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We just had the warmest day of the summer here in Southern Finland, temps rising to about 30 degrees of Celsius (that’s about 86 Fahrenheit for you Americans out there). Lots of people at work were leaving the office for the holidays today, and the day was pretty much spent with un-official festivities (such as drinking sparkling wine and eating strawberries at the terrace); not exactly the kind of day that leaves you missing for winter and snow!

But maybe we all should. How many times have you thought about starting summer training  right now but realised in November that you’ve totally lost your ski legs and gained a respectable beer belly during the summer months?

I wrote some time ago how I constantly look for interesting ski blogs and/or sites (to be added on our blogroll, or just to be mentioned here in the posts).  Recently I was again doing some research and stumbled upon this one: http://winterwonderings.blogspot.com/

Ok, then I browsed a bit through Ian’s texts, and bumped into a series of posts about ski fitness. This information is as basics as it gets – and that’s the greatness of it really. We here at Homeboyski like to keep things simple and stupid…meaning that we are willing to offer very basic “how-to” information for anyone interested in the sport of skiing. So, this time I feel the best way to do this is to link straight to Ian’s ski fitness posts:

1. The most important ski muscles

2. Legs

3. Core 

4. Arms

The author in trouble…having some leg muscles, especially hamstrings, would probably have helped here!

 Ian’s posts are indeed very basic stuff. But in the end getting shape for skiing isn’t that complicated. Pick up a muscle group, work it, rest a day or two, train another muscle group…repeat say three times a week. And vary your program once in awhile, like in six weeks periods. I am 100% sure if anyone starts this NOW, he/she will be more than ready to hit the slope in the early winter.  

Also, people (skiers) usually seem to be very fascinated about the nuances of ski technique. While the truth is that being in shape just helps so much too. Having finessed tehnique is always a great thing but e.g. “powering” through difficult conditions has nothing wrong with it (in  my humble opinion of course). In the end  power often equals technique and vice versa. Think any very strong skier and I wonder if you disagree with me?

I have been a mountain biking guy for years and biking is good for your general fitness for sure. I still feel that some weight/strenght training wouldn’t hurt – and I always promise to myself to start the weight training earlier than before but usually only do just a short period of gym training in the late autumn. Reading Ian’s texts hopefully motiovates me to start a bit earlier this year?

So, Enjoy the summer but don’t forget that winter is just behind the corner. Starting training now would probably be better idea than e.g. buying tons of new gear that actually won’t get you any better! (yes, I know, easier said than done…)

Sooner than you think it is (hopefully) going to look like this and up you must go…and drinking beer  and eating nachos won’t help you with any peak-topping stamina!