SportsGeezer

Five Tips to Getting in Shape for Ski Season

Geezer is discouraged to recall that serious skiers start getting in shape for the snow a good two months before it falls. But then, few people would describe Geezer as a serious skier. He does, however, talk a serious game, and he does, on occasion, pass along useful information, such as these five tips on how to get in shape for skiing offered by Marc Cirigliano in First Tracks, Online Ski Magazine.
1. General Conditioning: On Monday, Wednesday and Friday do the following: 15 situps, 15 crunches, 15 pushups (bent-knee   are ok). Lay on back and do:  4 alternate knee to chest (hold for 20), 4 raise   one leg and use arms to pull to stretch hamstring. Lie on side and do:  15 leg raises, turn over and do other side.2. 2. Agility: Also on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, do:  4 X 20 yds. of running backwards, 4 X 20 yds. (in each direction)   of side-shuffling, and 5 (each way) turning hops (stand with feet together,   jump and turn 180 degrees, landing with balance) . Try to do all of these on   soft grass or a wooden floor—and always inspect the surface you use for holes,   bumps or other irregularities in order to avoid injury
3. Aerobic Conditioning: On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, do:  15 minutes of exercycle, stairmaster or 15 minutes of   easy jogging on a treadmill, track, running path or mini-trampoline.
4. Anaerobic Conditioning: After your Aerobic workout, rest for five minutes, then:  Do 5 intense high   speed bouts for 15 seconds (with 1 minute rest in-between) using whatever aerobic   exercise you used.5. Leg Work: On Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday, do: 15 Step-Downs. Balance sideways with one leg on a step.   With control and keeping knee centered over foot, lower yourself (as if your   “stepping down”) a few inches, then raise up. Repeat 15 times each leg.  After   a week, add another set of fifteen.  By week four, you should be able to do   4 sets of 15.
Read moreon getting in shape for skiing in First Tracks.

Skate Skiing, Or Is it Ski Skating?

It's no wonder that skate skiing is sometimes called ski skating, as it is in this Washington Post headline. It's hard to know which of the two sports is the closer kin. The Washington Post describes the major point of divergence from cross country skiing: Instead of the classic cross-country stride -- right lunge, left lunge along parallel tracks -- skate skiers push their skis out at a wide angle from their torso.  Properly equipped skate skiers also use skiis that are shorter, skinnier and lighter than most cross country skiis. The Post claims that the technique is catching on with recreational cross-country skiers seeking to cover more terrain, get a killer aerobic workout (even at a moderate pace, skate skiers burn upward of 700 calories per hour). Want to know why?   Want to read more about skate skiing?

How to Ski 14ers

If he weren't the two-time extreme skiing world champion, Chris Davenport would have to be crazy. OK, even though he is the two-time extreme skiing world champion, Chris Davenport still has to be crazy to do what he did on his winter vacations. As the New York Times reports, Davenport climbed and skied off the top of each of Colorado’s 54 14,000 foot high mountains, in one year. He finished with three days to spare.
What's it like up there? Davenport described his experience atop the 14ers as “surreal and spiritual."
“It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t stood on top of a summit," he said. "It’s a powerful experience."
Find out just how crazy, or wise, Davenport is in the New York Times.

Skiing the Mountain, and Only the Mountain

Once upon time, before ski resorts turned into theme parks, people strapped on a pair and skied down the mountain. How they got up the mountain depended largely on how much time, money and energy they had. Finally, as Yogi Berra might say, there's place you can go to ski like people used to do. It's called Silverton Mountain, and it's the subject of an intriguing piece in the travel section of the New York Times. The place was created four years ago, the Times reports when Aaron Brill set out to recreate the so-called “club fields” of New Zealand — unvarnished ski areas where a snack shack is considered an amenity. Brill zigzagged around the West until, at road’s end six miles beyond a peeling mining town, he found a whaleback ridge that reaches more than 12,000 feet, gets smothered with 400 inches of snow annually and is zebra-striped with avalanche chutes. Read the rest and catch the slide show in the New York Times.

Five Exercises for Better Skiing

Men's Journal offer its best advice for getting in shape for the ski season, and it consists of five exercises:
1. Single leg Romanian dead lifts
2. Two-way lunges
3 .Single leg calf raises
4. Horizontal pull ups
5.Triple  crunches
For more details, read this.

New Skis: Outside Reviews This Year's Model

For those readers who still believe that the incremental modifications that are required by the marketing departments of ski makers actually have some influence on how well one skiis, Geezer is pleased to present Outside Magazine's 2007 Ski and Snowboard Hot List.  Somebody must buy this stuff, right?

Ski Like a Wild Person: Six Training Tips From Bode Miller

It's possible that slacklining, rock-hopping, and the wheelbarrow push are not part of your daily exercise routine. It's also possible that, if you're a serious downhill skier who is trying get more serious, they should be. The uncommon exercises certainly seem to work for U.S. ski phenom Bode Miller, who, when not apologizing for impolitic comments about drinking is kicking ski butt all over the planet. National Geographic Adventure managed to persuade U.S. Ski Team Head Super G and Downhill Coach John McBride to share six of Miller's training secrets:
1. Slacklining: commonly known as tight-rope walking; for balance.
2. Rock hopping: hopping from rock to rock; for agility and explosive power.
3. Single let squats: with and without ski poles for balance; for power.
4. The wheelbarrow push: 50 pounds uphill; for endurance and dynamic control.
5. TV sits: squats with back to wall; for isometric power.
6. Downhill walk: carry 30 pounds in backpack and walk or jog; for eccentric loading.
Get the details here.

The Ultimate Winter Workout

No. In Geezer's mind, the ultimate winter workout is not a Winter Adventure Race. A Winter Adventure Race would be, in Geezer's mind, more like the ultimate bid for near-catastrophic pain and suffering, in the name of good fitness fun. More cautious readers--those whose instinct for survival is still largely intact--might consider forgoing the Adventure Race in favor of an Ultimate Winter Workout like that presented in Outside magazine. In that piece, ski writer Evelyn Spence turns for advice to Steve Higgins, a 46-year-old former pro cyclist who spent the winters of 1990 to 1994 as a coach for the U.S. Ski Team. Higgins--and Spence, apparently--have discovered a kind of seasonal hall of fitness mirrors, in which cross country skiing is used in the winter to prepare one for biking in the summer, and biking in the summer is used to prepare one for cross country skiing in the winter. OK, it's most successful preparation may be for not being here now, but Geezer is comfortable in negative space. He suggests that skeptical readers at least check out this quick description of the workout before opting for the Winter Adventure Race.

Five Sick Ski Videos

There are many athletic endeavors that Geezer would rather watch than do, but only because he can't do them. Never could. Never will. One of those endeavors is the kind of extreme skiing captured in these films, taken from a list of nominees for Powder Magaine's 2006 Powder Video Awards
These links will get you to teasers for the following films.
Waiting Game
The Tangerine Dream
Booter Crunk
Hit List
Teddybear Crisis
To read Powder Mag's complete list of nominess, click here.

Cheap Thrills: Why We Love Them

Why is that, for some people, living dangerously is synonymous with living well? Are those people more courageous than the rest of us, or are they just dumb? The answer, apparently, is none of the above, although it does have something to do with brains. Psychologist Marvin Zuckerman of the University of Delaware lays much of the joy of danger on monoamine oxidase B, an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the brain. The less monoamine oxidase B a person has, Zuckerman argues, the more the dopamine flows, and the more likely he or she is to be a thrill seeker.
Zuckerman's theory is one of several presented in a long piece in Scientific American Mind, which tries hard to rationalize what many people consider irrational actions of thrill junkies. Some researchers have, predictably, dragged genes into the act. In 1996, the piece reports, scientists discovered a gene called the D4 dopamine receptor, which provides the code for a specific dopamine receptor and was thought to be responsible for minimizing the anxiety that normally accompanies risky behavior. People who have this receptor tend to go to excessive measures to get a rush. Other experts reportedly remaind unconvinced of the gene connection. Mind reports that 18 studies done since 1996 have examined the link between its occurrence and thrill-seeking behavior, but only half of them have found any quantifiable connection.
What makes you want to ski off cliffs? The answer may be here. Or here.