• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

Warm-up

BackCountryGirl

Angel Diva
By special request of @MissySki, here is a thread for folks to post their warm-ups.

I usually warm-up (quite literally) with a bundle of GS gates or a bag of slalom stubbies on my shoulder. But once I'm done setting, I'll do a quick run and do:
1. Slow speed shuffle turns. My shuffles aren't too big or too fast, and I focus on keeping my COM moving with my skis. If you try this and find that you can't shuffle in the fall-line or apex, it usually means your skis are ahead of you and you're in the back seat.
2. Pivot slips in both directions. But before I do them, I do this Skills Quest thing that I do with my kids which is a straight run, to a pivot, to a side slip, to a hockey stop with a pole touch. The idea is to stay in a corridor and not move off center (i.e., not drift forward or back after the stop).

My mountain has a ton of flat traverses and unless I'm doing a specific drill, I always practice railroad track turns.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Not really a warmup and not mine, but my instructor told me he does one-legged skiing on all traverses.
Oh my!

When free skiing with someone who is an instructor at a destination resort out west, he liked to side slip down cat tracks. Not slowly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BMR

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Newbie question, what’s the acronym COM?
Yup, COM or CoM is center of mass. Just substitute the term torso for it. That usually works.

Lots of ski instructors get into physics, so CoM appears often. So does BoS. BoS = base of support, aka feet, or skis since they are extensions of your feet.

CoM appears in discussions of how we balance fore-aft over the skis. CoM over BoS = don't ski in the back seat. Ski centered. Place your feet under your torso, not ahead or behind it. Or place your torso centered over your skis, not over the tips or the tails. Remember, the bindings are not in the center, they are back from the center, so getting your CoM over the center of the skis means getting it forward of the bindings. Thus "get forward."

CoM also appears in discussion of how we balance laterally. That brings up how we edge the skis, how we start turns, and how we get them to grip. You'll hear that you need to get your CoM to move across skis when between turns. Yep, you will need to do that. Many ways to do it. You'll hear "CoM inside the turn" meaning your torso is to the side of both skis, inside the circular path of the skis. Getting it there is part of the process of starting a turn. It switches sides with every turn. How far inside relative to the surface of the edged skis determines how much grip or slip you get. Now that discussion can get really technical.

Upshot: The term CoM appears in discussions of fore-aft balance over the skis, leaning-in, angulating, how to start the new turn, how to edge the skis, how to get skis to grip on hard snow, and various other things. Just substitute torso and you'll be in the ballpark.
 

newbieM

Angel Diva
Thanks! I wasn't familiar with the acronym and I appreciate you taking time to explain it @liquidfeet! I've been working hard on getting my COM in the right place and I feel like I improve each time in leaps and bounds, the first time I was doing so much back seat skiing and this time I really only caught myself a few rare times.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
My warm up is a green run, where I do a series of exercises similar to @BackCountryGirl. Foot shuffle, bouncing in my boots to loosen things up and a Kathy Prophet special, that we called boom, boom, Lulu. I call it bounce, bounce, whoosh. (And not after our member here, it just worked that way.) Standing up as you move towards the end of the arc, you bounce (or hop really) X2. Land and tip the skis...You're balanced and ready to move in/or over the skis and down.

Then a few zoomer wide arcing turns to scare the beginners...
 

SarahXC

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
A fun warm up I was introduced to this year: Ski a half dozen pivoty flat ski turns, ski a half dozen weight transfer “walk” or “bicycle” the weight from foot to foot turns, ski a half dozen carved tipping the ski turns, ski the rest of the run integrating the techniques that feel best for that day’s terrain and conditions. Reflect on what turns worked best for you that run and why.
 

Pequenita

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
My current first run is (with all boot buckles latched but not tightened): one-legged skiing on the flattish things, or skiing with the tip of one ski down and the tail up before switching sides; a couple of 360s in each direction to see if my edges are working; short turns, medium turns, and then making as many turns as possible on this pitch that my friend calls the “thighburner.” I think she calls it the thighburner because she is on tele. Like @SarahXC, I’ll do a few weight transfer things when I’m on a flat going to the lift.

Although if there’s fresh snow, I just go to wherever I think it’ll be the most fun and hope I’ve got some muscle memory.
 

MrsPlow

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Although if there’s fresh snow, I just go to wherever I think it’ll be the most fun and hope I’ve got some muscle memory.

Yes, no friends and no warm-ups on a powder day! :smile: I find the first few turns in fresh snow tricky, I like a chance for a warm-up run whereas powder means going hell for leather from the get-go. I'm usually ok by half way down the first lap but I do envy people who can go from zero to charge straight away.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
26,233
Messages
497,561
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top