Squeezing yourself back into your ski outfit and those ski boots, let alone trying to remember how to ski on the first day of your holiday can be a bit of a challenge, and we all want to try to avoid that Elvis-leg feeling when you get back to the chalet, but, planned right, the first day back can work in your favour if you use it as an active warm up day.
Think of skiing, just like any sport, so that when you restart, you warm up all your muscles and start reminding them of the movements that they need to make when you’re skiing down the mountain!
Breaking it down, these movements include extension and flexion of the ankles, knees and hips, good balance both fore-aft and also laterally and ensuring you engage your core. So, what better way to spend your first few runs, sticking to relatively easy terrain, practising some drills to help these basic movements:
Try basic parallel turning at slow speeds first, whilst exaggerating the bending and stretching movements of your leg joints, making sure that you turn your feet continuously and smoothly all the way round the turn. If you want to start making this a litIle more challenging, try the same movements with your boots undone (power strap included!). When this feels comfortable, try it on steeper slopes and/or at higher speeds.
Next, try to exaggerate your fore-aft balance during this same turn, tipping forward over the front of your skis at the start of the turn and rock back over the tails at the end of the turn, eventually finding the comfortable forward-to-middle position that always should be your base position for good skiing. Remember that your upper body should always be at just in front of 90 degrees to the slope angle.
Finally, you can start to have some fun with some balance exercises; try skiing (and turning!) on one leg, first try turning just on the outer leg each time, and then when you have that one nailed, try turning on the inside leg only. If you want to take it one stage further, try leaving one ski at the bottom of a run (try this on a short run first!), changing the ski over to the other leg half way down. Chair and bubble lifts are best for this; I would leave the t-bars til later in the week!
Don’t forget that the first day back skiing you are probably a good mile or so higher than where you are used to living, so take it easy, so try and drink plenty of water in-between those well deserved gluhweins at the end of the day!
With thanks for this blog to Matterhorn Diamonds, a highly reputable ski school in Zermatt. Offering freeride, freestyle, telemark, and both adult and children’s ski lessons with instruction in English, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.
If you are interested to ski with Matterhorn Diamonds this year in Zermatt then take a browse through our luxury chalets in Zermatt or drop us an email to discuss your requirements in more detail or call us on +44 (0)1202 203650.
