J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Ranchero_1979

Have to say I completely disagree with statements that suggest that fitness is not important for experienced skiers. Yes if you are doing cruisy skiing or straight lining it then can probably ski forever .

Piste day: Now think about someone skiing a steeper run with moderately aggressive high speed turns. Under these conditions you are heavily loading the outside ski, equivalent to leg a single leg squat of say 75% of your body weight. Now consider you want to ski 60 seconds like this you need to be able to continuously perform single leg squats for that duration and then repeat throughout a day. Am afraid that sort of skiing requires a decent level of both strength and anaerobic fitness.

Offpiste day: Now consider a more adventurous offpiste day with 3-4hrs skin before you start skiing, you need good degree of both leg strength, core muscles strength for your kick turns and high aerobic capacity. You get to the top and find 20cm of powder and medium steep slope which means you cannot just float over the top. This means you have to move 20cm of snow (depth) x 140cm of ski contact and 100cm (areas of disturbance or width) x snow density (we can say 80% air or 0.2g cm3) = 56000g or 56KG. Now each turn you perform you need to able to control body weight + 56kg and that is assuming weight is evenly spread between 2 skis (try squatting 56kg for for a minute straight). Yes new skis have greater buoyancy (that is why fat skis = fresh legs) and gravity helps you move the snow downhill but that is the simple physics of skiing, you cannot just float over the top on all terrain. Is also why the deeper the snow / heavier snow / breakable crust etc. means much more effort is required to ski it.

Of course experienced skiers are much more mechanically efficiency but to suggest fitness is not important is defying logic and physics. You don't even have to trust my calculation, check youtube and the weight lifting and cardio regimes of pros.

Admin: I think rally cars have a hydraulic handbrake and one way traffic allows you to give them a flick.

4x4 cars inherently push on. I had an Impreza in Norway for 3 x years, driven in a legal manner was not a great tool. Absolutely get on last 5 km to Myrkdalen was fun but you cannot drive like that on normal roads. For the yearly winter driving skills course we had to do a Prius performed better, moose swerve, stopping and slippery corner (work car so 20+ drivers back to back). Only area Impreza was superior was going up a greasy metal plate hill.

Normal resort conditions would go with a front wheel drive which is exactly what 99% of locals do.

Of course some people feel a need for a 4 x 4 in London / the school run. If we apply this logic then we will end up with a topic on ski wellies and wax jackets.

As per Yumma: Skoda Octavia Estate (Estate had escaped my mind hence term touring).

4 x 4 cars tend to frankly understeer horribly on slippery roads. They are only useful in deep snow (never seen on roads, anywhere in world) or offroad (you are going skiing not farming). If you can't get up a hill going forward can always reverse up e.g. a driveway. If is worse than that then frankly you should not be on road anyway.

Touring body shape skoda. I would not get hung up about 4wd or not, am not sure it is of any read advantage on roads. Just make sure you get winter tyres.

Les Houches, has some of the best piste skiing in Chamonix and with most of the slopes being East facing it does pretty well for snow. A lot of the valley's permanent residents live down there on the basis of the English school and it being cheaper. You are looking at a bus into town as the train is not particularly convenient to catch in Les Houches. I guess >30% of my piste skiing is done down there, perfect if you just want a few hrs blast. Grand Montets is certainly not the best piste skiing in Chamonix, it just happens to have a very convenient lift for you to access tons of offpiste.
There are plenty of cheap accommodation options in Chamonix itself, Chamonix Sud would probably work well as you have a car. Either way signing up to Chamshare and the Chamonix facebook pages will give you plenty of options.
As for learning French really is upto the individual. If you ask for your coffee in French someone will respond in French. If you ask in English they will respond in English. So like every other town in the Alps you will get out exactly what you put in.

'I didn't understand what you mean by ski fitness ? Is there a fitness state in which you have to be in order to ski safely ?'.

Absolutely I would of thought you had read plenty of research about injuries as a result of fatigue, 'last run of day syndrome'. In addition building strong hamstring and glute muscles are fundamental to knee stability. Pre-habilitation to prevent injury, restore bio-mechanics etc. Bio mechanics are critical for most people; as a child you run, jump etc. in playground. Even an active adult might only go to gym or run on road/treadmill, bike all of which are of limited benefit to learning 'good movement' and improving your proprioception. So yes I would argue all of above are of far more use to protecting your knee than a brace.

Maybe I am being a bit harsh but what a ridiculous concept, skiing is inherently dangerous for your knees. Just don't see how a phone app would have compensated for the lack of technique and co-ordination during my own knee injury. Much easier to imagine what might of happened to the phone when receiving the warning text as I called in a helicopter for recovery :-).

Part of learning e.g. snow plough, non perfect carved turns means you cannot ski stacked so there is likely to be some misalignment between knee, hip and ankle. 99% of people would be continuously receiving text messages.

If you can ski well then at risk behaviour puts you in danger; speed, terrain, jumps, crashing, powder, messing about, lifts etc. All of these place you in same danger as a beginner in not being stacked.

Rupturing a ligament effectively happens when your proprioception lets you down and is instantaneous. Your muscles not reacting correctly to the relative position of your body. The classic example being in the back seat, your thighs are working overtime to pull you back up and your hamstring are not properly activated. This leaves you knee in the hands of lady luck, end up in this position often enough and something will happen.

Since my own injury the only difference in my skiing is that I am perhaps more proactive in falling / bailing, focusing on safe falls versus hero rescues. I also keep my din settings low where safe to do so. When you are skiing well, anticipating terrain is amazing how they don't come off even on kiddy settings. Better to buy an app that improves your ski fitness than a fancy brace.

20cm of powder on glacier at moment, best early skiing in Europe.