Put Your Best Foot Forward: Preseason foot and ankle exercises for skiers
Most people focus their ski training on building powerful legs. That's all well and good, as long as you don't forget the feet. Without a strong platform to stand on, those strong legs will only do so much good.
As the owner of Mountain Sport Fitness, a sport-conditioning studio in Frisco, CO, I am often asked advice about exercises that will improve ski technique. Most people assume that I will suggest a variety of leg and core exercises. They are correct. However, the feet and ankles, which are essential to good skiing, are often overlooked. In fact, the muscles that support the feet and ankles are so important, that I included them in my upcoming book, Open Your Heart With Winter Fitness. Here is an excerpt:
The four most fundamental skills of skiing are Edging, Pressure, Balance, and Rotary. In skiing, the kinetic chain starts in the feet and ankles. If they do not function properly, either due to faulty equipment or poor motor control, the movement continuum that follows up the chain will probably be forced and unstable. The quadriceps will initiate moves that were supposed to start in the feet. Turns will be abrupt, lacking in fluidity. We sometimes call this "muscling" the turn. Many people tend to clench their toes when they feel that they are losing their balance. This merely exacerbates the problem. Clenching the toes narrows your base of support, which in turn will make you less stable. The feet have an enormous supply of proprioceptors in them. Clenching the toes compresses the nerves. When a nerve is compressed, it cannot provide proprioceptive information to the central nervous system. This can wreack havoc on ski technique.
Did you ever notice that if you sprain an ankle, you will repeatedly sprain the same one, every so often? Studies have shown that ankle sprains cause a loss of proprioception. So that ankle you sprained last year has no awareness of the fact that you just stepped into a pothole!
In order for ankle strength and stability to occur, the nerve cells within the joint need to be healthy. The nerve cells, or proprioceptors in the ankle, allow the nervous system to assist in the balance needed for skiing. Injured nerve cells, such as those that occur in a sprain must have their neural pathways retrained, in order to recognize the position of the joint in space.
Here’s the problem. Most of us have not been taught proper biomechanics of the feet. Compounding the problem is the type of shoe we sometimes wear for the sake of vanity.
Re-educating the feet and ankles to work in more functional manner is quite a task, but well worth it in the long run, for both good skiing and good health.
Ankle Alphabets
Take off your shoes and sit on a chair. Draw the entire alphabet in cursive writing with one ankle, then the other.
Toe Arpeggio
Stay seated, with your feet flat on the floor. Begin with your big toe. Lift it off the floor, and let the others follow as if you were playing an arpeggio with your feet. Repeat on the other foot. You may find that it’s easier on one side than the other. The next time you go skiing, see if there is a correlation.
Importance of Ankle Flexion in Skiing
Dorsiflexion occurs when we press the shin against the boot tongues. Plantar flexion happens when we lean back against the boot cuff. In some cases, skiers who have limited dorsiflexion will find themselves sitting back on the skis, feeling a good quadricep burn. Lack of dorsiflexion can cause misalignment of the tibia. This, in turn may effect the alignment of the femur and the integrity of the knee may become compromised. As we get older, our range of motion in dorsiflexion diminishes. The Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital in Kaohsiung, Taiwan performed a study where they discovered that dorsiflexion actually increased pelvic floor activity. The pelvic floor is responsible for stability, so this should be a good motivating factor for performing dorsiflexion exercises. If you would like to keep skiing long enough to finally get a senior citizen discount, practice dorsiflexion exercises at least once a week!
Dorsiflexion Exercises for Skiers
Toe Lifts
- Place your feet under a couch or table and lift up, pressing the top of your feet into the immovable object.
- Another excellent ski-specific way to work your dorsiflexors is to stand at the apex of an inclined step, such as the type that is used in step aerobics classes. Curl your toes towards your shins. You can also do this outdoors at the top of a hill!
Stability Ball
The next exercise requires a stability ball and a Theraband.
- Sit on the ball with your legs facing a doorway.
- Tie a loop at one end of a thera-band
- Put your foot through the loop, keeping the band at the arch
- Tie a knot at the other end of the band
- Shut the knot in the door
- Move backwards until the band feels taut
- Inhale to prepare
- Exhale as you pull your toes towards your face
Perform 10 repetitions with a straight leg and 10 with a bent knee. Then switch legs.
Inversion and Eversion Exercises for Edge Control
Inversion and Eversion are the movements of the ankle that assist in edge control.
Eversion
Sit on one chair facing another chair. Place your feet inside the legs of the second chair. Place your hands outside your knees for stabilization. Press against the chair legs with your feet.
Inversion
Sit facing a chair with your feet on the outside of the chair legs. Place your hands outside your knees for stabilization. Press against the chair legs with your feet.
Bosu Training
The Bosu is an excellent training tool for the foot and ankle. Try this:
Perform ‘edging’ movements by shifting weight onto the big toe of the left foot, and the pinky toe of the right. Reverse directions. Then, stand slightly to the right of the bull’s eye. Shift your weight towards the right pinky toe, and then back to neutral. Repeat on the left side of the bull’s eye, shifting towards your left pinky toe.
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