Powder Days Shouldn’t End in Physical Therapy
Whether you're chasing first tracks or carving through gates, one thing can derail your entire season in an instant: injury — particularly to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). ACL tears are among the most common and devastating injuries in skiing, sidelining athletes for months and often leading to long-term joint issues. But here's the good news: injury prevention isn’t guesswork anymore. Modern research has uncovered exactly how and why these injuries happen — and what you can do to dramatically lower your risk. Let’s break down the findings from four powerful studies that can reshape how you train and move on snow.
ACL Forces Are Real — Even in Turns
Most people associate ACL tears with crashes or awkward landings, but a study by Heinrich et al. (2023) found something surprising: just turning puts your ACL under measurable stress. Using a 3D musculoskeletal simulation, researchers tracked the internal forces of a skier during carving turns. They found:
- The outside leg bears the most ACL load.
- Muscles like the glute max, hamstrings, and vastus lateralis play key roles in stabilizing the knee.
- ACL loading was driven more by knee abduction forces (frontal plane) than by forward shear.
- Deep knee flexion and hamstring co-contraction helped protect the ACL.
🧠 Takeaway: Turns matter. And skiing with strong, balanced hips and hamstrings could be your ACL's best defense — even if you're not catching air.
Agility and Balance Make a Big Difference
A 2022 study by Wang et al. followed over 100 recreational skiers to see which fitness factors predicted injuries. The results were clear:
- Poor agility (measured by a modified Hexagon Test) and poor balance (via Y-Balance Test) significantly increased injury risk.
- Lower body endurance (60-second squat test) was a weaker predictor on its own but still worth building.
- Fitness didn’t impact injury severity, but it did make the difference between skiing all season or ending it early.
🧠 Takeaway: Strength alone isn’t enough. Dynamic control, balance, and reaction time are what keep you upright and injury-free when terrain or speed throws you off.
Skill-Based Training Can Cut ACL Injuries in Half
An incredible 2020 study in Sweden followed over 700 elite high school ski racers. Half received a targeted ACL prevention program; the others followed standard training. The prevention group had 45% fewer ACL tears. Their program focused on:
- Neuromuscular control (on and off the snow)
- Symmetry — performing equally well on both legs
- Balance drills, single-leg squats, plyometric hop tests, and technical on-snow drills
🧠 Takeaway: When prevention becomes part of your regular training — not an afterthought — the results are massive.
It’s Not Just Muscles — You’re Training Your Brain
The final piece of the puzzle comes from the world of neuroscience. Researchers at USC (Powers & Fisher, 2010) discovered that ACL prevention programs don’t just change your movements — they change your brain. Their studies showed that:
- Skill-based movement training leads to lasting changes in motor control, even months after the program ends.
- These changes happen at both the cortical (brain) and subcortical (spinal cord) levels, improving how efficiently your body moves automatically.
- Traditional strength training alone did not produce the same improvements.
This phenomenon is called experience-dependent plasticity, and it explains why ACL-safe movement patterns stick when learned through corrective, skillful practice.
🧠 Takeaway: ACL prevention isn’t just about building stronger muscles — it’s about retraining your movement habits and rewiring how your brain coordinates your body.
What You Can Do Now
Here’s how to put the research into action:
- ✔️ Train movement quality, not just strength. Don’t just lift — move with purpose. Prioritize drills that challenge your coordination, proprioception, and landing technique.
- ✔️ Build hip and hamstring strength. Focus on exercises like Romanian deadlifts, single-leg squats, glute bridges, and hamstring curls — especially under eccentric load.
- ✔️ Balance your left and right sides. Skiing is a symmetrical sport, but most skiers are not symmetrical athletes. Use single-leg exercises and drills to reveal and fix imbalances.
- ✔️ Add agility and reactive drills. Incorporate lateral hops, quick feet, ladder work, and perturbation drills to simulate unpredictable mountain terrain.
- ✔️ Treat your training like skill acquisition. It’s not about how hard you go — it’s about how well you move. Motor learning is the name of the game.
Final Thoughts: How Nomadic Performance Can Help
Skiing is more than a sport — it’s a lifestyle. But it’s also one of the most physically demanding environments you can put your body in. At Nomadic Performance, we help outdoor athletes train smarter so they can perform longer — and avoid injury while doing what they love. Our programming is built around the latest evidence in movement science, injury prevention, and neuromuscular training — exactly what the research above supports. Whether you’re prepping for the season, returning from injury, or just want to ski with more power and control, we’re here to help you move better and stay on the mountain longer.