The snow is already falling out West and up North, and we all are in the mental “can’t wait” mode. But are you ready physically? Have you adjusted or beefed up your pre-season exercise routine for the extra endurance, balance and burst power you need – all at once, starting on the first run of the season?

Here are some tips to start or adjust your pre-season exercise routine from a longevity and exercise expert, because most early season injuries don’t come from the mountain – they come from the gap between what your body could do last April and what it can do in November or December.

Longevity and exercise coach James Verlander offers this self-test you can do at home in about 20 minutes with a chair, a stopwatch, a suitcase, and a flight of stairs. He recommends that you do them in order, write the numbers down, and let them set your training plan until the resorts open.

1. The 30-second chair stand

Sit in a kitchen chair with arms crossed over your chest. From a full sit, stand all the way up and sit back down as many times as you can in 30 seconds, keeping good form.

Active senior skiers should get a count in the mid-teens. Under 10 means your legs don’t have the base for back-to-back ski days, and quads that quit by noon is how knees get hurt. Below 8 is a training emergency.

2. The grip squeeze

Grip is the cheapest whole-body strength check there is, and clinics use it exactly that way. A hand dynamometer costs about $25, or you can get a rough read at any gym with a gripper.

Widely used clinical cutoffs put “low” at under 27 kilograms for men and under 16 for women, roughly 60 and 35 pounds. If you’re near or under those numbers, your issue is systemic strength, not ski-specific conditioning.

3. The 10-second stork stand

Stand on one leg, hands on hips, and see if you can hold 10 seconds without putting the foot down or grabbing something. Then do the other side. For skiing specifically, balance is the skill that fades first and comes back slowest. Fail this test and daily balance work, two minutes per leg, belongs in your plan before any strength work.

More incentive -a 2022 study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that middle-aged and older adults who failed this simple test had meaningfully worse health outcomes over the following years.

4. The four-flight test

Climb four flights of stairs at a steady pace and time yourself. Staying under about a minute without stopping to gasp is a decent proxy for the kind of aerobic capacity that lets you finish a run without exhaustion.

If you need two minutes or a rest at landings, the limiter is your engine, not your legs, and you should invest in easy cardio: 30 to 45 minutes, 3X a week, at a pace where you could still hold a conversation.

5. The five-rep power clock

From the same chair, no arms, stand up and sit down five times as fast as you can with control.

Over 15 seconds is a common flag for fall risk in seniors, and it maps directly onto the moment that hurts skiers: catching an edge late in the day when your reactive pop is gone.

Between 10 and 15 seconds, you’ll ski fine on groomers but feel it on moguls and trees. Under 10, and you have the burst reserve demanded by the steep stuff.

Reading your results

Whatever tested worst is what you should train first, because the five deficits stack: no engine makes weak legs expensive, and no balance makes strong legs risky.

A simple month: box squats or slow chair stands 2X a week for legs, farmer carries with that suitcase for grip, daily stork stands with your eyes closed once the floor version is easy, and the easy cardio above for the engine.

Add lateral hops and step-downs in week three only if the power test passes. Retest everything after four weeks.

One honest caveat: these tests just screen your strengths and weaknesses, they don’t diagnose. Any sharp joint pain, numbness, or a big left-right difference on any test is a sign to see-a-professional sign, not a sign to change your pre-season training-plan.

But if the numbers come back even and the chair stand is in the teens, you’re closer to first-chair ready than most people on the lift, and you found it out for the cost of 20 minutes and a stopwatch, or the smartwatch on your wrist.

Find more exercise advice on James Verlader’s weebsite, Hacked Self.

• Author
• Recent Posts

Evelyn Kanter

Evelyn Kanter is a NYC-based travel and environmental writer and a senior skier who would rather ride a chairlift, river raft or zipline than the subway, and has done so in the more than 100 countries she’s visited, skiing in many of them. In what she calls a “previous life”, she was a TV and radio news reporter for ABC News and CBS News, now a regular contributor to major publications, including airline inflights and AAA magazines, and has written or contributed to more than a dozen travel guidebooks.Her latest are “100 Things to Do in NYC Before You Die”, Fodor’s Essential Germany and Fodor’s New York City. Evelyn's website is www.ecoxplorer.com

Latest posts by Evelyn Kanter (see all)

• What’s New in Colorado for the 2026/27 Season - November 4, 2026
• RIP to Ski Legend Genia Fuller Crews - November 4, 2026
• What’s New in Utah for 2026/27 Season - October 22, 2026