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Archive for » October, 2009 «

Ski Sports and Supplements

Use of supplements to enhance physical attributes in sports is now a regular occurrence and Ski sports is not an exception. A sport that involves lot of sustenance and muscle strength, nutrition plays a great role in maintaining longevity of the sportsperson in the arena. Helping a ski professional in this are the nutritional supplements. No longer considered unhealthy, a sport supplement can act as an instrument to achieve the desired results in a shorter period of time. However, there is a risk attached to it in the form of over-dosage and side-effects which we will look at shortly.

There are quite a few supplements that are doing rounds in the market claiming to enhance muscle strength and body toning. Notable among those are Anavar, Deca Durabolin, and Winstrol.

Deca Durabolin is an injectable-steroid and is known to have delivered impressive results in building muscle mass. Often used with other steroids like Tren, Deca Durabolin produces enough progestin to build muscle mass without resulting in estrogenic side effects. Results have also shown that it helps in collagen synthesis and weight gain in athletes which is rather good news for those with connective tissue problems. A steroid which eases joint pains is always beneficial to the demanding schedule of a ski professional. Due to its long active life, Deca Durabolin needs to be taken only once a week and is rather inexpensive as well. Overall, a popular steroid that works well for Ski sports.

Winstrol, on the other hand, is one of the inexpensive drugs on market but suggests caution while using. Winstrol is known to have induced severe side-effects like hepatic damage (liver-toxic), sore joints and cardiac hypertrophy when taken in excess. However, when induced in right dosages, Winstrol is known to have given good results in strengthening muscles and physical toning. It is also reported to have high nitrogen retention and protein synthesis which is a desirable result for ski professionals.

Anavar, the expensive version of Winstrol, is a less harmful and more effective supplement for ski sports. Professionals looking to maintain a particular weight would benefit immensely with the intake, also gaining a good-looking physique in the process mostly due to the gain in strength. The only side-effects of Anavar that have been reported till date are slight weight gain if any, and temporarily enlarged clitoris in women. These are again mild in nature and go away with time. Anavar is available in oral form and the dosage is high if used in isolation which is often not recommended.

The key to using the sports supplements like Anavar and Deca Durabolin is correct dosage and ample information about the constituents of the steroid. Nothing can be closer to truth than the bare fact that a better informed athlete is a healthier one!

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Alpine ski

Like all skis, the aboriginal aerial “downhill” skis were little added than adored planks of wood. Eventually metal edges were added to bigger anchor the snow and ice of a ski aisle and for durability. Decline ski architecture has acquired into abundant added adult technologies. The use of blended materials, such as carbon-Kevlar, fabricated skis stronger, lighter, and added durable. In the backward 1980s and aboriginal 1990s, spearheaded by Elan, manufacturers began bearing emblematic “shaped” skis (when beheld from aloft or below, the centremost or “waist” is decidedly narrower than the tip and tail). Virtually all avant-garde skis are fabricated with some amount of ancillary cut. The added affecting the aberration amid the amplitude of the tip waist and tail, accompanying with the breadth acerbity and camber of the ski, the beneath the “natural” axis radius. Skis acclimated in decline chase contest are continued with a attenuate ancillary cut as they are congenital for acceleration and advanced turns. Slalom skis—as able-bodied as abounding recreational skis—are beneath with a greater ancillary cut to facilitate tighter, easier turns. Abounding ski manufacturers characterization skis with their architecture about-face ambit on the top. For a antagonism slalom ski, they can be as low as 12 meters (40 ft) and for Super-G they are commonly at 33 meters (108 ft). However, for off-piste skis there is a trend against added skis to bigger float on top of crumb snow. These agency skiers accept a huge ambit to accept from depending on alone needs and application.

The ski is angry by applying pressure, circling and bend angle. If the ski is set at a bend the bend cuts into the snow, the ski will chase the arc and appropriately about-face the skier; a convenience accepted as abstraction a turn. While old ancient “straight skis” which had little ancillary cut could carve turns, abundant leg backbone was appropriate to accomplish the astronomic burden all-important to angle them into a arced appearance for carving, a appearance alleged “reverse camber”. Now, if a modern, hourglass-shaped ski is agee on to its edge, a gap is created amid the arena and the average of the ski (under the binding) as alone the abandon abreast the tip and the appendage blow the snow. Then, as the skier acclaim applies pressure, the ski aeroembolism calmly into about-face camber. Influenced by snowboarding, during the 1990s this abstraction of the ski became decidedly added arresting to accomplish it easier for skiers to carve turns. This makes skiing abundant easier to learn, because the skis about-face with abundant beneath accomplishment if placed on edge. Such skis were already termed abstraction skis, shaped skis, or emblematic skis to differentiate them from the added acceptable straighter skis, but about all avant-garde recreational skis are produced with a ample amount of ancillary cut.

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No Need To Curtsey!

We caught up with Joe Beer to uncover some of his telemarking interests ….

Have you reached a point in your skiing life where you need something new?

A new challenge? A new way of getting about the mountain?

If you and your partner are at very different levels with your skiing, spending time together on the slopes can be difficult. One of you is inevitably bored out of his/her mind and you seem to spend most of the day arguing! One solution is for the more advanced skier to switch to another discipline, re-discovering the challenge of learning to ski through another avenue whilst the other is suddenly delighted to see you struggling and falling over as much as he/she is! Lots of people go down the snowboarding avenue for this reason but why not switch to Telemark?

Telemarking is the oldest form of skiing. You are attached only by a toe binding, so it challenges your balance in a totally different way from alpine skiing. Because you get no support from the front of the boot or binding it’s a great way of finding your centre. The lunging style of the sport makes it physically demanding, so great for fitness. Remember though, some people call it free heeling or downhill cross-country because you don’t always have to Telemark – you can alpine on the kit too! No need to curtsey!

If you already alpine ski finding your way around the mountain is relatively easy provided you don’t mind falling over a bit. But if you want to develop into a real Telemark skier please get some lessons, so many times I’ve seen people struggling about on their own trying to get it and oh dear! They are leading with the wrong leg!

Think of the feelings you get when you’re skiing down your favourite slopes and the way it felt being challenged to get where you are on your normal kit, you get the same buzz out of learning to master bumps, steeps, powder and carving on this new kit. The skis are doing a very similar thing to alpine but the skier is totally different.

I started to Telemark as a new challenge – also because the kit is lighter it’s good for ski touring. Now, however if given the choice I don’t think I can choose between them, they’re just so different and yet the same. The same buzz, the same skills, same skis – just different aches! (Which reminds me to say Tele boots are so much more comfy.)

There are two popular sayings amongst the ski fraternity which sum up the opposing attitudes between the two camps. ‘Free the heel & free the mind’ boast the telemarkers! To which the alpinists retort ‘Fix the heel & fix the problem!’

Why not give it a go and make up your own mind which camp you are in!

Catch up with Joe Beer in Morzine where he runs his own ski school.

Website: alpinelearningcurves.co.uk

For further information visit: -
morzineskischools.com

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Michel Bordet, Mountain Guide in Chamonix

Michel BORDET is a fully qualified UIAGM mountain guide based in the Chamonix valley. Chamonix is located in Haute Savoie, France. Michel Bordet has been a mountain guide for 20 years.

In 1980 Michel commenced his professional training to become a professional mountain guide. Michel always had a great passion for the mountains, this naturally became a way of life.

Michel has worked as a mountain guide all over the Alps, both ski touring and climbing. In the summer months Michel ascends major alpine peaks over 4000 meters high. He has also guided in the Himalayan ranges, Patagonia, Moroccan Atlas mountains and Kilimanjaro. Michel has carried out numerous trekking expeditions.

Keeping an eye on conditions, monitoring the daily snowfall as well as registering past snow layer history gives Michel a better understanding of slope safety.

Michel says …

“I have skied down every slope and every “couloir” in the Chamonix area. I have visited all of the important alpine mountain ranges from Corsica and Mercantour in the Southern Alps to the Tyrolean mountains in Austria. My speciality is the ChamonixZermatt Haute Route as well as the Mont Blanc ski ascent.”

Michel believes strongly that a good Mountain guide must seize the moment when the conditions are naturally good and go!

Michel’s season is long, it starts in December and runs all the way until the start of June, during these months Michel works off piste, ski touring and mountaineering. Michel sees his role as a guide and a teacher where by he shares his mountain experience with his clients, adapting his mountain plans to the abilities of his clients and the conditions equally.

Above all, safety and security are top of Michel’s list.

See Michel below in action in this video

For further information visit: -

chamonixskischools.comtheskischools.com

Website: Michel Bordet – UIAGM

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A brief history of Ski Schools

Ever since Hannes Schneider founded the first ski school in 1922 in St Anton, Austria, the growth of the industry has gone from strength to strength. As the popularity of the sport grew and holiday makers started to travel to the mountains to enjoy skiing as a recreational sport, the need for professional ski instruction grew.

Because of the massive changes in ski equipment technology through the years and the development of snowboarding as a mainstream sport, the techniques that were taught then vary enormously from what you will find today.

Skiing as a sport grew relatively slowly until the outbreak of the Second World War when skiing became a useful form of transport in the fight against invasion, especially in Norway and Finland.

As the sport grew after the Second World War and people once again become more affluent, winter resorts started to establish themselves across Europe and North America. Small towns and villages in Alpine regions transformed themselves from farming communities into major tourist destinations in a short space of time. The demand for skiing instructors grew and local people spent their winters becoming better skiers and gaining employment from the skiing school that established itself in the resort.

In the French winter resorts the Ecole Du Ski Française was established in 1937 by Emile Allais and directly after the war quickly established itself as the dominant force. Linked directly with the government the E.S.F had the advantage of being able to act as one organisation even though it operated out of many different resorts. Today there are over 200 ski schools and 16,000 instructors who work across France in the many winter resorts.

During the last decade there has been a proliferation of skiing schools and private ski instructors in France and the rest of The Alps. With European regulation it is possible to establish a skiing school or work as an instructor providing you have the relevant qualifications. France has some of the most demanding regulations of any country when it comes to ski schools and instructors. Many people want to become ski instructors in France and for this reason, strict demands are placed on anyone who wishes to legally teach skiing in the French Alps or Pyrenees.

The International Ski Instructors Association (ISIA) regulates many countries official ski instructor bodies including those in France, Switzerland, Austria and Great Britain. The purpose of the ISIA is to consolidate the standards of all its member countries to ensure the quality of instruction remains high. The ISIA badge is given to only the highest qualified ski instructors, although in some countries like France and Italy, there are extra stipulations required to be able to teach legally. These include further mountain safety exams and speed tests, usually a slalom race against the clock that requires an athlete to battle their skills against an ex national ski team member, this is one of the toughest tests, requiring great mental, physical and technical ability, the prospective instructor must come within a percentage of the national ski team members time who sets the pace on the day in the ski race course, not for the faint hearted!. In the past this has proven to be controversial although now it is widely recognised as being beneficial for the both the instructors and the clients themselves.

Rob Stewart

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