cycling

A snowHead

How good is cycling for ski fitness ?
i prob do about 5 miles a day .

A snowHead

Very good
I started last August and in Jan and March could ski as if I was a young man again

But 5 miles isn't a lot of aerobic exercise - how hard do you cycle?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I found that last winter after a fair bit of cycling throughout 2012 I felt a lot fitter skiing. Again though a fair bit more than that, 3 times a week or so up to 70 mile trips in the summer. I'm still getting out as I can but shorter trips, 25 - 40 miles.

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I do no regular exercise apart from my daily commute by bike - 16 mile round trip, about 40 mins each way. I am 57 and have done only this for decades and I rarely get that lactic acid burn or sore , tired or whatever.

I have read somewhere that the muscle groups are the same for cycling and skiing - and ( statement of the obvious ) both are non weight bearing. I gave up running many years ago and the consultant who advised me to do so said cycle and try and keep the weight down when walking ie buy lightweight kit ( and I am skinny anyway ).

What I do notice is that when I want to do proper walking eg in the Cairngorms I have to do some training to get used to weight bearing which the cycling doesn't help.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Cycling is excellent, Hermann Maier used to do tons of it!!!

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For real training, cycling doesn't really do much. For recreational skiing, anything you do, even if it means just 30mins of walking a day instead of 30mins of watching tv, is great.

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primoz, think it depends on what cycling you do. Agree that a little 10 mile flat potter won't do much good but a bit of the up and down for 60 miles type of cycling with people who are a bit better than you will do some good. One thing cycling does is create a significant weight penalty (for the up bits at least!) so it tends to act as an inventive to keep the beer gut down a bit.

After all it is free

primoz, what rubbish. It completely depends on how hard you cycle.

Batman_123, you need to think before you make the comment you have.

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1969jma, maybe she did?

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1969jma, please do explain?

Primoz's comment that 'for real training, cycling doesn't do much' is rubbish. Cycling can be very good 'real training'. I've thought about it again and I am now even more sure I am correct.

I'd add that your saying that 'anything is great' when you're also referring to 'real training' is also rubbish. 30 minutes of walking a day will not improve your aerobic capacity significantly, nor will it improve your strength.

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Batman_123, apologise for the comment it wasn't meant to come out in the way I had poorly written. I should have said Primoz.

Any form of regular exercise is good for the majority of sports and doesn't necessarily have to be within their aerobic training zone. Training with the aerobic training zone will obviously have greater effects but it needs to be sports specific or something very similar. Ie training for football / hockey. Training for swimming is very different to an invasion sport.

Having lost 35Kg and turned into a "proper" cyclist over the past 18 months, I can assure you that the difference to my skiing is night and day.
By "proper" I mean 100 mile rides, weekly club runs @19mph for 50 miles non stop, miserable hours on the turbo trainer in / beyond aerobic zone etc.
Having got my fitness up on the bike, as well as the core strength and leg power which come from hard riding, I can ski all day and hold turns which I couldnt have dreamt of last year.
Bloody hard work, but worth every minute when you can keep up with your psycho 8 year old (I am 47)

You know it makes sense.

I've gotten into road cycling this year... really can't think of a better suited aerobic activity to aid in ski fitness preparation.... especially when you incorporate a lot of hill climbs!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Ok I should remember not to comment about such things, as experts on training, which have just lost 35kg (not picking on your in particular Martinperry) normally have more knowledge about these things, then someone who spent almost all his life actually being top level athlete (sure not good enough for winning World cup, but still good enough for placing top 15 in EC) and not 35kg overweight couch potato. Wink

And yes, cycling doesn't really do much for serious training, that's one of reasons, why noone of skiers (alpine or xc) does cycling as main (summer) training, but mostly as something to make those endless hours of training a bit less dull. Now if we stick with alpine, cycling basically involves quadricep and that's more or less it (yeah there's bit of calf, hamstring and glute muscles involved, but not all that much as someone would wish). Skiing involves a whole lot of other muscle groups. On top of that it literally kills your explosiveness, which is one of pretty important things in alpine skiing (and some other sports). But let's not go further into this, as I'm sure you know more about this then I do.
Now to my second part of previous comment... Cycling, or any other sport activity is great for someone not doing anything at all. So if you were 35kg overweight, going for 10km ride every day is great improvement. Going for 100miles rides, it's even better. But there are still better activities then cycling if you want to get fit(ter) for skiing.

A snowHead

Primoz, Don't you know who Herman Maier is?!!!! Also haven't you noticed the rest of the muscles on our national cycling team members, they have them in places one doesn't know about (well almost).
I used to kayak race for GB. I hated running, although I did the minimum I could get away with. I used cycling instead for my leg fitness and cardio, as well as all the specific in-boat training. I can assure you that you can be as fast and explosive on a bike as you need to be for skiing. It is the closest exercise to skiing (off skis) as far as I know that you can get. Mountain biking is superb, but I'm a roadie, albeit a slightly overweight (coming down!) semi retired one. The hills around the lanes in Worcestershire are awesome, I still have to walk up some, but as they say, it will improve! I do have a mini kayak pull/push device which is very good for arms and core too.
I suppose if you are so sure that cycling is no good you have two options. 1) Go and ski for a season. 2) Do a course of Insanity!

A snowHead

primoz, I agree with you partially in as much as for top end ski racing, cycling alone would not suffice...... however judging by the OP i'm guessing the guy is not a ski racer and therefore for the level of skiing required I'd imagine cycling would be his best bet for getting in shape.... that and some hill sprints / plyometric type exercises (it all depends on how fit he wants to get).

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

primoz, +1 I also think biking (especially road biking) is highly overrated for fitness. The last thing most of us need (after sitting all day on our butts) is spending more hours sitting on a bike in a bend over position (which is obviously very different to standing on skis). I once heard an interview with a bike fitting expert who said that man to bike is like fish to elephant - it is an unnatural movement and as such doesn't do you much good. It does not strengthen the upper body and spinning light gears is just a waste of time for a fairly fit person. You could get a much better return in less time doing other activities such as weight training, running, swimming. Yes, swimming with paddles and fins is a great full body workout if one can do all four strokes.

I still enjoy biking, but mainly for getting around town and not so much as a fitness tool.

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tomb, in fairness primoz did specify that he wasn't on about recreational skiing.

All these anecdotes about people feeling the difference after cycling don't mean much if you don't allude to your skiing style. Do you just enjoy the pistes, take breaks often? Do you do 6 hour tours and then ski down 2000m vert in one go?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

snowyann, I'm perfectly aware who Hermann Maier is, and I can tell you that he did less then 5% of his training on bike Wink

More or less only athletes spending big deal of their training on bikes (next to cyclists of course) are speed skaters, everyone else use bike only as something to break monotony of long hours of training through non-racing period, while some of them (ski jumpers for example) are not even allowed to use it. And once again if I wasn't clear enough. Cycling is a whole lot better then doing nothing, but there are A LOT better ways to get in shape (with a whole lot less time to be spend) then cycling. Just for example, if you go out running for 1 hour, you do A LOT more then if you go out with bike for 2-3 hours (even with mtb). If you don't believe me this, you are free to search for other sources which will tell you basically same thing. And with people spending 8+ hour at work every day, and with some of you having kids and whole bunch of other responsibilities, getting 3 or 4h time for workout every day might be a bit hard, while getting 60minutes time for running shouldn't be problem for anyone... even in winter when there's very limited time of daylight.
But once more... anything, even 30mins of cycling is a whole lot better then sitting at home watching tv. But no matter what, cycling is not best sport for getting into overall shape, even if you like cycling Wink

One more thing, which sort of proves this. People around here are crazy about cycling, so in summer (and also not just summer) you see 1000s of recreational cyclists on roads. Big part of them are fast and spend on bike endless hours (10.000km/year is basically normal thing for most of these guys), yet most of them carry around big beer bellies. If you check runners who are only half as serious as these cyclists, none of them is overweight. This tells something too Wink

And last thing... I have nothing against cycling. I love to go out with my mtb, and I still do around 3-4000km a year with my xc mtb (next to some 1000-km on speed inline skates, 800km of running, 1000-1500km of xc skiing and 100+ days on alpine skis), but I do it for fun, without fooling myself I will be any fitter because of those hours spend on mtb.

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I'm with primoz too. Steep hill running and then jumping down the hill will do a lot more for you as it involves a lot more plyometrics, balance and recovery using the core.

http://youtube.com/v/TWBkCDdgj2E

Cycling can also cause muscle imbalance in the legs if your pedaling technique is wrong. One legged cycling builds up the hamstrings and corrects this imbalance. If anything while skiing you are often "cycling backwards" with both feet rather than treading forward one foot at a time.

If your balance is well off even recreational skiing is very tiring. When your balance and technique is good, recreational skiing is a walk in the park.

After all it is free

PRIMOZ
"On top of that it literally kills your explosiveness, which is one of pretty important things in alpine skiing (and some other sports). But let's not go further into this, as I'm sure you know more about this then I do."

Bit of a daft statement
Have you never sprinted a bike or climbed a short, sharp hill?
Most turbotraining regimes involve regular (every 60 seconds or so) 10 second bursts at maximal output
Rest assured, I have no problem "exploding"

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martinperry, you do realize not every sprint is same and not every movement, even when doing short full power workouts, doesn't produce fast muscles. Even when sprinting on bike things are "a bit" different then explosiveness training like this http://instagram.com/p/gsEWjAuuzM/# Wink

If sprinting on bike would be so good for explosiveness, guys in sport where you really need super fast legs and reflexes (ski jumping) would do whole lot of sprinting on bike, but bike and long distance running is complete no go for these guys.
Batman_123, let's say I did enough of high level competitive sport (about 20+ years in this, and some 13-15 years in national team), that I know what I'm talking about. So yes, 1h of running is in general compared to 2-3h on mtb and 3-4h on road bike... if you train properly. If not, differences are even bigger. As far as fat people goes, I'm not talking about someone ridding bike at 20km/h or running half marathon at 2+h Wink

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primoz, if you were a skier, I believe you know about ski training. I don't believe, however, that you know anything at all about road bike training.

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Batman_123, I thought we were talking about training for skiing, but obviously I was wrong.

You know it makes sense.

primoz, I mean, I believe you know what you're talking about for ski racing. I don't believe you understand how a road bike can be used for training and, in particular, how this can be applicable to recreational skiing (recreational in particular because I have no knowledge of ski racing, but I'm sure I can get that information from my husband when I get home, as he has knowledge of both ski and bike racing)

tomb, i agree.
I can burn 650 - 700 calories in an hour on the indoor bike (only an hour on the indoor bike but sustainable for longer outdoors). I'm pretty sure (certain at the moment) that I wouldn't be able to do that running (although have no verifiable way of measuring it - could use heart rate as an estimate, but I don't believe using HR as a means to estimate calories gives a meaninful estimate). If I cycled for three hours, I could burn off upwards of 1800 Kcal. There is no way on earth I could do that in an hour of running.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

For me as a comparison between cycling and running, both set of stats coming from stava from recent activities;

Cycling

Distance - 37.2mi
Elevation - 1,803ft
Moving Time - 2:01:09
Avg Speed - 18.4mi/h
Calories - 1,751

Running

Distance - 9.9mi
Moving Time - 1:29:52
Pace 9:05/mi
Calories - 1,981

I also do a fair amount of skipping/circuit training, weight lifting....

A snowHead

Maier wasn't buring 500+ cals per hour, the whole principle of Maier's trainning was sold as low intensisity. It wasn't the cycling motion but the training at low lactate (sub 2 mmol/litre, pulse = circa 100 to 120 bpm) - at least this is how they explained it to me when I had a fitness assement at the facility where maier trained in Obertautern.
Maier switched from heavy weights to low intensity training but he also carried out a lot of other exercises to work his body (eg balance exercises with up to 5kg weights, plyometrics etc).

IMHO - Yes cycling will make the average recreational skier fitter and there is some cross over of cycling fitness to skiing but you probably want to add in balance exercises & plyometrics as fitness in another sport alone is not the best recipe for skiing. I've mountain biked and boxed for decades but's its the balance exercises and technique improvements that made the most difference to my skiing.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

primoz, you're stating the obvious and backtracking on the other claims you make now.

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Isn't everyone just shouting at cross purposes. Everyone is right.

Your skiing holiday will be vastly improved if you are "fit". I.e. your cardiovascular system is up to a full days exercise, all day, every day for a week. Cycling is a great way of going from "not fit" to "fit" as it is a very accessable, low impact exercise that is also enjoyable as you get to go and see the countryside. The intensity levels are also fairly similar to recreational skiing as you do it for a long time with shorter burts of intense exercise when going up hill. Maybe it even helps with the feeling of going downhill at speed.

But alpine skiing as a sport isn't an endurance sport like cycling. Sure you need to be fit but at most you are putting in an effort of 2 mins. Its all about skill, explosive muscle power and muscule endurance to repeat these explosive bursts over 2 mins. Do some cyclists also train for these short intense efforts? Yes. Would a recreational skiier be better able to ski an individual run if they trained like Chris Hoy, probably. Should a profesional Ski race train like Chris Hoy? Of course not, they'd be trainnig the wrong muscles to do the wrong thing.

If you were to design the ideal training plan to perform at you maximium doing lift served skiing every day for a week then it would probably be a mix of cardio (which could be anything really, cycling, running, swimming will all be equally good), some gym based strenght work to target the core and leg strength needed for good skiing as well as execises for balance, spacial awareness etc.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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An example of Hermann's plyometric performance .....

http://youtube.com/v/etgIIyV_eZg

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After all it is free

A training regime for skiing needs a mixture of different things. Aerobic, plyometrics, balance, strength, etc etc. No single activity is likely to tick every box. My training includes a fair amount of cycling but mainly through cycling 25km (one way distance) to work and back.that greatly reduces the time penalty (I have to travel to work anyway) and I save a significant amount on driving costs. I see that aerobic activity as a basic fitness platform to which I then add more specific training for skiing fitness. I do maybe three workouts a week oriented around core strength and balance using kettlebells, swiss ball and balance board. Plus two-three sessions of powerlifting with heavy weights. Plus occasional cross country runs and other activities.

My cycling is quite intense. My average time for 25km (mildly rolling terrain) is 45 minutes. That's 23mph which is quite a tough workout especially as a solo ride (and I do it twice!).

A training regime for skiing needs a mixture of different things. Aerobic, plyometrics, balance, strength, etc etc. No single activity is likely to tick every box. My training includes a fair amount of cycling but mainly through cycling 25km (one way distance) to work and back.that greatly reduces the time penalty (I have to travel to work anyway) and I save a significant amount on driving costs. I see that aerobic activity as a basic fitness platform to which I then add more specific training for skiing fitness. I do maybe three workouts a week oriented around core strength and balance using kettlebells, swiss ball and balance board. Plus two-three sessions of powerlifting with heavy weights. Plus occasional cross country runs and other activities.

My cycling is quite intense. My average time for 25km (mildly rolling terrain) is 45 minutes. That's 23mph which is quite a tough workout especially as a solo ride (and I do it twice!).

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Lots of interesting stuff here, but the original question was "How good is cycling for ski fitness?"
Clearly there are some keen athletes posting, but most skiers are going for a Holiday not a Boot Camp.
Most skiers potter: a bit of skiing, a bit of chatting and admiring the view, a few coffees and a pizza, a beer or two.

Even so, skiing does involve some exercise, morning and afternoon, for 6 days on the trot.
Most people don't take any regular exercise, and even fewer exercise every day.
So, any regular exercise is "Good". Cycling, running, walking, anything.

I just find it odd that there is any talk at all about "Fitness for skiing."
I'm an ordinary guy, no athlete by any shakes, but to me "Fitness is for Life, not just for skiing".
We should all be exercising daily, and to a degree that going skiing should make no difference: just different sort of exercise.

Help!!

cycling

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