If you’re a “summer” person, the sight of snow can be like the plague to you. You have a few months to go before the warmer temperatures of 70 plus degrees arrive. However, for many people, it means that it is time to break out the skis and hit the slopes. Did you know your skiing holiday can provide plenty of health benefits too? From working and toning your muscles, to improving your cardiovascular health, skiing does it all.
Skiing requires the ability to keep yourself steady while on a slippery slope. While balancing yourself, you naturally engage your core stability muscles. These crucial stomach muscles, when strengthened, compresses the lower abdomen, and tones your stomach. While going downhill, your posture helps to tone your lower body muscles, particularly the glutes and thighs. Your arms also get a workout as you use your poles to push yourself to move faster and control your direction.
Hitting the slopes also provides an excellent cardio workout. An improved cardiovascular system means elevating your heart rate which increases blood circulation, bringing more nutrients and oxygen to your tissues and helping to remove waste from the body more efficiently. This allows your muscles to draw in more blood and oxygen, which in turn produces more capillaries and allows your muscles to expand, and, in turn, burns up calories quicker. Want to increase your skiing workout? Skip the ski lift and walk up the slope. This will work the heart and lungs and of course your legs, making it a great overall workout.
Skiing has the ability to work all of your major muscle groups, but it places a lot of attention on your inner and outer thighs, hamstrings and buttock muscles. This is mainly due to being in a crouching or squat position as you travel down the slopes. Because of this, it would be a good idea to do a few stretching movements before hitting the slopes. To ensure that you are stretching your body correctly prior to hitting the slopes, you should do a lower leg, hamstring, thigh, lower back, upper back and arm stretch and hold it in the proper position for 40 seconds. Since you will be working your arms using the poles, a few arm stretches would be beneficial as well.
Skiing is also a great way to help you lose weight. According to fitness experts, you can lose up to five pounds during a week’s skiing holiday. Being exposed to subzero temperatures means your body is forced to raise its own body temperature and it does this by burning off even more calories!
Skiing is a great winter activity, have fun but go about it the right way. If you are a beginner, many of the ski resorts have training classes that will prepare you for your first time on the slopes. Whether you’re making it a skiing family trip, or just going solo to have some winter fun, grab your GoPro Hero4 Black Edition HD Action Camera with 32GB Ultra Memory Card and catch it all on camera.