If you're like most footers, you've already booked your reservations at Gliding Soles Barefoot Camp or Ron Scarpa Watersports for Spring Break season.  Now you're worried about getting back into skiing shape so you don't pass out in front of the other students after your first set back on the water.  Here are some simple tips I have learned through the years that have helped me maintain my skiing weight and get back into skiing shape quickly.

One of the most important things to focus on during the off season is physical fitness and eating right. Most people will put on a few extra pounds in the off-season because they continue to eat the same way they did during the summer months while they are burning less calories laying on the couch watching football.  The older you get, the faster those love handles seem to re-appear in the off season.   

While getting no exercise from the water, you must find alternate methods of keeping your body in tune. This means hitting the gym regularly, while keeping up with a good diet. I try to follow a low carbohydrate high protein diet and get to the gym at least 4 days a week.  For those of you that can't make it to the gym that often, try to set a few days aside each week, even if it's only 15 minutes, to get in a workout.  Shoveling snow can be a great workout.  Walking, jogging, dancing, playing basketball, volleyball, or doing doing more traditional exercises such as push-ups, sit-ups or leg lunges is good.  Basically, any exercise that gets your heart and blood pumping is good exercise!

Another very important aspect of off season training is dry land practice. Try to do as much as you can stand, or until you can break a sweat, although it gets boring, I find it helps considerably for muscle memory. 

After a few weeks, traditional weight training can get monotonous, so here are a few different exercises to help keep it interesting.

FOR YOUR LOWER BODY

1. Find a mini trampoline. Stand in the middle with your left leg straight out (as if it were in a toe hold) with your arms straight out.  Slowly drop down as if you were doing a reverse toe up.  Make sure you stay over your foot and don’t let your butt hit the trampoline. Now the tough part, stand back up slowly until you get back to the start position and repeat for ten reps or as many as you can do. Repeat on the opposite leg. Try to do 3 sets.

2. Grab a regular bench and a stop watch. Step up on the bench with your left leg, then with your right. Step down with your left leg, then down with your right. Step up with your right leg, then with your left. Step down with your right leg, then with your left. Repeat as fast as you can for 45 seconds. Try to do 3 sets.

3. Hold a 25 lb dumb-bell in each hand. Lift one foot up behind you by bending your knee to 90 degrees. Slowly bend the leg your standing on until the weights in your hand are lower than your knee then stand back up. Try to do 3 sets of 10 reps each leg. 

UPPER BODY

1. Standard pull-ups work great, but try to focus on the eccentric movement (letting yourself back down) by going really slow. This will help build strength.

2. Seated pulley rows are a great back exercise and help hit the same muscles you use when you're barefooting.

3. Shoulder Shrugs will help with a couple things.  They will help eliminate neck injuries by strengthening your traps, which connect to your neck muscles and keep your head from falling off in those awful head packers. They will also help to build overall shoulder strength.

These are just a few of my favorites, but I am always looking for different exercises to do. If you have found some that work well I would love to hear about them e-mail me.

Brzoza@Barefootcentral.com