Inspired by the Winter Olympics? Here’s how to train for Alpine and Nordic skiing before hitting the slopes or trails.

From couch potato to winter athlete: Northeastern experts recommend these exercises to prepare you for downhill or cross country skiing

 From couch potato to winter athlete: Northeastern experts recommend these exercises to prepare you for downhill or cross country skiing

There’s something about watching the Olympic Games that can make even the most sedentary couch potato want to get up and move.

“You see these athletes at the top of their game. They are the best of the best. It’s inspiring,” said Timothy Morris, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who studies how the brain influences exercise behaviors. It prompts viewers to also attempt something “exhilarating and cool and inspiring,” he said. 

But before downhill legend Michaela Shiffrin’s comeback gold in the slalom during the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games inspires you to try on a pair of Alpine skis, or Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo’s record wins motivate you to hit a cross-country ski trail, heed the advice of Northeastern experts: Go slow and condition your body.

Avoiding injury

“The people that go zero to 60 — they get hurt,” said Matthew Nippins, an associate clinical professor at Northeastern University who specializes in cardiopulmonary physical therapy. If people haven’t been active for a while, balance, strength and coordination may need to be rebuilt, he said. 

“They just have to progress slowly,” said Gregory Cloutier, who teaches exercise physiology at Northeastern. People need to assess their level of physical fitness and turn it up a notch, starting with endurance training, he said.

Build stamina

Since downhill skiing involves intense bursts of activity for 10 to 12 minutes, it lends itself to interval training, he said. People should aim for at least 30 minutes of walking, jogging or biking to build their aerobic fitness and stamina, interspersing 30 to 60 seconds of noticeably harder intensity between 60 seconds of “somewhat hard” intensity.  

“That will help increase your anaerobic threshold and fitness level a little more quickly,” said Cloutier, who is also laboratory and operations manager for the university’s Center for Cognitive and Brain Health.

“Cross-country skiing would be what we call a steady state,” he said. When walking, bicycling or running, “pick a level that’s somewhat hard and do it for a little bit longer duration, something you could continue for 60 minutes.”

Add strength

Both cross-country and downhill skiing relay heavily on strong leg muscles, although in slightly different ways, Cloutier said. For both sports, think of strengthening the quadriceps, hamstring and gluteal muscles in the front and back of the thighs and the buttocks.

Dumbbell squats are a good way to build strength, he said. With 5- to 10-pound weights in each hand, push your back out as if you’re going to sit on a chair and straighten back up for 10 to 12 reps.

Cloutier, who also has several videos on Youtube demonstrating proper form, also likes the wall sit, when people hold a seated position against a wall, and lunges. The back lunge is a safer bet for sedentary people since it puts less pressure on the knees, he said.

People who have access to a gym can use the leg press machine for 10 to 12 reps to build up their legs for the explosive energy used in downhill skiing, Cloutier said. “Start off with one set the first week,” two sets the second week and three sets the third week, with 30 to 60 seconds between sets, he said.

Since cross-country skiers use poles to help push themselves along, try tricep exercises, pushbacks and seated rows to get trail ready, Cloutier said. 

Cloutier said warming up before skiing by marching in place or doing jumping jacks for five to 10 minutes will increase body temperature and help stave off injury. He also likes to jump straight up and down to prepare for cross-country skiing and to jump from side to side, with legs together, over a dumbbell 10 times to prepare for handling moguls on downhill runs.

Take a lesson

Lessons are a good idea for novices or people who haven’t skied in a while, said Nippins, whose daughter Caitlin Nippins is a member of Northeastern University’s Alpine ski team. 

“The great thing (about lessons) is that you don’t pick up bad habits you have to get rid of down the road,” he said. Instructors also tailor their lessons to fit the individual, recognizing when a skier who hasn’t been active for 20 years is not ready for black diamonds.

“Lessons can just help give you that confidence to get started,” said Deb Laufer, general manager of the Weston Ski Track in Massachusetts, where current cross-country Olympian Julia Kern has trained. But “people can do it without a lesson as long as you have a good attitude and are willing to fall,” she added.

Laufer said that interest in cross-country skiing at the center spikes every four years during the winter Olympics. People say, “‘I was watching on TV and I want to try it,’” she said.

Part of what makes people yearn to take up skiing when watching the Olympics is that it’s “an inherently joy-based” activity, Morris said. And “choosing joy is more likely to get you physically active than choosing the health benefits.”