With a huge ski trip beckoning, it was time to design a training program and get to work! Here’s how it went.
During my 20s, I was lucky enough that my lifestyle kept me fit, and I didn’t need to do any training to maintain a solid level of mountain fitness. However, as real life began to rear its head and my annual mountain time reduced, I had to start thinking about how to “artificially” maintain my ability to move through the hills. Like most “athletes” (I use the term generously), I’ve learned a lot and developed my understanding of training through trial and error, plus a steady stream of podcasts, books, and articles.
Despite my training knowledge and understanding of my body growth, I’d never followed a formal training program – I had just got better at designing workouts for how I felt and what I wanted to achieve on any given day. That all changed when a friend suggested we try the legendary Bugaboos to Rogers ski traverse – a monster of a trip covering 110 kilometers and 10,000 meters of climbing.
RELATED: How To Get Into Ski Touring
I was confident I could do the trip fitness-wise, but I wanted it to be as enjoyable as possible, and I also knew that the better my fitness, the faster and further I could move, and the safer I’d be as a result. All this, coupled with my having minimal free time for mountain adventures before April, meant it was as good a time as any to try my first structured training program. I felt I could come up with a solid program, but before designing one, I consulted with a series of friends, including a professional ski mountaineering guide, an ex-professional speed skater, and a successful amateur ultra-runner.
Designing the Program
The challenge of creating a program for a long ski traverse is that it’s impossible to quantify its effectiveness. There’s no measurement of multi-day mountain fitness, and even if I did periodically record how fast/far I could skin uphill in a given time, there are endless variables that might affect the results. Experience has taught me that by the end of a long trip, my physical condition is determined by so many factors (most of which I couldn’t quantify even if I tried) that I would never know exactly how effective my training had been. Unlike a runner or cyclist, who can measure their performance far more accurately (and can remove many of the external factors which might affect the result), I simply had to figure out what I thought I needed, train accordingly, and hope it worked.
RELATED: How to Complete an Overnight Backcountry Ski Tour
I needed the ability to carry a heavy (roughly 50 lbs) bag uphill for hours at a time (often breaking trail whilst doing so) and then ski down carrying that same bag, safely negotiating varied terrain and snow conditions, and repeat the process for multiple days. I’d need endurance, plus the strength to prevent the bag from tiring me out. After all, if you get stronger, every step feels easier, so endurance (especially when carrying so much weight) isn’t simply about going long – it’s also about strength. You need the endurance of an ultra runner but with a bit of “farmer strength” to go with it. Having some cardiovascular power to enable me to move quickly for brief periods was also appealing – I figured it might come in handy if I found myself in a dangerous spot and wanted to minimize my time there. There’s also plenty of evidence that cardiovascular power helps with endurance.
After much discussion, I decided on a basic formula. I’d do five workouts per week for 15 weeks, focused on three main areas – strength, cardiovascular power and endurance. For the first five weeks, I’d do three strength workouts, one cardiovascular power workout and one endurance workout weekly. In the second five weeks, the ratio shifted so that I did three cardiovascular power workouts, one strength and one endurance session per week. For the final five weeks, I’d be doing mainly endurance but with weekly cardiovascular power and strength workouts thrown in too. Five sessions per week is a large workload, so I kept the cardiovascular power workouts short and intense, and the endurance workouts were generally super slow, zone 1 heartrate affairs, which didn’t exert me much. I also used the middle week of each five-week block as a semi-rest week and did easy workouts, focusing on form and mobility, but never really taxing myself, and if my body felt tired that week, I’d skip the workouts altogether and go for walks instead.
You need the endurance of an ultra runner but with a bit of “farmer strength” to go with it.
Having said all that, I also kept in perspective that training wasn’t my job, and that I should only stick to the program if it suited me – there was no way I’d miss a fun day of skiing because it didn’t fit into that week’s schedule! As a result, I aimed to do the five prescribed sessions every week (and managed it most of the time) but didn’t worry if I strayed from the plan by a workout or two occasionally.
The workouts
Each workout began with a 10-minute spin on a bike, then stretching followed by mobility movements and low-resistance weight training. To keep things varied, I tried to always do a different set of movements, so after the bike and stretching, I’d do anything from cossacks to wall balls, ball slams, Turkish get-ups or barbell complexes. I saw these warmup exercises as a way to practice balance, increase mobility, and keep my body guessing so that it didn’t just adapt to the same movements.
RELATED: 10 of the Best Hut-To-Hut Ski Tours in the Alps
Once underway with the session proper, strength workouts focused on compound lifts, with mobility and balance work thrown in. A session might look something like this:
-
Primary lift: 5 x 5 front squats, starting a set every 3 minutes, with banded palov presses in between sets
-
Secondary lift: 3 x 10 single-leg Romanian deadlifts, starting a set every 3 minutes, with 10 pushups in between sets
-
Third lift: 4 sets of 6 pullups and 10 situps, done as fast as possible without compromising form.
Sometimes, the primary lift would be front squats; at other times, it would be deadlifts, with Bulgarian split squats as the secondary lift. The key was that I wanted a solid base of strength in the basic squat and hinge movements, which are most important for ski touring fitness, and some upper body strength to hold that heavy bag in place all day. I generally added 10 minutes of medium-high heart rate cardiovascular work at the end of the strength workouts to flush out some of the lactic acid.
Sometimes, the primary lift would be front squats; at other times, it would be deadlifts, with Bulgarian split squats as the secondary lift. The key was that I wanted a solid base of strength in the basic squat and hinge movements, which are most important for ski touring fitness, and some upper body strength to hold that heavy bag in place all day. I generally added 10 minutes of medium-high heart rate cardiovascular work at the end of the strength workouts to flush out some of the lactic acid.
Cardiovascular power workouts could consist of anything that got me breathing hard, either solidly for a short period (less than 20 minutes) or in intervals. I kept these workouts varied, using resistance when I felt I could, and keeping them fast but light when I was tired from the strength workouts. Some “go-tos” included a 2000m row, 10 – 100m sprints on a track, and Crossfit-style workouts that combined different weight training exercises to force up my heart rate. For example, I’d do short but sharp circuits like this – 21 reps of barbell thrusters, bent over rows and box jumps, then 15 reps of each and then 9 reps of each; all done as fast as possible. Your lungs will thank me for that one.
For endurance, I kept it simple – go slow, go long, whether it was on skis, foot or bike.
As well as the training itself, I also paid close attention to nutrition and drank a daily protein shake for recovery. In addition, I made a real effort to get plenty of sleep and drink a lot of water. I did intend to do daily stretching sessions, too, but I didn’t do a great job of keeping that up!
So, now that I’m done with the 15 weeks, here are a few reflections.
Block 1: Strength
I initially enjoyed the structure of this phase, but the grinding nature of strength workouts meant that I soon craved faster and more dynamic movements. It’s essential to build a solid base of strength, but the workouts sometimes felt like they needed to be more mentally stimulating.
One satisfying element of this phase was that the workouts initially felt very long, but they felt much easier as the weeks went by, despite me adding weight to scale the sessions. I certainly got more efficient at the workouts (which explains some of the progress I appeared to make), but there was unquestionably a significant improvement in my overall strength, as I’d hoped there would be. I also gained around 6 lbs of body weight during the strength phase, but I was confident I could shed much of that as my focus shifted towards endurance.
RELATED: 10 of the Best Ski Resorts in USA & Canada
Block 2: Cardiovascular Power
After the strength phase’s structure and repetitiveness, this training block was much more varied, and I followed how I felt when deciding which workout to do each day. I tried to combine resistance-based circuits with running/rowing/cycling workouts and thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of mixing it up. I also tried to do as many movements as possible every week to keep my body guessing and to maintain mental engagement.
Block 3: Endurance
This was by far the most enjoyable part of the whole 15 weeks because it involved as much outdoor time as I could squeeze in! I ran/hiked/cycled at least three times weekly, with no structure beyond trying to log as many miles as possible, and I also continued with one cardiovascular power and one strength workout every week.
After the 15 weeks were up, I had around 10 days until the trip started and I tapered my training. I’d do easy workouts, which didn’t place any severe stress on me, and tried to walk every day.
I’m now on standby for a weather window, hoping the training will pay off – wish me luck!