The Joy of Ski Training

Ben
I’m not going to go up a mountain unless I can ski down it. We do all the hard work in the training so we can go rip down a trail with a couple centimeters of snow and hold it together and have a blast. [Music]

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Alyssa 
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. I will be your host today, and I am excited to have a really wonderful part of the Uphill Athlete team that we’ve not heard from, but brings so much education, knowledge, um particularly about skiing to our team. And I’m excited to introduce him to all of you.
Today I have Ben Morley, who is a coach at the Jackson Hole Ski and Snowboard Club. He was program director and head coach from 2014 to 2020. He holds the highest certification that a ski coach can have at the U.S. ski and snowboard level and has been coaching since 2007. He is an upper athlete coach, but has coached athletes all the way from young kids to collegiate athletes.
So Ben, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And I’m really excited to talk skiing with you today because it’s a topic we don’t cover as much as I think we’d like to. So yeah, thanks for being on.

Ben
Yeah. Thanks Alyssa. I know you have some background in skiing too. So I think this will be a fun conversation. as a junior, at least you were a competitive cross country skier, right?

Alyssa 
Yeah, I went to Stratton Mountain School for a couple of years and my family was very much involved in the Nordic world. So I always think of Nordic as the basis of what I get to do today as a professional ultra runner. I feel like it’s about as good of a foundation as you can have.
And so, yeah, I’m excited to dig into those roots and talk to you more about it. I feel like the cross-country ski world and the world are very linked together. I think we see a lot of the athletes having crossover and success.

Ben
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of athletes that I had coached, uh, in Nordic. Um, and they were, you know, multi-sport athletes during that time too, but now have gone on to professional athletes, professional runners. Um, I just think it’s such a great foundation for athleticism and, you know, anything that you want to do after that, you’re, you’re pretty well set up to do that, um, successfully.

Alyssa 
Yeah, I think that it gives a level of durability as a youth that other sports might not have as much because we have to be so strong across the board and aerobically developed, we’ll say.
I mean, it is when I think back, I always joke that, you you know, probably most 14 and 15 year olds didn’t have training logs were training four to 500 hours, did lactate threshold testing, you know, all of that and how fun it is to take that and be able to build on it now and just have that understanding.
Did you ever coach David Sinclair? Cause he’s absolutely crushing right now in the ultra world.

Ben
No, I didn’t. I’m not aware. He was here the Nordic Skier as ah of a kid. OK.

Alyssa 
Yeah. Yeah. He was a Vermont Nordic skier. He raced against my brother a lot, but yeah, he just came in second at CCC.

Ben
OK.

Alyssa 
I mean, we see Jesse Diggins jumping into races.

Ben
Yep.

Alyssa 
um Sophia Lockhill should know how to say that, but she’s also kind of a stud or not kind of, she’s an amazing athlete, but yeah.

Ben
Yep. Yep.

Alyssa 
And we see a lot of endurance runners who do Schemo in the winter as well.

Ben
Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa 
So I think it’s a pretty, Pretty great crossover, but…

Ben
I mean, I, I, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, also it’s it’s the, the technical aspect of cross country skiing, um, that athletes are really, you know, that after, after learning certain technique cues, body position, how to move your body in space, um, it just translates so well into other weight bearing sports,
And, you know, not only that, like as a cross country ski athlete, we really advocate for being a multi-sport an athlete and doing cross training, all kinds of different training modalities from mountain biking to running to rowing, um you know, everything kind of under the sun endurance wise. Um, yeah, I mean, that just creates a solid foundation for any ah endurance activities in the future. But really, it’s the technique point from my perspective that really translates well over into other weight bearing sports like running, like you know, climbing mountains, um, what, where should your body be in space? How should your weight be stacked? And where’s that power application, um to move yourself forward, right? Um, and I’ll continue to go back to classic skiing, um, and really dissect the, you know, the body position, the movements, um, exactly how you should be, applying power and taking that information and pretty easily translate it over into say running or mountaineering. Um, and it goes both ways too. I mean, I think that in cross country skiing, we’ve learned a lot from these other sports, um, in the strength realm.
Um, it’s not too far off from what, you know, we prescribe to athletes that are mountaineers or alpinists, um, So I know we’ll probably talk a little bit about that, but there are lots of similarities. And, um, I’m going to continue to go back to classic skiing always when i work with an athlete, like how how are we,

Training yourself to balance on one foot well. um yeah How’s your spatial awareness, your… What’s that word? but

Alyssa 
Proprioception.

Ben
Proprioception.

Alyssa 
Yeah.

Ben
um So yeah, I mean, and there’s a lot more that goes into it than just the aerobic and the anaerobic aspect. Obviously, there’s strength, but… and balance and coordination is absolutely huge. And just having a fundamental athletic background and body position is huge. So um that’s kind of how I approach any athlete first is like, how are we moving our bodies through space. And then we can start to think about building more power, building more aerobic base, building more, you know, increasing your anaerobic threshold, um, working on VO two max, et cetera.

Ben
Um, but we, we first have to look at that foundation, like, how are you as an athlete and how, what’s your hand-eye coordination? Like, you know, how are you moving through space?

Alyssa 
No, I want to um I’m going to ask this question first, and then I want to get a little bit into your background. But we think, and it is, I mean, cross-country skiing, backcountry skiing, ski mode are all very technically driven sports. You have to be a technician in order to succeed.

Alyssa 
You can’t kind of just, you can out-muscle a fair amount, but you do have to know what you’re doing technically. And we spend so much time on that.

Ben
Thank you.

Alyssa 
And we think of mountaineering as just walking, or we think of running as just running, but there is so much technique in it. We were having a discussion before we came on the podcast where you said, oh, I actually think that technique is applicable to so many sports that maybe we don’t think about it as much.

Alyssa 
So I’d love to, and you were talking about it before, but to talk about why we think of skiing as technical and the rest of the sports, not so much and how maybe you change that thinking when you get a mountaineer and say like, Hey, we got to think about spatial awareness and body position.

So yeah, I’d love to hear a bit more about your thoughts on that.

Ben
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, like I said, we’ll go back to classic skiing and that there’s but a direct feedback when you’re classic skiing, if you’re doing it correctly or not, because…

Alyssa 
It’s so true.

Ben
You know, you can’t, your wax works or not.

Alyssa 
Your wax works or not. yeah

Ben
yeah exactly. So, you know, when we’re waxing classic skis for a racer, we want to make sure that they have good kicks, but we also want to make sure they have good glides. You never want to over apply sticky wax to a ski. Otherwise you start to slow down, right? So the goal as a wax technician is to put the most, the minimum amount of kick wax on such that the skier can make it work, right?

So you know, if you look at a profile view of a classic skier, you want to make sure that their weight is stacked, right? Their hips are forward.

um And then there’s this movement where we flex our ankles directly beneath our hips, and then we pop off the ball of the foot. So, you know, it starts with first correct body position and being forward weight, you know, hips forward, just like we are in running. Right.

And then there’s a ah very, ah moment in time where we have that ankle flexion, ah moment in time where you need to pop off that ball of the foot. And it has to be directly underneath your hips.

Um, at the same time, if you’re leaning too far forward, um, you know, or your hips are dropping back, the weight’s not stacked directly on top of the ski and flexing the camber.

of the ski correctly to get that purchase of wax onto the snow. Right. Um, so we can translate that into any other sport really like, you know, that there’s not the direct feedback that you have in running, but if your body position isn’t correct, you’re not most efficient, right? You’re not,

the most economically fit runner. So um that’s, you know, when I think about those things, it’s like, how do we train somebody to first be able to be in that body position? And, you know, strength played a huge role in this. You can’t get into a certain body position without fundamental athleticism and, you know, some strength foundation, core stability to be able to be in that position to execute the movement.

Um, so I, you know I really don’t see that as any different from hiking up a mountain, right? It’s, uh, the consequences are less if your body position isn’t correct, but, um, even in ski mode, the consequences are less, right? Because you have skins on, um, you’re, so you’re going to get a little bit more, what we call kick or purchase,

to go up the mountain. Um, that’s still, that, that doesn’t mean that you, you, you don’t want to pay attention to these, these body position and movement cues because that’s ultimately you want to be more efficient, right. And be able to utilize your aerobic capacity to the fullest extent.

Um, so yeah, I mean, it’s really a good tool for what I’ve, with what I’ve learned through classic skiing and how we can apply this to other mountain sports. Um, and yeah, I mean, there’s so many similarities, obviously and in classic skiing to SkiMo, right.

Um, if we take a profile shot of a Skinner or a SkiMo racer and we look at that

Alyssa 
Oh yeah.

Ben
relative to a classic skier, it should be fairly similar, right? um There’s a bit more weight transfer in cross-country skiing, a little bit more balance is required to be on those skinny skis.

You know, and at any one time, you’re if you’re actually doing it correctly, striding, you’re on one only one ski at a time. and Versus ski mode, you might be, you know, supporting yourself a little bit with that other foot.

But the idea is the same. Like we want to have good weight transfer and good, you know, power and energy projection onto that glided ski.

um So yeah, I mean, I think, you know, ski mo racers can learn a lot from classic skiers. And then we can talk about things like, you know, where your arms should be, what the rhythm, rhythm and timing should be of all of this stuff. and very similar. Where do you play your poles like on a you know more gradual climb? As the climb gets steeper, how does your technique and your movements change slightly?

um So all those principles are really the same and how to be the most efficient skier up the hill or going forward.

Alyssa 
Yeah, I mean, gosh, you are making me want to ski classic so badly right now. That was always my favorite. everyone i think… Skate skiing is very flashy. It’s very fast.

You know, you’re so explosive.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
But I just, there’s something about classic skiing that is just, when you get it right, it is just like music. It is beautiful the way that the movements come together.

and there’s so many similarities now hearing you talk that I can draw to trail runners because A, we use poles. ah For one, i mean, that’s, I think, such a ah big, i

Ben
yeah ten

Alyssa 
you know, similarity that maybe we didn’t see. That’s, poles are definitely a little bit newer in the US. They’re been a part of European culture for much longer. um But there are different pulling techniques.

They’re also very similar to how we pull in cross-country skiing or in ski mode. And what you’re talking about of athletic positioning is so often what I talk to runners about for going downhill, where you have to be in a position that’s very stable so that if, say, you hit a rock and it’s slippery or your ankle turns or you slip, that you are always ready to move on to the other foot. You have soft ankles. Like, it’s really similar in that basic athletic positioning and awareness

that allows you to move down hills efficiently where you’re not destroying your quads because you’re breaking or you’re falling or slipping. Yeah. So there it’s, uh, you’re just making me think of so many ties to, to the different sports.

Ben
Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, uh, I’m, I’m grateful to have grown up, you know, competing as an athlete too, and then becoming a coach, but these are, these are things.

Alyssa 
Yeah, I’d love, well, I was going to say, let’s get into that of how did you get into cross-country ski coaching and then come to Uphill?

Ben
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah. So I grew up in Jackson hole and. Gosh, I was on skis at probably two years old. um I mean, that goes back to my earlier point that kids just have such a you know head start to adults if they’re able to do stuff like this you know early on.
um But yeah, I mean, you know, I started skiing at about two. I joined the ah ski club, the same ski club I coach for today um when I was in about first grade.
And I actually alpine skied first for a couple of years. And then my brother was way into Nordic. And he’s like, what are you doing, dude? You need to get on some Nordic skis, right? I’m like, sure, I’ll try it.
And it it was just kind of something that that we did, you know, we we were a very small team here, but I stuck with it and um had some phenomenal coaches and some, you know, Olympic Olympic coaches like Nancy Johnstone, who competed in biathlon, um Jim Curran, who was a 50 kilometer athlete in Albertville Olympics. And then there’s a handful of other you know olympic athletes in the community here that have always been supportive of the program so it’s been inspiring as i’ve grown up um to stick with it um and then i went to actually what western state college for one year and raced ncaa and that was i probably was at the peak of my
uh, skiing career as an athlete at that point. Um, it was interesting going, going to college and competing against, you know, Europeans that are 23, 24, 25. twenty three twenty four twenty five

Alyssa 
And are way older than you are. Yeah.

Ben
yeah i mean i was you know 18 and i was i just remember um some races i was just getting crushed i was look you know in the best shape of my my ski career at that point but um so it was a little demoralizing but i still love the sport right um and i was you know competing pretty solidly against people my age. I was able to podium at junior nationals that year.

um I just decided it was like, it was time to take a break from competitive skiing and being so focused on like, this is my life. I was ready for a change. So yeah, I transferred to University of Oregon, ah but spent my senior year in Norway.

And just, you know, I was going to school, but skiing basically all the time out my back door, just endless trails. I remember I was living in Oslo and I lived near this lake called, well, it was near Nordmarka, right? And this is just a massive trail system in Oslo that links up to Lillehammer if you wanted to, right?

And I remember the first big storm we had there, I was just so stoked. I’m like, I’m going to get up early and I’m going out on a classic ski and I’m just, I’m going to go. I’m up to the problem, I think to myself, they probably don’t have much room. They’ll just…

see what they have for him to go on a little adventure.

Alyssa 
Go see.

Ben
And I was lost. I mean, I just kept going and going and going. I mean, I probably skied 60 kilometers that day and ended up getting on what they call the T-band, the railway.

At some point, I didn’t know where I was. right? And like, I just need to get on this thing and get back because I have no idea where I am. And that was enough.

But yeah, I mean, that the ski culture there is just phenomenal. um You know, so that was a, a fun point in my life. And, you know, I wanted to go there to really just embrace that, that culture and be more a part of skiing. Um, yeah. And then came back to Jackson and shortly after I started coaching for the club here and that was the beginning of my coaching career.

um yeah. And had a lot of great coaching mentors along the way too, that have taught me so much about the sport that you know only learn from, you know, analyzing and studying at a deeper level, ah come to understand why we’re actually training, why, why we, how we are. And the sport has also evolved so much from you know that era of like 2007 2008 to now the technique changes the strength changes like how are we doing intervals it’s continually evolving and there’s always new ideas coming out so it’s been fun to to be a part a part of that you know evolving and growing process and an amazing sport

Alyssa 
Yeah, I would be, gosh, I feel like I want to sit in on a week of your practices and just see what you’re doing because I got out of, or my heyday, we’ll say, of really competition was this about till 2009, 2010.

So I’d be very curious to see what has evolved since then. We still were just getting the holes in the tips of skis that were lightening it up.

Ben
Yeah, well, it is interesting to watch the technique evolution of just, say, classic skiing, right? If you look at some skiers from like the early 90s, late 80s, they’re skiing completely different than how we’re skiing right now is it’s just like long stretched out, really big extension, you know, and kind of leaning far forward, reaching far with your arm, like kicking way back out with your leg.
But, you know, just people have studied biomechanics enough and understand where’s the most efficient power application. um It’s so it’s changed a lot.

You know, everything is much shorter, much tighter. Um, and, you know, concentrate on like, where do I move my body relative to my core and where’s, where’s the power that I can apply into the ski.

Um, so yeah, I mean, lots of changes and some of the training has to change with that too. Right. Um,

Alyssa 
Yeah, it was always so interesting. I grew up, my mom and her friends, like we’re all kind of the old school cross country skiers. And I know exactly what you mean about just the longest strides and kicking.

So you could just immediately tell what kind of decades someone had learned their technique from.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
So yeah, that’s so interesting to hear where it makes sense like almost turnover and power over more of that just absolute length.

Ben
Yeah, well, absolutely. And then there, I mean, another thing that has changed dramatically in cross country skiing in the past,
10 years is just double, double pulling. I mean, that the athletes have become so strong and it’s almost a requirement to be so strong in your upper body now because I mean, literally some of these guys can double pull the entire course of hills, really super steep hills. Right.
um so there was a point in time where they’re like, wow, people are doing that, right. They’re double pulling a whole classic course and you know, FIS wanted to preserve the classic techniques. So after that, they, they decided to put technique zones on the course where you have to, um you have to classic stride.

Alyssa 
Really? Okay. Wow.

Ben
You don’t have the classic stride, you can herringbone, but you can’t double pull in these specific zones. So they’re trying to preserve the classic technique, but um still, even with that, there will be people that will go out and double pull a classic race on their skate skis.

They get to a hill and they’ll just herringbone, right? Um, with no wax.

Alyssa 
Oh.

Ben
So yeah, I mean, emphasis on upper body strength and development has really taken off in the past 10 years, big time.

Alyssa 
That’s wild. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I can see it, but that’s insane. So I feel like we could talk about, and and I love talking about cross-country skiing, so much. ah But we do.

You also have quite an understanding of Schemo and backcountry. And for the purposes of this, we’ll say Schemo is a kind of Schemo racing where you’re on, you know, not much more. I mean, they’re more than a cross country ski, but it’s like probably less than 86 underfoot, you know, probably in the seventies to sixties, almost underfoot. And then backcountry skiing we’ll say is what people think of when they think of ski touring where it’s like, yep, we’re going out. We could be split boarding.
We’re doing more of a mountain objective, uh, with our friends rather than, uh, you know, going for say like speed uh,
more of the uphill in a way. It’s like the downhill is a big part of why you’re going out.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
um So I’d love to talk about, since we are really in the slash coming into preseason for these sports, what do you look at or like, what is fundamentally quite the same across these three sports?

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
ah Well, three disciplines of one sport, we’ll say. And what are some of the things you would differentiate for, say, three different athletes?

Ben
Yeah, sure. So, you know, I’ve never been to a schema race or I’ve never, you know, raced that myself. I’ve watched it. And I understand that, you know, like at the world cup level, at least the races aren’t much longer than like one and a half to two hours.

Alyssa 
No, they’re quite short.

Ben
They also have, yeah. And they also have sprint races, right? Which is really short.

Alyssa 
or like 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
They’re like 400 meters.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
Yeah.

Ben
Same idea than

Alyssa 
Sorry, Ski Mode people.

Ben
Same idea in cross-country skiing though, like the, you know, we have sprints and there’s rounds that you go through. So if you do a qualifier, you qualify for the rounds, you potentially do a semi or a quarter semi and then final.
So same idea in SkiMo, right? kind of short, very high intensity, very high power application. um And then you might have like a 50 kilometer cross-country ski race, which could be, equivalent to like the hour and a half to two hour efforts in SkiMo. So, you know, the training for those two sports, I think, should be relatively pretty close, right? I mean, if we’re looking at how long you’re giving an effort and how powerful you need to be, that the training should be somewhat similar.
That doesn’t mean that you discount all the other aspects of training that would develop a strong backcountry skier too, right? Though they’re all still very important, but we’re talking about ski mode, you know, even Alpine skiing and cross country skiing, ah you know, plyometric, movements like very quick, short and explosive bounding, you know, jumping. And a lot of this stuff can translate into more ski-specific movements with that plyometric movement.
But that is huge. I mean, that is, that is, you know, fundamental to be a strong cross-country skier and a strong ski-mo skier is focusing on that plyometric movement, that very quick movement.
Um, that said, you still need the max strength. You need to like the anatomical adaptation phase, the base phase, all of that stuff. But the emphasis of plyometric quick movements and even doing like VO2 max high intensity, very, you know, zone four intervals, much more important than if you’re you know, an alpinist just a back country skier that wants to go out and do it three to four hour, five hour tour.
Right. Um, and I would say like, you know, with back country skiing, the plyometric stuff is probably a little bit less emphasized. Um, and we all, we also need to just look at what, what any one individual wants to do. and that’s, you know that’s what we do at Apple Athlete. Like somebody comes to us and they say, I want to, you know, ski Mount Shasta, right? Like that’s a pretty big push.

Alyssa 
It’s a big day. Yeah.

Ben
We need the big day and, you know, we need to think about, like, what’s going to set that athlete up well, how they’re going to be most durable and, you know, still have something left in the tank when they get towards the top. So muscular endurance is huge for, you know, backcountry skiing and super long efforts, um you know, carrying weight and probably more like zone three, you know, lactate threshold type intervals for longer periods. With that said, like, you know, Cross country skiers and schema racers really can’t skip any of this stuff either. You know, they have to do everything. So if we look at a cross country skier, like a pro at this point in the season, they’re still doing, you anywhere from like 30 to 60 minutes of on time, you know, lactate threshold intervals. Right. And that can be broken up into, you know, two times 15 minutes, you could end up doing two times 30 minutes. You can also break these up and have shorter um on periods with more recovery to have a more sustainable effort.
But, you know, the skimo skier and the cross country skier can’t skip that step either. It’s just a matter of where we place those kinds of intervals in the season so that you know that’s not the main focus for a cross-country skier. We still need to have that base development with that lactate threshold work. But you know as they get into the season, we’re mostly doing super high intensity, shorter VO2 max powerful intervals. right And that’s just for a backcountry skier, you’re not ever really pushing yourself that hard.
And it’s just not as necessary. So you’re probably better off focusing your energy and time and some lactate threshold intervals and just a huge aerobic base, you know, with solid muscular endurance training.
Um, so I, I think those are the main differences I see is, you know, like we need to look at the length of the effort and how much power application you need, you know, how, you know, how much weight are you carrying right on a back country ski?

Alyssa 
I love it.

Ben
So, um, yeah, the biggest differences I think are with that muscular endurance versus power and how you distribute, you know, your, your zone training.
Yeah.

Alyssa 
Now, if we were to say, take a cross country skier, a ski or athlete, what would be right now kind of your longest aerobic effort? What would that day look like versus say you’re building someone for back country skiing?

What’s that looking like? ah I think it was like the long run of training. How, what length of time are you doing for those?

Ben
Yeah. Well, I mean, again, this goes back to like, who are we working with?

Alyssa 
Depends on the athlete. Yeah, totally.

Ben
Like, you know, um, you know, like a lot of pro athletes, world cup skiers in the summertime. And, you know, we’re kind of at the tail end of that right now. Their volume training is huge. Their aerobic base training is enormous. Right. And you know, you can’t skip that. Right. So it’s not like if you’re, if you’re doing a, going up Shasta and that’s, that’s your goal.
It’s not like you’re necessarily doing longer efforts than a cross country skier. So, you know, I’ll say like at this time of the year, like a pro skier, they could be doing 20 hours a week, um, total.
So some of the long runs, you know, upwards four to six hours, potentially, um, for juniors, you know, we don’t go really longer than like three to four hours on a, on a long distance, like volume run or volume ski.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, you can’t really skip that aerobic base training with cross-country skiing just because it’s a short effort. That’s probably more the reason that you need that very solid aerobic base.
So, you know, I think in that respect, the two sports are probably similar. Like we need that aerobic base. You just can’t get around it. um So, yeah, I mean…

Alyssa 
I may have been leading you into that because I was hoping you would make that point of, no, actually you still really need those long aerobic efforts to build a really strong aerobic base to then have the ability to work on the top end.

Alyssa 
You have to have that foundation before you can hit the top end.

Ben
Absolutely. 100%. Yep. yeah

Alyssa 
Yeah. I mean, I remember actually quite literally, I think. One of the reasons why I got into ultra running is because of how much I loved our four to five hour trail runs, where it’s just going out, power hiking the hills, eating a lot of snacks, and going to see beautiful places. And I mean, we were, we would do three to five hour long efforts, whether it was a ski and a run combo or just a run or just a ski as 15, 16 year olds. 14, 15, 16 year old

Ben
Yeah, totally.

Alyssa 
Um, so yeah.

Ben
I mean, I also think, you know, when we’re, we look at just the scope of what a skimo athlete or cross country ski athlete has to achieve, like the amount of training that they have to put in, they have to hit the lactate threshold levels. They have to hit the VO tier max intervals. Right.
Um, and they have to have this enormous aerobic base all at the same time. So, now, sometimes, we have to really pay attention to staying pretty low intensity in that aerobic zone.
You know, it’s interesting. We talk about level one, we use levels and in Nordic skiing, not zones.

Alyssa 
Oh, yeah.

Ben
and don’t know, it’s just semantics. But, you know, when we’re going out for an aerobic effort, it’s always, we’re saying level one, right?

Alyssa 
Yeah.

Ben
it’s not like zone two type stuff. So I think the point I’m saying is like that the the training probably needs to be a little bit more polarized, meaning like those easy efforts have to be really easy and you shouldn’t really be getting anywhere close to your aerobic threshold on those three to five hour efforts, even on the hour long efforts because you’re putting in so much volume.
And, you know, if you’re still doing those lactate threshold and VO2 max intervals and you push up to the top of your aerobic threshold on your aerobic runs, you’re just going to tank.
It’s kind of a recipe for burnout. So… We really focus on going slow, you know? And I’ve seen it too, you know, like sometimes we’ll have some, some cross country runner athletes that come over to skiing and they’re just crushing our, our skier runners on a, on a distance run.
Right. And we always have to like it, and there hey, slow down. This is supposed to be a team effort of going very, very slow. Um, we should be able to do this all together really.
So yeah, just an important point that, you know, the more you do, probably the more polarized your efforts or your intensity should be.

Alyssa 
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s such a great point because as athletes are starting out, ah especially if maybe they’re, and we get a lot of athletes who maybe haven’t really done it and athletic endeavor or sport for say 10 years, like they had a family, they had a hard job.
They just really haven’t worked on anything. And staying below that zone two can mean walking. You know, it’s really hard for them to
do that. And so that can feel just defeatingly slow. But as you develop as an athlete, you know, staying right below your aerobic threshold can be very hard.
Like I see when I see aerobic threshold workout, I go, oh, man, that’s gonna hurt today. Because it’s very challenging as you get fitter to be right at that edge, you’re actually going to probably fatigue yourself a fair amount. So you Yeah, you really do have to polarize when you increase your fitness, increase your intensities to be able to give yourself enough.
Make the easy days easy and the hard days hard. Don’t start sticking in the mediums because I feel like that is so much of what people miss when they start getting fitter is they think, well, I can just run everything faster.

Ben
yep no

Alyssa 
I can do every workout harder.

Ben
yeah yeah

Alyssa 
And it’s like, no, actually your easier run might get slower because you’re just tired from going harder on the harder days. And that’s okay.

Ben
yeah Well, you know, in, in skiing too, I think it’s, it’s, if you haven’t, if you didn’t grow up cross country skiing, or I’m going to say ski mode a little bit easier, technically balance wise and stuff here, you know, and you’re happy, you have some resistance with the hill.
Um, but, you know it’s the technique aspect right so it’s it’s actually really hard for some people to keep it in the aerobic zone because their technique is so bad right so we really have to try to slow down and work you can

Alyssa 
instead of general.

Ben
do little tiny steps and just work on body position maybe and, and still be in that aerobic zone. Right. Um, so these things to think about. Like if you want to get into skiing, we need to really hone in on the technique first. So you can actually do your aerobic workouts effectively. Um, but there’s, like I said, there’s a lot of cross training in these sports too. So now, we need to make sure we get that road base and not blow it out when you get on skis.
And I see that a lot with, you know, high school age kids, or even maybe adults, the first time they get on skis for this season, it’s like, yeah, I’m stoked. You know, even if they do have pretty good technique, I’m so stoked. I’m skiing. This feels great. I’m having fun.
Before you know it, they’re up into like low zone three. Um, so

Alyssa 
Oh, I remember that every preseason ski trip, the first time you get on skis, you’re like, and I’m in zone three.

Ben
Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa 
Just, yeah, getting that back.

Alyssa 
It’s, um yeah.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
So one of the things that I’d love to talk about, because I was saying, oh, we’re kind of in preseason or preseason, moving into that, I don’t think that’s a very accurate way of speaking about it because I’d love to hear what you think is kind of an appropriate time to say, like when are pros starting their training? And when, I should say, an amateur backcountry skier is like, I love getting out on the skin track on the weekends. I want to enjoy, say, 4,000 to 6,000-foot days, maybe a few bigger objectives. How long do you see someone who’s really a pro in the sport versus someone who’s like, yeah, you’re an amateur, you enjoy it. How much time should they be putting in or when should they really start thinking about building it. And we’ll say that the amateur has a good base fitness. You know, they’ve been doing things throughout the summer. They’re not starting from scratch, but they haven’t really done any ski specific things.

Ben
Yeah. It’s a good question. I mean, with the cross country pro athlete, you know, it’s because they’re training year round. So the season essentially starts in May.

Alyssa 
Yeah. I was going to say the season doesn’t really stop.

Ben
Um, but yeah, yeah, I mean, there’s a little break at the end of the season and it’s always good.

Alyssa 
Yeah.

Ben
You have to decompress. You have to let your body absorb the training before you go back through another cycle. Right. Um, but yeah, they’ll, they’ll typically start in May and you know, May, June, July, August, it’s just a huge aerobic base volume building, right?
Base building, um, with some, some lactate threshold stuff thrown in there, some, some basic, you know, anatomical adaptation base strength type work, um, working through, you know, eventually max strength and then power you know application with your strengths. So it’s a long season, right? But for someone who’s just a kind of recreational backcountry skier, I’d say if they have a good aerobic base in the summer, if they’re mountain biking and running, that’s fantastic. like
Um, we don’t have to focus so much on just isolating their aerobic and anaerobic fitness. I think the most important thing for an athlete like that is just basic athleticism and getting into some, some kind of mobility strength, even dynamic strength, um, workouts, like, what we offer it on shamanee mountain fit right is a fantastic way to get started um just a ah pretty fluid routine that kind of focuses on body weight strength exercises it’s it’s dynamic but then it also gets to the point where you’re maybe doing like a pistol squat right so there’s a pretty good body weight progression there um so i think For an athlete like that, like, you know, thinking about right now actually is it a perfect time to start building some some base strength, basic athleticism strength work that’s specific to skiing. Yeah. yeah And I mean, I think Chamonix Mountain Fit is fantastic for that, right? um

Alyssa 
yeah

Ben
Typically, if I have an athlete who’s not even a cross country skier, I’ll have them go through a program like that if they haven’t done much strength training before. And then we’ll move into, you know, maybe some core work and some general strength with you know sets and reps um but you want to be careful with that stuff too right like you need to you haven’t been in the gym much and you haven’t lifted, it’s a good idea to at least watch some videos, understand good technique.
But yeah, I think, you know, strength, mobility should be the focus for an athlete like that through November, right? And there’s also another opportunity maybe to get in a ah ah volume training block in November. I know as cross-country ski athletes, we do that. It’s like…
kind of the last chance to get in a huge aerobic base block. So, you know, don’t shy away from that too. And maybe at that point as a backcountry skier, it can be a little bit more specific.
Maybe you have an opportunity to get on snow, but, you know, hiking with poles, what we call ski walking and eventually, you know, music and bounding.
And we can talk about what, those mean, but you know, October, November, great opportunity to get more ski specific as a backcountry skier with ski walking using poles, right?
And have that be some of your aerobic and anaerobic work. So yeah, I mean, strength, mobility, huge. You know, if you’re just, if you’re kind of an amateur and you want to be resilient and have some durability, you know, by the time you get to the top of the mountain and still ski it well down,

Alyssa 
Yeah.
You know, I think that’s one of the pieces that but like you keep emphasizing strength when I think that’s so important because the downhill just requires so much strength to do it well and safely.
Because in the back country, there’s so much opportunity for things to go pretty sideways on the downhill. And also you might be in a zone where it’s like, hey, there’s a higher avalanche risk. We have to get through this efficiently and quickly. We can’t dilly dally or fall.
And so I think just having that confidence of you’re not just absolutely smoked at the top but you can ski really ski well down too I think is just such a difference from other sports in some ways yeah

Ben
Totally.
Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s you know, he’s speaking of strength and durability, right? Like I shouldn’t discount muscular endurance training too and in the fall period. Um, you know, hiking with a heavy backpack and maybe doing some of your lactate threshold intervals with a heavy backpack.

Alyssa 
yeah

Ben
Um, because like you said, like, you know, four to five hours push up a mountain, you still want to have that, uh, muscular endurance and that resilience at that point to be safe and feel good.

Alyssa 
Yeah. And have fun. I mean, the, the dad, I was like the, yeah, the part that we Um,

Ben
And have fun. That’s why we do this. I joke with a lot of the athletes that I coach because, you know, we coach a lot of alpinists and mountaineers, people that go up Rainier and Denali. And they asked me if I’ve ever done these things. I’m like, look, I’m not, I’m not going to go up a mountain unless I can ski down it.

Alyssa 
Oh, we won’t, Codi and I, my husband and I won’t do Shasta until we get conditions where we can ski down. It’s like, I don’t want to walk down 7,000 feet if I could ski.

Ben
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Alyssa 
That sounds awful. Yeah. Yeah. I think for most of those objectives, uh, we’ve done Rainier once and we’ll, we’ll not do it unless we’re skiing down it. That’s yeah. It’s way better to ski down.

Ben
Yeah, yeah.

Alyssa 
I’m curious, and then I want to get into moose hoofing kind of those ski imitation exercises though.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
Do you account for weight on feet at all? Like in backcountry skiing, you know, you do have quite a lot more weight on your feet than in other sports. And so do you think about that at all? Or just kind of like, that’s an adaptation you have to make when you start getting back on snow

Ben
Well, I think it goes back to some of the muscular endurance work you could do in, you know, like October, for example, like September, October.

Alyssa 
yeah

Ben
So that could be a heavy backpack, but I have heard of some people putting weights on their feet and doing, you know, schematation exercises with their aerobic training, um, even anaerobic training with that. So I think there could be huge benefits in that. Absolutely. Like just the weight on your feet is significant, right? It’s probably a bit more than what you’re carrying on your back. So it’s important to think about that and how we’re going to develop the athlete to be strong and resilient and be able to push that heavy weight up to the top of a mountain. So, you know, with cross country Nordic skiing, we don’t really do so much muscular, it’s like specific muscular endurance work where you’re carrying a weight vest or backpack.

Ben
The races are just so short and we’re really looking for power applications. Right. um So, yeah, I mean, I definitely see benefit in doing some kind of weighted workouts, muscular endurance workouts for the back country skiers, weight on your feet would be great. Totally.

Alyssa 
Awesome. Okay. Yeah. That’s one of the things I always notice. And I think other athletes know where you put your heavier skis on, especially if they’re powder skis, you’re like, this is a lot harder and moving through deeper powder.

Ben
Yeah. Big time.

Alyssa 
If you’re setting a skin track or any of that, it’s a, yeah, it’s pretty significant for sure.

Ben
Yeah. Um, we talked about like, did you have a specific question about ski walking and muscular endurance

Alyssa 
But yes. Well, I mean, I think just an awareness of it and, hey, maybe throw some ankle weights on or put on heavier boots ah to kind of just build that awareness and endurance behind it or muscular endurance behind it.

Ben
Yeah. Yeah.
Totally.

Alyssa 
Yeah.

Ben
Yeah.

Alyssa 
But yeah, I’m curious. So we’ve talked about ski-specific exercises or ski imitation exercises. And unfortunately…

Alyssa 
I think we’re very much in a time period when we don’t know when we’re going to have snow and when we’re not. ah And it could be we have great snow in November and then we have no snow in February.

Alyssa 
So what do you do to manage keeping up fitness and ski specificity when you don’t have snow to train on?

Ben
Yeah, I mean, in the cross-country ski world, we have roller skis, right? And it’s not the same as skiing. Just that the feeling is a little bit different. The balance is a little bit different. But actually…
In some ways, especially with skating, um it’s a little, it’s a little bit more difficult than on skis, if you can imagine that, but just the balance is, is huge. Like it’s, it requires a little bit more like solid weight transfer and good body position on roller skis. So all I’m getting to is like, you know, roller skiing is an option for cross country skiers.
Um, and you know, I’ve been to camps before where we, the full intention was to go at a ski camp. Right. And we just didn’t have snow.
So yeah and when we pack up our roller skis, um, we do that as, you know, a training modality, but, you know, ski walking, like you mentioned, is huge. Also running is huge, but we all have to do this type of stuff in balance too, because as skiers, we’re not runners and we don’t want to get injured too much. Right. So, um, biking can be great. You know, so yeah, I mean, we do a lot of roller skiing, but for the amateur, um, it’s tough. Like if you’ve never roller skied before, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you haven’t skied cross country first, it can be dangerous first of all, but you know, also you, you might just get out there and be totally sloppy and not get an effective aerobic workout in.

Alyssa 
Yes, I agreed.

Ben
Right. So yeah, I mean, if people are have this on their radar, like, you know, they want other opportunities, dry land opportunities, then I’d encourage them to get on skis in the wintertime and really, even if you’re a ski motor racer, you know, even if you’re, because there can be some crossover there with roller skis, classic roller skis too, right?
And just get comfortable on cross-country skis in the wintertime and then maybe think about starting to work in a little bit of technique work with roller skis, classic skiing.
But it’s, you know, roller skiing on classic skis is much different than skis. It’s not like skating. Like we have these ratchets on the wheels. right, then that gives you your purchase, like your kick to be able to go forward, right?
So it’s not like being on skis because you don’t have to have that perfect technique to get the ski to work, the wax to work.

Alyssa 
Your tech, yep.

Ben
It’s like the ratchet is always there, right? So we’re pretty cautious, especially with younger athletes and doing too many classic striding on roller skis because you can start to teach bad habits, right? If we’re not super intentional or aware of what we’re doing. And oftentimes we’ll just do like technique drills striding and that will be like the workout. Like it’s a technique session, not necessarily an interval or an aerobic workout.
So yeah, I mean, it’s tough, you know, um, roller skis can be huge, but if you’re, if you’re a schema racer, I imagine you might have the opportunity to go up to some glaciers, you know, something like that.
Um, like I know the Alpine team here in October, they’re going to Austria for pre-season camp. So you just need to get some elevation and get on a glacier and get snow probably.
But, you know, learning how to ski effectively with good technique can, in my opinion, probably be better than roller skiing, um, technique wise.

Alyssa 
and what is the difference between hiking and ski walking what are like a few key differences that you would say

Ben
yeah, so it, I mean, if you’re just walking with poles, you’re just trotting along, right? You’re using the poles for your support and maybe a little bit of power. But with ski walking, we really try to imitate the classic ski motion, right? So it’s really about kind of rhythm and timing and making sure that when I swing this arm forward, I have an intentional ankle flex and little bit of a pop off the ball of your foot.
You know, and I’ve I’ve looked at videos of a ski walker and a classic skier, like the same guy, and you can literally overlay them and it almost looks like they’re doing the exact same thing.

Alyssa 
Mm-hmm.

Ben
Right. So, yeah, I mean, it comes down to the rhythm and timing of like how, How’s your body position? Again, we’re going back to that, but then what are the fundamental movements in that classic ski stride too, really? And it comes like, when I’m bringing this hand forward, I have that ankle flexion, ah pop off the ball of foot, and there’s a little bit of hang time.
It’s not like you’re catching too much air, but… you know, a little bit of a hang time to kind of accentuate what would be in the glide phase of a ski. um So yeah, I mean, like we can, we can work on this all day with some athletes and it’s really hard for some people to get that exact rhythm and timing and the power application correct when you’re skiing.
And sometimes they might overthink it, right? And then it’s like, it all goes downhill from there. Like they’re, they’re not opposite arm opposite leg anymore and they’re trying to get in this weird rhythm so it takes practice and i think it takes some some good coaching like on the ground to to learn this correctly and it’s not just walking with poles we should just say that

Alyssa 
Yeah. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to emphasize is there is a lot of intention that goes behind ski walking and which goes into bounding, which is a more explosive version, most likely a shorter interval as well.

Ben
Yeah, totally.
Yeah. I mean, we kind of looked at it, um, like ski walking would be more like aerobic. you know, zone one, zone two type training, but with correct technique, it still seems like you’re classic skiing.
Like just, you know, and when I’m out there skiing, I’m like this, I literally kind of visualize myself classic skiing and it feels pretty, pretty close.
Right. Um, the next level up would be what we call moose hoofing. And that’s just, it’s the same as ski walking, but it’s a little bit more pop. So you’re getting like a little bit more hang time, a little bit more explosive, like, you know, biometrically explosive.
So with the Moose, it’s, you know, considered mostly like a kind of threshold zone three type effort.

Alyssa 
Thank you.

Ben
And it looks even closer to classic skiing, right? Because you have that, know, that power application and then you have a little bit more hang time again that kind of accentuates that glide phase in skiing um and then we have bounding right which is like typically so super high intensity, maybe like VO2 max intervals, or just doing it as a drill, like maybe even doing it as a um, a plyometric ski specific drill too.

Alyssa 
Thank you.

Ben
Um, yeah, it’s Norway that actually kind of came up with this term called spensed. Um, And gosh, I looked it up, but it’s, what does it mean?
Resilience or something like that. I think it translates to, well, not resilience, but something that makes sense. And what it is, like, okay, we’re working on these plyometric explosive movements where it’s,
Maybe in our training we’re just doing box jumps, right? Or like a broad jump that’s not so ski specific, but when we get to the spence part of it, we’re actually trying to ski foot with no skis, right? Like that’s the idea.
um So yeah, I mean, the body position, the movements should look exactly like skiing when you’re doing some of these drills. And we don’t just do it with bounding, which is a classic imitation. We have some specific skate, plyometric or suspended drills that we do that also mimic like the V2 motion mainly.
Um, so yeah, I mean, technique is always that work, but we’re, we’re working on these kinds of explosive, quick, powerful movements as we’re working on technique at the same time.
And then you can throw in like an interval session on top of that. Right. So, trying to especially like this time of year um and right before snow, that becomes much more important. Like we’re doing a bunch of bounding intervals now, right?
Specific classic ski bounding intervals versus early in the summer, we might just be doing some running intervals or some intervals on the track, right? and kind of trying to build up that base aerobic and anaerobic fitness so you can still do these ah ski specific exercises effectively with good technique.

Alyssa 
And I think that just emphasizes how the same training principles apply to pretty much every single sport that we coach and also just probably all sports everywhere that you’re outlining, Hey, here’s the general or base phase of building the aerobic system.
And now we’re getting into the specific, and then you have, you know, the competition season, et cetera. And so how important it is to set that foundation to then be able to do the specific training because you won’t be able to withstand really high intensity plyometric movements if you’ve not spent the time during the summer to build that base work up.

Ben
ah hundred percent 100% totally.

Alyssa 
Yeah. So it’s just, it’s always, I always like to kind of pull back on the bigger picture.

Ben
Thank you.

Alyssa 
like, it’s the same, it’s the same principles applied to different sports, different, slightly different modalities, but it all comes down to kind of the same fundamental principles.

Ben
Yeah, I agree. I mean, the differences are like, okay, what are we looking at, what kind of movements are you doing? But most of the stuff that we’re focused on is weight bearing, right?

Ben
But, you know, in cross country skiing, we’re a little bit more focused on upper body strength development too. So like whatever, look at whatever activity you’re doing and we need a train, you know, a strength foundation for that, but then train strength with the movements also.

Alyssa 
Absolutely. Well, Ben, this has been awesome. And I’m so glad to get your voice onto the podcast. Is there anything you’d like to leave listeners with tips or just thoughts about skiing?

Ben
Well, I mean, try to enjoy yourself and have fun. I mean, skiing is supposed to be about fun, right? That’s why I do it. And then it kind of provides a vehicle to still stay in really good shape and then carry that fitness over into other sports and activities. So I just keep trying to remind myself that, like, why am I actually doing this? I love it. Like, it’s so fun.

Ben
so try to remember that. Oh, this reminds me, I went on a dust ski trip to Austria and met up with Steve actually and did a few back country tours, but you know and that that that was our focus is like we’re just gonna go have some fun and just rip around right remember steve coming down this one the ski track i mean there was maybe like couple centimeters of snow at that point it was a low snow year and he is just like ripping down this trail

Ben
Just like, you know, elite athleticism, like, and loving it, like having a blast. Right. Um, so yeah, that, I think I want to leave people with that . We do this because it’s fun and we do all the hard work and the training so we can go rip down a trail with a couple of centimeters of snow and hold it together and have a blast.

Ben
So yeah.

Alyssa 
That’s awesome. Yeah. That’s such a great way to leave it. And I think there is something truly special about skiing that brings out the side, the kid side of all of us.

Ben
absolutely

Alyssa 
Like, yeah, just the massive smile and whooping down the hill. And yeah, it’s, it’s special in its own way that, yeah.

Alyssa 
I, God, you’re making me so excited for ski season. Yeah.

Ben
Yes. Soon enough.

Alyssa 
We’re getting there. Yeah.

Ben
Yep.

Alyssa 
But well, Ben, thanks so much for being on and just really appreciate you sharing your wisdom on skiing. And I’m sure that we’ll do a future episode as well to talk more about this.

Ben
Yeah, my pleasure.

Alyssa 
I feel like there’s a lot more. Yeah.

Ben
Always good to talk to you.

Alyssa 
Awesome. Well, thank you for listening to the Uphill Athlete podcast and we will continue to bring you

Ben
Cool.

Alyssa 
hopefully great educational pieces and interesting people to talk to. And it’s not just one, but a community. We are Uphill Athletes. Thanks for listening.

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