| The excitement of the upcoming ski season can | | | | following the lead of my resources who urge avoiding |
| inspire us to examine and assess our personal | | | | the machines. |
| physical fitness and agility. We should each have | | | | We start with general loosening and stretching at the |
| annual physical exams to ascertain our current fitness | | | | neck, shoulders, twisting the upper body, hip rotation, |
| for skiing and make sure that we take care of any | | | | and leg shaking. An easy thigh exercise is to do a |
| new developments to prevent exceeding our limits, | | | | partial squat and bounce a little, like cruising over small |
| especially at the higher altitudes at the ski areas. At | | | | bumps. This can be done in the shower and next to |
| home, we can do our own speed agility training | | | | the sink while getting ready in the morning. I have |
| without the use of mechanical devices which tend to | | | | found this to be surprisingly effective. Frequent walks |
| develop the wrong muscle groups for skiing. | | | | or jogs will supplement the exercise routine nicely. |
| For example, when I was racing in school, a favorite | | | | Since different people have different needs, I am |
| pre-season exercise was wall squats which was | | | | referring you to another, more complete set of |
| sitting against a wall with knees at 90 degrees with | | | | instructions for non-machine ski training exercises. |
| back straight for about a minute or more. It was | | | | Michael Geary has written an excellent eBook entitled |
| very painful, and not proper for skiing because it was | | | | "Avalanche Ski Training" which is for sale and includes |
| static instead of dynamic exercise of the upper legs | | | | six appropriate (free) bonus eBooks. I will discuss |
| and knees. Machines don't tend to bend and move | | | | these features more in a subsequent article. |
| the same way as our bodies, therefore I will be | | | | |