Early Season Nordic Skiing Drills
Thanks to the Bridger Ski Foundation the Gallatin Valley has some of the best groomed nordic ski trails in the nation! The snow is finally here (hopefully to stay) and soon the trails will be getting into skiing shape. Early season is the time of year to work on your technique and do some drills. Spending a few minutes at the beginning or end of your ski in the pre-season working on these will help your technique and training throughout the rest of the year. Here are a few ideas for working on your balance and specific strength.

- No-pole skiing: Spend 5 minutes skiing without your poles. This will help you to really focus on your weight transfer which is key to good skate technique. I suggest dropping your poles on the side of the trial and keeping your hands on your hips while you do this drill. Keeping your upper body still will force your weight to go over each foot as you skate side to side.
- Gentle Downhill Balance: Pick an easy downhill to practice your balance on. Try to glide as long as you can on one ski. This will challenge your balance and improve your single leg strength.
- In a pinch (or in case we don’t have great snow) any dryland single leg balance will be helpful for your skiing technique. Try balancing on something unstable like a BOSU ball or practice your single leg balance while bouncing a ball!
Hopefully we’ll have some groomed trails soon and remember to support them by buying a grooming pass to help BSF cover the costs of grooming such amazing trails for us!