All right!
In a previous video, we talked about rotation in the sense of mobility. With skiing, rotation skills are a critical factor, so we want to practice lots of different variations of rotation because essentially in skiing unless you’re going straight down the hill, there’s rotation in almost everything you do. If you’re doing bumps it’s lots of rotation, all kinds of different skiing styles involve huge amounts of rotation. Yet, very few people train it.
I’m going to show you a few different drills that you can do.
One, we did in a previous video which is cross your arms here, turn as far as you can on each side, try and identify where you have restrictions, and start to improve the ability to connect those muscles. That’s the most basic level. I’m going to show you a couple of different ones with the swift ball here. These are amazing tools and this first one is called an upper-body rotation. So we’re going to roll it to our shoulder blades right here, our hands up here, and then we’re going to rotate side to side keeping the hips stable.
By doing that very similar to this but now we have the forces acting in a different area, in a different direction.
We’re challenging our brain and body to connect more effectively.
So that’s the upper body one. Now I’m going to do a lower-body rotation using the ball and this is one flying on the ground. I can bring the ball between my legs, hands out to the side, and drop down to the side on each way.
Another rotation exercise is to add resistance using a band.
So on this one hand in front again keeping the hips stable, rotating the upper body back and forth. Our goal is to separate the upper and lower body so we can control using the muscles. And that’s going to transfer directly into our skiing. Rotating one way, rotating the other, and then I would flip the direction and pull from the other side.
There are a lot more exercises for better rotation skills we can do that would be fantastic, but these ones will give you a good start.
If you want more advanced ones, check out our youtube channel.
Message me, I am happy to show you extra exercises.
Make sure to check out our on-demand Functional Movement Foundations workshop! It’s your ticket to a fun, fit, and strong ski season. And it’s 50% off with this promo code: SkiFit50
