Top Tips from the Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding Guide

Doug Kechijian, co-author of PSIA-AASI’s Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding guide, shares guidance for an indoor fitness training regimen that will promote improved movement and body longevity.

Remember, there’s no time like the present to get started on a fitness plan. As Warren Miller said, “If you don’t start now, you will be one year older when you do.”

Listen to this new First Chair podcast with Kechijian, and get your free digital fitness book. Here Doug shares some of his top tips for staying fit while sheltering in place.

  • This is the time to be adaptable. There are quite a few body weight movements you can find in the Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding guide that don’t require much space. Whether it’s lunges or pushups, there are ways to manipulate each exercise for your level of fitness. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
  • If you can continue to go running, cycling and hiking, while not violating any local guidelines and without compromising your health and safety, there are great psychological reasons for doing so. Just don’t focus on creating the perfect routine.
  • Adversity often serves as an opportunity to work on different things we might neglect, because we don’t have a lot of options. Mobility and stretching can be especially helpful for creating drills that we can use when we get back to participating in the fun alternatives we tend to focus on.
  • There are lots of drills you can easily do at home that are easy as stretching a piece of tape across a doorway, then stepping sideways, and backwards and forwards across it to increase your hip mobility. You just have to take the first step, kind of like driving up to the trailhead before you start skinning or hiking.
  • These are tough times for everyone. But if we do our best to stay safe and follow the guidelines, and exercise, we’ll be in a better place when we get back together to talk about happier things.

Get your Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding guide.