11 Jan Pilates for Skiing
By Amanda Fryer-Harris
Is Pilates any good for skiers or snowboarding? My reply to this often asked question is, ‘Why would you not do Pilates to help with your skiing, are you crazy!’
We all want longevity in our sporting lives and life in general, don’t we? If I told you Pilates would help you with your technique, posture, strength, balance, agility, mobility, flexibility, post activity recovery, keep you ahead of your game and oh, I could go on and on… I think you get my point! Surely you would be running to join your first class.
Now for skiers in particular, the whole Pilates system is great. Pilates involves a lot of extension and rotation, which is great as skiing requires you to move your body in ways that you just don’t need to do every day. We’re made to move, and I teach so many skiers.
The Clam is a great one – very much for working on hip rotation and the deeper buttock muscles. It allows the hip and knee to rotate outwards, improving mobility and stability.
Footwork – get the toes to move, as well as the foot muscles and bones of the feet and ankles. Again this helps with mobility and stability. Take your shoes off at home, which makes your feet work harder to maintain balance.
Balance moves – people hate them, but anything people hate is what they want to be working on. Skiing is not an everyday thing, so they should be doing something all year long. Balance moves help you work on stabilizing your spine. I also teach people how to get up in the best way for your body, which you will probably need to do a lot when skiing!
You may have come across the ‘wall sit’, where you put your back against a wall, slide into an imaginary chair position and hold. For beginner skiers, the wall sit can improve leg strength, but you can rely too much on the resistance of the wall for this. At the end of the day you take the wall away when you ski, so try squats from standing, which build strength, mobility and balance using your own body weight.
And I will leave you with the original question I asked… ‘Why would you not do Pilates?’”
This excerpt was taken from an article originally written by Vicki Williams of Mountain Heaven ski chalets in France, who shared these great tips courtesy of Amanda of BodyCorePilates.co.uk. Click here for the full story.
