I remember a couple of years back, we were invited to go up to Whistler for a week of snowboarding and skiing.  Although I’ve been skiing/snowboarding for over 30 years, I only go once or twice a year for 2 - 5 days at a time…and at the time of the invite, I hadn’t hit the slopes in well over 2 years!

Needless to say, I was a little concerned.  I was out of practice and I was worried about my ski/snowboard conditioning.  Whistler is no bunny hill…it’s a big mountain with lots of vertical and that means long runs with plenty of variable terrains.

Other than the specific skills required for skiing or snowboarding, the biggest limiting factor for most people is general conditioning.  Usually 2 - 3 hours on the slopes and your quads and calves are burning!  And once your muscle fatigue sets in, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep going…and usually that’s when you start catching edges, often ending up in a spectacular wipe outs and bad injuries.

Fortunately, even though my ski/snowboarding skills were a bit rusty, my solid physical conditioning level kept me from Youtube worthy wipe outs and hence avoided getting any injuries!  The other great thing was that I never experienced much soreness or fatigue through the entire trip.  And boy, that was a good a thing, because the people that we met up with were hardcore skiers…the type that gets up early (...no matter how little sleep you had the night before…) to hit the mountain for first run down the slopes.

Now, I don’t mind getting up early get that fresh untouched snow, but it often makes for a very long day.  And as expected, we were on the slopes an average of 5 - 6 hours, non-stop everyday!  And amazingly out of the 5 days we were there, we only had one day that we had wait in line at the lifts…the rest of the days were wide open!  Which made for epic days of uninterrupted skiing/snowboarding!

However, it also left me with little time for rest and recovery.  Fortunately, my workouts provided me with ample strengthen and endurance to be able to go hard all day long and still be good to go the next day without much residual fatigue or soreness.  This was in large part due to the kind of training I’ve been doing of years.  Even though I hadn’t done anything specifically related to skiing or snowboarding, my training focuses on using full body functional exercises performed in a high intensity circuit training format.

This is also known as metabolic training, and it’s one of the best ways to get in great overall shape by improving your “work capacity”.

Increasing your work capacity is like putting a V8 engine in your Prius….not the prettiest picture I know…but you’ll be able to go non-stop for a long time PLUS you’ll also have the ability to crank up your speed and hang with the big ole’ muscle cars as well…literally the best of both worlds.

Along with increasing your work capacity, performing full body functional exercises primes your body to be able to perform a wide range activities.  Functional exercises include primary movements like squatting, twisting, flexing and extending, as well as pushing and pulling vertically and horizontally.  Including these primary movements as part of your fitness routine, greatly enhances your muscular strength, endurance and flexibility.  All of which produces a versatile, powerful and efficient body, that has the greatest ability to execute a wide range of activities that’s physically challenging and demanding.  

So the next time you’re about to participate in an activity you haven’t done in a while, keep in mind that you can get in great overall shape by doing metabolic conditioning to increase your work capacity.  This way you can make the most out of actually doing the (fun) activity and not be hampered by injury or slowed down by muscle soreness and fatigue.