Andrew Hooge, CSCS

Do you plan on skiing the backcountry this year? If so you might want to check out Bladerunner’s new $700 snowsports jacket with integrated GPS. I just got my hands on one and it is pretty darn sweet.

The jacket, released last week by the British clothing company, has a GPS tracking device in the lining. It can track the jacket anywhere in the world within 50 square feet. It uses Google Earth maps and updates every 10 seconds. But what if you’re on the slopes with no Internet? The jacket can also be set up to send messages to your mobile device…very cool.

According to Adrian Davis, a partner at Bladerunner, “It was originally made for mountain climbers, skiers and snowboarders.” He says the company recently decided to make a children’s version of the jacket for parents worried about their kid’s safety.

If you’re going to be skiing the backcountry this year or if you have kids that you want to keep an eye on you might give it a look.

Stay Fit Skiing!
Andrew Hooge

Andrew Hooge, CSCS
What could be better than water to rehydrate after a long day on the slopes? Spanish researchers have discovered that lager could be a better rehydration tool than a glass of water. Apparently it has something to do with the carbonation, salts, and sugar.

Twenty-five lucky students took part in the experiment at Granada University. After running on a treadmill in a 104-degree room to exhaustion, their hydration levels were measured and then were given either two and half pints of beer or water. Both groups were allowed to drink as much water as they wanted.

What were the results? Students who were given the beer had “slightly better” rehydration than those only given water. Sounds good to me!

The scientists concluded that athletes should include some good old-fashioned lager as part of their diet. On average a person will lose a quart of sweat for every hour of moderate to intense exercise. Now I certainly don’t endorse drinking while skiing or using beer as a staple to improve your skiing performance, but it looks as though there might be some credence to what seems to be a staple in many skiers post ski-day meals. Who knew!

Stay Fit Skiing!

It’s about 6 hours from the start of the men’s giant slalom in Soelden, Austria and Team America is off to a rocky start, and I don’t mean the conditions. If you’ve dozed off over the last few months, that’s Bode’s new private team. Plagued with hamstring issues early this summer and now a mid-back issue, Bode seems to be starting with less than stellar preparation. According to Johno McBride’s WCSN Blog, “Bode has not had the race prep we would all prefer but this is part of the game.”

My guess is he probably endured a 1st or 2nd degree strain of the lower trapezius and/or rhomboids. These muscles are important in adducting and depressing the shoulder girdle as well as the rotating the scapula. This means that holding a tight position on his skis and keeping his center of gravity low during turns will be difficult. In short, racing with a severely strained mid-back will not make the race easy.

They will probably tape his torso to reduce the amount of movement in the spine and surrounding muscles. Although this may help prevent further injury it will also limit his mobility. In other words if he gets in trouble you probably won’t see the miraculous recoveries of old. Not to worry though he has a great team of doctors, physical therapists and strength coaches to get him ready for Finland in November!

By Paul Hooge

I don’t mind short road trips; perhaps 500 miles each way is a sane distance. I don’t often fly because you cannot haul a bunch of old or antique skis on planes easily (packaged they may resemble some sort of missile). This September my trip began in crested Butte, Colorado (9250 ft elevation at the house) to Ohio (900 ft) and on to New Hampshire (around 1200 ft) and back in twenty days. I had meetings in Kansas City, Columbus, Ohio and finally at the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, NH where we discussed a conference for Ski Historians in 2009 in Crested Butte.

I planned to keep up my workouts, packed my road bike, forgot the dumb bells and was too busy to locate gyms along the way. So I arrived back in CB feeling a bit bloated and stale, knowing that it would take a week to get my training program back on schedule. While in NH I purchased a copy of Skiing: The International Sport, published 1937.This text rates among the top ten books ever published about our sport.

The first chapter I read was Training for Ski Racing” by Peter Lunn. I started here because while scanning the chapter I saw the word “stale” and at this moment I was feeling very stale.

Lunn lists three critical elements in training for skiing (from his perspective exactly seventy years ago): exercise, food and sleep. Then he states that “… the mind is trained to avoid staleness and to develop sufficient power to conquer the nervous reactions of one’s body to high speed skiing.” Regarding training he has three primary recommendations:
1. Plenty of up hill climbing,which, he says will condition muscles that skiing cannot target specifically.
2. Plenty of distance running, interspersed with high speed sprints
(Lunn believes that this will help prepare the skier to deal with “risk taking” during high speed runs.
3. He recommends that skiers quit smoking prior to the ski season because “the resultant effect on the nerves is bad for form”, race form specifically.

Regarding alcohol, Lunn states that “Wine and beer taken in moderations after a day of skiing are good for training, but cocktails should be eliminated. Red wine is better for training than white.”

Lunn covers a lot of territory including sleep and diet. Sleep, according to Lunn, should adhere to Ben Franklin’s advice “early to bed and early to rise” and sleep should be on a regular schedule. Concerning diet, he advises, “Personally I eat normal meals though I try to avoid eating bread with my lunch or dinner… I think it is advisable to eat in between meals; recent research among factory workers has shown increased work productivity among those who have taken additional meals in the middle of the morning and afternoon. When skiing I generally carry chocolate in my pocket!” Finally he states that the skier with a fit body and mind has an edge over all others.

All of this advice from seventy years ago and much of it seems timely; however I’ll defer to Andrew to compare and contrast elements of training then and now.

Have you ever cruised the slopes only to find yourself fatigued or cramping half way down the mountain? Enlyten Strips, a new electrolyte product claims to help mitigate these problems. Why are electrolytes important you ask? Electrolytes are important because your muscles (and other cells) use them to maintain voltages across their cell membranes and to carry electrical impulses (nerve impulses, muscle contractions). In short, electrolytes make sure your muscles are contracting and relaxing efficiently so you don’t cramp or become excessively fatigued. For example, when you are skiing all day, you sweat and consequently lose electrolytes; particularly sodium and potassium. Electrolytes must be replaced to keep body fluids constant.

When I hit the slopes, I normally mix water and my favorite sports drink together, grab my camelback and head for the mountain. Last April I was offered a small container of tiny electrolyte-laden strips instead. I put 6 of them (loading dose) on the inside of my cheek, let them dissolve, and motored my way on to first chair. They tasted a little like an orange cream soda and had a rather chalky texture. I wasn’t expecting anything magical to happen but after a few hours on the slopes, I noticed I really didn’t need a break. I gulped down some water and put a couple more strips on the inside of my cheek. Three hours later I was feeling the normal wear and tear from skiing the bumps, but I was definitely up for some more. About this time I am normally ready to pack it in and grab a beer (yes, even trainers like to kick back a few now and again).

After I made a few more turns I called it a day and concluded that I took in less calories, no high fructose corn syrup (unfortunately, many of the top sports drinks now use that as an ingredient) and felt better all the way around. What happened the next morning was the most interesting detail to note. I woke up expecting to be a little leg whipped, and although my legs were tired ,they were definitely less fatigued than normal. One caveat to Enlyten Strips is that they are a bit of a bear to get out of the container when wearing ski gloves.

In the end, Enlyten Strips did their job. Hopefully, Healthsport (parent company of Enlyten Strips) will make them “glove friendly” for snow sports enthusiasts soon!

Enlyten SportsStrips-Athletic Pack
3 Cassettes
Each Cassette has 18 strips
Price: 9.99
www.shopenlyten.com

Stay Fit Skiing!
Andrew Hooge, CSCS