Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding, written by former PSIA Alpine Team member Chris Fellows and Douglas Kechijian, offers guidance for a fitness training regimen that promotes improved movement and body longevity for snowsports instructors. It’s available to members as a free digital edition.
Here, Fellows shares why the book is an essential resource for both off-season training and for staying in shape while you’re skiing and snowboarding throughout the season.
Q: How does this book provide guidance during the season?
A: There are a lot of tried-and-true exercises good athletes have used forever, which are based on good fundamentals, especially if you’re making precise movement patterns that are transferable to skiing or snowboarding. You’ve got to like what skiing and snowboarding require you to do. But once you get really good at something, you’ve got to change it up – maybe the speed or the weight, or the type of exercise, or the plane of motion you’re working in.
Q: This book was written for the off-season, so how do you adapt it for in-season?
A: Right now, I’m reading a book titled Antifragile. It’s more of a book people read for business school, but it talks a lot about weak systems. And the reason they’re weak is because they do the same thing over and over. So hypothetically, they’re getting better. But in reality, they’re not really breaking things down and starting from scratch and having to rebuild again. The author’s concept is that whatever system it is – the body system, or business, or education – there needs to be a point in that system where you have to let it be rebuilt again. Whatever the season, or point in your life, you have to be willing to start again.
Q: How can someone incorporate this book into their ski and snowboard season?
A: That can be hard, because we all get into our season, we’re working a bunch of days in a row, we’re tired, and getting to the gym’s a pain. I don’t think we give ourselves enough recovery days and working exercise into our busy season schedule is difficult. My workout of choice is aerobic exercise in a pool.
Q: How can members use this book right now to get better prepared for the rest of the season?
A: The cool thing about the book is that there are QR codes for every exercise. There’s also a playlist at the end of the book that includes all the exercises. So you can go to the gym and then play the ones you want on your phone. That’s an easy way to do it. You don’t even have to carry around the book. You just have to be ready to commit to doing the exercises.
The author and his family at Sugar Bowl, California. From left: Jenny, Heath, Monique, Colter, and Chris.