Why Ski Touring is Awesome

Whenever given the choice of doing a similar workout inside or outside, 99.9% of the time I will naturally choose the latter. No pun intended. Now there are a tonne of things you can do outside to get your gym fix, although last time I checked it was difficult to do 10 sets of 3 Rep Max deadlifts in the local park. So while there will always be a need to get in some quality gym time, I'm always very pleasantly surprised when I'm find new ways to train in the great outdoors.

Which leads me to what I want to share my appreciation for in this post; ski touring. For those of you that aren't familiar with the activity, let me provide you with an simple explanation - imagine cross-country skiing combined with downhill skiing. Basically, you are the chairlift. You climb, or skin, yourself to the top of a hill, then ski down. So you get all the aerobic benefits of cross-country skiing in addition to the strength work that's involved in downhill skiing. Simply awesome.

On a recent multi-day ski touring trip, I wore my new Timex Ironman GPS watch. The long day of the trip involved 12 hours of movement, with a few breaks to fuel up, etc. When I returned home and reviewed the data from the trip, I discovered that I had burned 9000 calories during those 12 hours. That's about 4.5 days worth of calories based on the average 2000 calorie diet. I can't recall the last time I burned 9000 calories on the recumbent bike at the gym, nor would I want to imagine doing so. Granted, I don't think burning through 9000 calories on a daily basis is a great idea for anyone, rather it's simply a testament how hard the body works during this activity.

One of other aspects of ski touring that I appreciate is in the uniqueness of each trip. Each and every hill or mountain offers a unique challenge. Some have long gradual climbs, others are short steep climbs. Some of the longer, steeper slopes required me to use my infamous "100 Steps" strategy (I also have "25, 50, and 200 Steps" variations of this strategy depending on slope and distance of hill, energy level, etc.). This strategy simply breaks a massive climb down into manageable bite size chunks. I count 100 steps of upward/forward progression before taking a break. 100 steps may to sounds like much, but when you're skinning up 400 vertical meters in the hot afternoon sun with 70 lbs on your back, and you repeat this 50 times; trust me, 100 steps is significant. My point is that ski touring provides a great opportunity to get in some quality interval training. Varied interval training. I'm willing to say that I covered most of the types of interval I normally do on the treadmill over that 12 hours.

Lastly, I should mention that after you do all that climbing and treat your body to a high quality workout, you get to enjoy the fruits on your labor in the form of (hopefully) deep pow turns and incredible views. It's a total win-win. If you're not already and avid ski tourer, stop by your local outdoor shop to see what kind of adventures are awaiting you in your area.