SkillsQuest: Doing More with Less

Spending most of the time skiing at Liberty Mountain and all of it's 600 feet of vertical drop or other similar mid-atlantic ski areas doesn't offer an alpine athlete the greatest terrain to choose from.  Complications from shorter winter seasons, weekend crowds and ski patrol speed enforcers makes terrain even less available.  This forces the alpine athlete to be smart in his or her use of time spent on the hill.

USSA has come up with an answer for this challenge.  SkillsQuest is a progression of drills designed to promote skills as the basis of technique emphasizing the four primary skiing skill areas - pressure, edging, rotary, and balance.  Mastering these drills (see table below) result in skiers acquiring the necessary skills to gain speed on the race course.

After seeing the progress of athletes brought up on the SkillsQuest modality, I highly recommend this tool not only to alpine athletes but to any skier working to improve on the basic fundamentals of skiing.  I use it often in my own skiing.  You can access SkillsQuest on the following link: http://www.ussa.org/alpine-programs/athletes/development/skillsquest/  Click on to skiing assessment at the top.  You can find full descriptions for each drill in the progression as well as videos of athletes performing them.