Diane, are purchasing enough renewable energy certificates from Sterling Planet, a retail renewable energy provider, to power all the electrical needs of their three ski resorts, which include Okemo, Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado and Mount Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire."It's the New York Cities, not the Ludlows and Crested Buttes, that are the real problem. What we can do is small," he said. "It's about setting examples, rather than making an impact."By purchasing power from the national grid using the certificates, the Muellers are investing in the renewable energy sources provided by Sterling Power.Sterling Power provides energy through a variety of sources, including solar, wind and methane gas.The Muellers requested certificates for wind power. Tim Mueller said it is easy to invest in wind power because so much of it is available. He supports its use as a source of energy.Vermont needs to look more closely at possible locations for wind farms, he said. Though aesthetics is a concern at some locations, he said, if something isn't done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the alternative will look even worse."Everyone wants to be green, but as soon as someone proposes something it gets shot down," he said.Mueller said he and his wife chose to purchase certificates, rather than build their own turbines, because "there are people that do that a lot better than we could."The Muellers will purchase 27 million kilowatt hours of Sterling Planet's renewable energy certificates through a contract they signed with Gunnison County Electric Association, a member-owned, nonprofit cooperative located in Colorado.Mueller said snowmaking demands the most amount of energy. The lodges are heated with oil and propane in the eastern resorts and with natural gas in Colorado.He said Okemo Mountain uses the most amount of energy because it is larger than the other resorts.Though Mueller would not disclose how much money the three resorts are spending on the certificates, he said it is roughly 15 percent more than what they were spending on electricity previously.Public Relations Director Bonnie MacPherson said the volume of renewable energy the Muellers will be using will prevent an estimated 18,800 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.Recent surveys of resort guests have indicated a growing sensitivity to environmental issues, she said. "People want to spend their money where renewable energy is supported," she said.Some of the money the Muellers are spending on energy certificates for Crested Butte will be used to help develop wind power in Colorado through a collaboration between the Colorado Governor's Office of Energy Management and Conservation and Sterling Planet. Mueller said there are no such collaborative programs exist in Vermont because there are so few sources of wind energy in the state.Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, said Okemo is the only resort in Vermont hat uses its own funds to purchase energy certificates.Because of erratic weather patterns in the past few seasons, which have been linked to global warming caused by greenhouse gases, resorts are starting to take more seriously the consequences of relying on conventional energy, Riehle said."It's whatever we can do to help," he said.Riehle said it is too early to tell which options for supporting renewable energy will prove most attractive to resorts. "The biggest hurdle is the expense," he said.

Contact Johanna Sorrentino at johanna.sorrentino@rutlandherald.com

The new SKI magazine just hit the mailbox

I'm looking forward to kicking back and reading it over a lazy Labor Day weekend.