We’ve all heard of people working towards a new image to take away with them on holiday. People obsessing about their ’holiday body’ and the dieting that consumes so much of their lives in the months before their journey; in fact, some of us are guilty of this ourselves! But what if you could achieve that ’holiday body’ while you’re away, and the only work you have to do before you leave is making a booking with one of France’s amazing ski resorts?
Skiing is a breath-taking sport; the landscape is beautiful as you speed down the slopes, filled with adrenaline and desperation to go again the moment you reach the bottom. To ensure you’re in a mesmorising and utterly thrilling location when you ski France is the ideal destination. And, amazingly, a holiday in the snow could make you lose as much as five pounds in one week, without even having to enter a gym.
Due to the exercise that skiing entails and the temperature of your surroundings, you can burn up to 3,000 calories in one six-hour session. Your body naturally reacts to cold by raising its internal temperature. This natural heat is created by expending energy which, in turn, means burning calories; just be careful not to attempt to raise your body temperature further by drinking hot chocolate or eating warm pastries when you are inside your ski chalets, as this will undo all of the hard work your body has achieved.
Your posture when you’re skiing is important, not only for maintaining the correct balance for those sharp turns and speedy descents, but for supporting your lower back and spine throughout the sport to reduce the chances of damage. To protect your spine, your body will naturally work on strengthening your core muscles (the band of muscles around your stomach). Not only does this stabilise your spine, it actually flattens your stomach muscles in the process. Exercising your muscles forces them to take in more oxygen and blood, so that they produce extra capillaries. Throughout this process, your muscles expand, which makes them burn calories more quickly than in their normal state; so the more you exercise, the quicker you will burn calories.
In addition to benefiting your mid-section, a good stance tones muscles in various other places of the body, too. By maintaining the crouching position, you exercise (and tone) your inner and outer thighs, buttocks and hamstrings. You also work your biceps, triceps, lower arms and lower back when gripping your ski poles and steering, so your entire body ends up toned and strengthened.
You don’t have to be a professional to achieve this level of exercise; in fact, beginners have the opportunity to work even harder. If you’re on the beginners’ slope, try walking up instead of taking the ski lift. This exercises your leg muscles and is great cardio, so your heart and lungs are strengthened. By elevating your heart rate you provide your tissues with more oxygen so that they can give you more nutrients and help you remove waste from your body more quickly.
As with any exercise, you must be cautious. It is important to warm up before you ski. When you warm up correctly, you lengthen your muscle fibres so that they are suppler and less prone to injury. It is also recommended that you wait an hour after eating to ski. Your body needs a good blood supply to digest food and by using it to ski you can become nauseated and dizzy, which could lead to you hurting yourself. Skiing is a thrilling, addictive sport; approach it sensibly, and you could gain much more than wonderful memories from a ski holiday.