Expert Q and A: Yoga and Preparing for Ski Season

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Posted on November 17th, 2011

Expert Q and A: Yoga and Preparing for Ski Season

Question: Hi, next winter I'll go skiing for a week, but my legs are not trained for that. Can you advise me on some hatha yoga to help prepare me for skiing?

Answer: Thank you for your question.  Preparing for ski season (like any other vigorous physical activity) is essential. Without ample preparation, the muscles and joints can be jarred with 'sudden' movement-specific loading and forces that you have not been conditioned for.  With a moderate period of pre-season training, you can make the transition into the activity season more enjoyable and likely prevent the onset of acute or chronic injury.

 

Skiing has some fundamental elements with biomechanics:
*requires core strength, coordination, and body awareness
*requires significant conditioning adaptation for the repetitive movement in the knees, hips, spine and ankles
Certain yoga poses and yoga adaptations can assist with helping you in the pre-season transition:
*First work through the various standing sequences like Warrior poses and Chair poses to develop strength in the quadriceps and knees ... you can modify this (to be more specific to skiing) by doing slow, repetitive squatting, chair poses (ideally with arms forward) ... as you bend into your knees in the chair pose, shift your hips to one side (couple inches), rise up, squat again to shift hips the other side - continue this via one breath to one squat movement ... the hip shifts will mimic the natural biomechanics of skiing ... while doing these shifts, keep ample focus on the line of knees insuring that they remain equal and stable
*Work through all variations of balancing to increase core strength and body awareness
-Warrior 3 balancing pose
-Eagle pose
-Seated boat pose
-Balancing Cat
-rising onto toe mounds in Mountain pose
*Establish core endurance with the various core strengthening poses and keep the back strong to counter the repetitive hip flexion/loading on the lower back
-Cat pose
-Plank pose
-Plank on elbows
-side plank on hand or elbow
-Boat pose
-Locust pose / Free hand Cobra pose
-Spinal Lift or Bridge pose
*Develop ample range of motion and joint fluidity
-plenty of twists to prepare the body for the dynamic twists that occur in skiing
-plenty of quadricep/front thigh openers (ie even just one leg quad stretches)
-target the hips and hips flexors (low lunge, pigeon pose, bow pose)
-keep the lower back free and receptive with poses like child's pose, downward facing dog, and standing forward bend
A well-rounded yoga practice will work onto all joint areas helping sustain balance.  However, you can focus on core strengthening and thigh conditioning flows that offer a more pre-season specific degree of conditioning.  Again, you can play with some of the standing poses like Chair pose to mimic the motions of skiing while still retaining the integrity of the practice.
Expert Q & A provided by My Yoga Online teacher and Co-Founder, Kreg Weiss.


Tags: Yoga, injury prevention, conditioning, ski, ski season, training

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