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Getting Ski Fitness into Schools | Salt Lake City, UT United States | 11/28/08, by AwesomePatrol

The National Winter Feels Good initiative of SnowSports Industries America has developed a new game intended to promote ski fitness in middle schools. The game's creator, Jo Garuccio, hopes it will offer an inexpensive way to teach students conditioning exercises that will help them get ready for snow sports activities such as skiing and snowboarding. Apparently wall sits are too financially demanding in these tough economic times, as kids parents are foreclosing on all four walls of their houses?

The program focuses on all aspects of athletic prowess including core strength, balance, agility and quickness. The program comes with cards that offers descriptions on the different exercises, hence the name "Snow Sports UNO". ALong with cards, the program uses duct tape, exercise mats, cones and other standard items found in school gyms.

The idea of getting kids in shape these days is a good one, as video games increasing replace reality as they move closer to reality. However this program seems a little reachy for me as every physical education program in middle school should be teaching core strength, balance, agility and quickness. The creator is a PSIA certified instructor/examiner at The Canyons, near Park City, Utah and obviously knows his stuff about skiing, only time will tell if he knows how to encourage kids to "get in shape" for skiing, a concept that is lost on most adults.