Levels 1-4 Beginners to Carving (skicoach.co.uk £19.95)

If you don't mind sitting in front of your PC for a few hours before you head to the mountains, the Ski Coach has something of interest for everyone, from complete beginner to skiers starting to carve and able to ski most terrain available on piste - which according to producers Mark Jones and Rupert Tildesley covers around 80% of British skiers.

And they should know since they each have more than 12 years experience of teaching at all levels.

The Ski Coach determines what your level of ability is by grading you as an instructor would, after which you can click on to the relevant level and start to hone your techniques. These are demonstrated through the use of short streaming video clips accompanied by text and voiceover describing how it's done. Each clip can be paused, forwarded or rewound so if you're having a problem with an aspect of your technique - say pole planting - you can view it over and over again.

Of course this still has to be memorised and eventually taken on to the slope with you, but it's more effective than an instruction book, and if you are really keen, I suppose there's no reason why you couldn't take the CD and your laptop away with you and bone up every night after skiing (while everyone else is down the pub).

The CD points out common mistakes, has answers to questions such as "how do I control my speed?" and "how do I ski steeper?" and also has useful links taking you to other ski-related sites.

No amount of sitting at your PC is ever going to be as effective as actually getting on to the slopes and doing it, but as a warm-up exercise before heading off to the mountains, the Ski Coach CD-rom is probably as useful as the stretches and sit-ups none of us ever do.