Speed:  This is the fun one.  Basketball, soccer, moutain biking, trail running, tennis, swimming, or anything that involves agility, speed, and acceleration/deceleration will work great.  All these things will improve your foot speed and thus, your skiing.  Pick something that you love and do it a lot!

Strength:  Plyometrics are best for the explosive power that you need in skiing.  A very ski specific exercise is lateral jumping.  Start with your weight on your right foot.  Jump as far as you can laterally to your left and land on your left foot.  Now jump from that left foot as far as you can to your right and land on your right foot.  Keep your upper body quiet and in a solid skiing position.  Jumping up onto a box that is at least a foot or so high, then jumping down, then back up and so on for about 20 reps is another great plyometric that relates perfectly to skiing.  There are many other great plyometrics for skiing that can be found at all over the web and here.  Do them!

Balance:  Do everything you can to make your body and core work to balance yourself.  This includes doing squats on a bongo ball or indo board, doing one legged dips, and even performing all of your upper body workout (curls and such) on a bongo ball or indo board or at least doing them all on one foot.  These practices will engage and strengthen your core and improve balance.

Endurance:  A solid base fitness is key in skiing.  It’s simple, if you aren’t in good shape, you’re gonna get tired quick and ski like crap.  To avoid feeling and skiing like feces get out and do some aerobic workouts.  Adding intervals to your workout is key.  Run for 4 minutes, then sprint for 1 minute, run for 4, sprint for 1, and continue.  Aerobic exercise is a pain, so try doing something that your stoked on doing as mentioned in the Speed section.  Basketball rules for this. 

Okay people, it’s October 13th.  Ski season officially starts in about six weeks.  That’s six weeks to get in shape for skiing, eating nothing but Clifbars for lunch, drinking heavily, and calmly explaining your level of radness at Chamois.  Lets get to it!