5 Things Your PT Suggests to Stay Healthy This Ski Season

Every winter, we ask ourselves the same question: How many days can I ski this season? 

While snowpack, available PTO days, and sometimes a bit of luck all play a part in achieving your dream number of days on the hill, the biggest factor is making sure you and your body are ready for a full season.

Achieve your skiing goals by being strategic through the season. Photo: Wes Wylie / Tordrillo Mountain Lodge

To help you achieve your goal—whether that’s skiing 10 days or 100 days—we sat down with RJ Spinella, a physical therapist and strength coach currently based in Lebanon, NH, and lauded “knee genie” during his time in Crested Butte, Colo., to get his best tips on keeping you out of the doctor’s office and making turns all winter long.

1. Utilize the Off-Season

Between hanging up your bike helmet, running shoes, or kayak paddle and dusting off your ski boots, take time to work on building up your ski fitness. Even if you spent all summer crushing ultras or clocking major vert on your mountain bike, skiing flexes an annoyingly specific set of muscle groups.

Squats, Romanian deadlifts, lunges, box jumps, and even core exercises like planks and mountain climbers are all key parts of a well-rounded workout routine. Not sure where to start? Our six-week ski prep program has you covered. (No gym? No problem. We also created an at-home version that doesn’t require any equipment.)

For a little extra motivation, many gyms offer ski-specific fitness classes. Surrounding yourself with fellow powder fiends helps get the collective stoke firing and makes those first few reps a little less dreadful.

2. Address Nagging Injuries

Don’t go into ski season nursing a bum knee or annoying ankle that’s been giving you problems since mid-summer (or worse, the end of last season). As much as we might not want to admit it, as we get older, these smaller injuries don’t magically get better on their own. Even worse, they could end up leading to something far more serious.

Go to the PT and get those nagging injuries checked out ASAP. Photo: istockphoto.com

Implement a simple daily mobility routine, like this one that personal trainer Jake Hutchinson put together for us, or book that PT appointment to get any problem areas taken care of so every part of your body is as ready as you are for those first turns.

3. Don’t Let Your Guard Down

Once the lifts start spinning, try to ease into things. Too many injuries happen on groomers or in the kiddie terrain park early in the season (because you totally remember how to land a 360). Before ropes are dropped on your favorite terrain and the powder days start stacking up, stay focused, drive your skis, and don’t let a silly mistake take you out before the going gets good.

Warm up on some easy groomers. Photo: Scott Smith

Even if it’s just for a couple laps in the morning, focus some of your early-season runs on refreshing those core skills that were at their peak last season. And if you do fall? Don’t fight it—do what the best ski racers do and just go down on one hip smoothly and gracefully. Fighting gravity is what ends a lot of athletes’ seasons early.

4. Keep Working on Fitness

As much as you probably don’t want to hear it, there’s no reason you can’t still pay attention to your fitness after the season kicks off. Focusing on your posterior chain throughout the season can help prevent common knee injuries, many of which can be attributed to your quads overpowering your hamstrings and glutes. This is a great workout to do all season long to keep your body in balance.

Romanian deadlifts are a posterior chain's best friend. Photo: istockphoto.com

Aside from workouts, one of the easiest ways to be your best every day you hit the slopes is with a simple stretching routine. We gathered the best dynamic morning and après stretches to not only keep you skiing all the way to closing day, but also make those deep powder days even more enjoyable. 

5. Listen to Your Body

Listening to your body now means you can enjoy the season for longer. Photo: Wes Wylie / Tordrillo Mountain Lodge

What might be another hard pill to swallow—acknowledge when your legs say they’re done for the day. After you have that one run with a few too many almost-lost-it moments, or even before then, it’s okay to say stop. When fatigue sets in, both mentally and physically, that’s when injuries are going to happen. “Two more, skip the last” is a popular saying for a reason. Plus, getting in that post-ski hot tub or sauna sesh after you call it quits for the day isn’t just good for enjoying your après beverage of choice. They also offer great health benefits like improved circulation and muscle recovery to make sure you’re ready for first chair tomorrow.

So get fit and stay fit all winter—because being in proper ski shape puts you on the path to have your best season ever.