• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

CalG

Out on the slopes
Pass Pulled
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Posts
1,962
Location
Vt
Something I read once sticks with me. A mile walk takes about 100 cal. Jogging maybe adds 10 or 20 more. RUNNING that same mile easily doubles the calories required to do the work. It is not "how long" you engage in the activity that matters, it is the duration and intensity that add to the tally!

I recall when K2 and Elan really started promoting the "shaped ski". Everyone said "They make skiing so easy, like power steering".
I could only think to myself "Why is that a feature? I'm here for the exercise, and only feel good when I leave the mountain throughly spent".
So I bought a pair of 203cm K2 MSL's :-]
I was younger then. ;-)
 

jzmtl

Intermidiot
Skier
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Posts
323
Location
Montreal
According to Trace snow app, I can do around 230/hour at local mole hill and 310 at larger hills, including lift, lunch and pee break time.
 

Tom K.

Skier Ordinaire
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Posts
8,399
According to Trace snow app, I can do around 230/hour at local mole hill and 310 at larger hills, including lift, lunch and pee break time.

I'd buy that estimate. I struggle a bit in the winter with weight, because the other 8 months of the year I pedal a bike pretty intensely, and I have trouble switching my appetite "off" when my activity level decreases. Probably all in the head, but anyhoo....

When I want to rein things in a bit, I find I can easily ski all day while simply eating one square of Dove dark chocolate every half hour or forty minutes. Never get hungry at all. This sport just isn't that much work. Fortunately, it IS that much fun!
 

surfacehoar

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
May 12, 2017
Posts
182
Skiing is almost all reactive/eccentric and doesn't really place much stress on the cardiovascular system. The amount of calories burned skiing is quite small, yet the amount of muscle fiber breakdown is quite large. Which is why we are often sore the day after skiing.

My fenix 5 says:

I burned 100Cal / hour riding the lifts yesterday. my average HR skiing was 89, max at 109BPM.
My last bike ride (XC) I burned 900Cal/hour : average HR 156, max 184BPM
My Last Ski tour I burned 750Cal/hour. 133/161BPM
 

Lady_Salina

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
423
Skiing is almost all reactive/eccentric and doesn't really place much stress on the cardiovascular system. The amount of calories burned skiing is quite small, yet the amount of muscle fiber breakdown is quite large. Which is why we are often sore the day after skiing.

My fenix 5 says:

I burned 100Cal / hour riding the lifts yesterday. my average HR skiing was 89, max at 109BPM.
My last bike ride (XC) I burned 900Cal/hour : average HR 156, max 184BPM
My Last Ski tour I burned 750Cal/hour. 133/161BPM

I have to disagree. I burn far more calories skiing, keeping warm and keeping myself balanced through a 7 hour day than any other sport I do. My resting HR will drop from the low 50's during the winter to 45 ish also. Mostly due to the length of time I am active in the day. The calorie burn does not just come from the activity of skiing but also from wearing the heavy gear in the lines, parking lot, walking back and fourth to the car and around the lodge. My HR montior shows I am in Fat Burning mode for 4 to 8 hours a day. Cycling a few hours a day and hitting cardio zone and peak for 30 minutes doesn't make up for this continuous fat burning. Those women I know well that I teach skiing with and who work or ski 5 to 7 days a week all lose weight in the winter. This does include setting up gates, carrying around flags in the snow setting up fences etc but even skiing, which I do for a few weeks before I start teaching begins to take off weight. When I go home from the winter and start cycling my HR shows I am not burning the same calories per day and i start to slowly put weight on over the summer. I burn about 500 calories per hour when I single track so my 2 hour right gets me 1000 extra for the day and often I have burned 2700 calories at the end of a summer day but 2700 calories is the lowest my HR shows since arriving at Whistler on November 19th. Being as it is a unique sport, maybe people are unique in how much effort and time they spend at it and the level of skiier probably has a lot to do with it also. I tend to put in quite a bit of vertical in a day, but, my one day teaching beginners was one of my higher calorie out puts this year. I do have to stop and pick them up often and spend a significant amount of time walking up and down with them.

This was Sunday with my beginner lesson. The only day I really hit the cardio zone, but most days there is 240 to 350 minutes in fat burning when i ski and an average of 3000 calories, some more some less. If i only ski a few hours instead of all day it's less, all day, open to close it's over 3000. And yes I am pretty sure my fit bit HR estimate is pretty accurate as I track and log all calories I eat and find it pretty accurate to weight going up and down.
Nov.26.jpg


OH yes, and on an inactive day as a 52 year old female I will only burn at a base rate of 1500 or so calories a day. Most of my burn is coming from the activity level since my metabolism is slower than a younger person.
 

Lady_Salina

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
423
Which part do you disagree with?
Oh that is is a low calorie burn activity. I definitely burn far more than 100/hour. But as I said, it may be unique to you and how you ski, the lines are your resort, the time in lift to time on the hill and or the amount of time skating on flats and up hills.
 

surfacehoar

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
May 12, 2017
Posts
182
Maybe I missed it, but I thought the point of this was to omit the other activities like hiking, skating, carrying gear etc. and focus on just the calories burned going down the hill. Exclusively.

No doubt a short skate or even 5 min boot pack will change your cardio effort dramatically. But that’s not downhill skiing.

The beauty of skiing is in the energy transfer, we pay for it in our lift ticket. At the top of the hill we are loaded with potential energy that we need to release as we glide down the hill. Most other activities we need to pay for that with work.

The smoother you ski, the less calories you’ll burn. The best skiers make it look effortless.

I’m going skiing today, 20in new snow this week with 6in yesterday. They are opening some of my favourite terrain off the backside for the first time this year that is only 500 vertical with over a km of skating necessary to get back to the lift. I skate hard and will reach threshold HR each lap trying to work my way back to the chair. My Calories burned will be dramatically different today.
 

Lady_Salina

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
423
Maybe I missed it, but I thought the point of this was to omit the other activities like hiking, skating, carrying gear etc. and focus on just the calories burned going down the hill. Exclusively.

No doubt a short skate or even 5 min boot pack will change your cardio effort dramatically. But that’s not downhill skiing.

The beauty of skiing is in the energy transfer, we pay for it in our lift ticket. At the top of the hill we are loaded with potential energy that we need to release as we glide down the hill. Most other activities we need to pay for that with work.

The smoother you ski, the less calories you’ll burn. The best skiers make it look effortless.

I’m going skiing today, 20in new snow this week with 6in yesterday. They are opening some of my favourite terrain off the backside for the first time this year that is only 500 vertical with over a km of skating necessary to get back to the lift. I skate hard and will reach threshold HR each lap trying to work my way back to the chair. My Calories burned will be dramatically different today.


Ah I always look at skiing as all that it in entails, as yea, it includes all the extras and over the course of a day I average a lot of calories. Today I skied all day and we had some powder and for the first time in the 2 weeks since I got here my FIT BIT actually auto registered I'd been involved in a sport of some type today three times. Those making it look effortless are actually using far more energy than the average person and burning more calories than the average and doing more runs in a day to burn even more. So today my calorie burn for being out skiing for the day and, Yes I had a lift ticket is over 3500. Pretty cool for having fun gliding effortlessly down a hill.
 

surfacehoar

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
May 12, 2017
Posts
182
I guess I did a littler better yesterday? I wore my HR-Tri chest strap paired with my Fenix 5.

I skied 19,317 vertical in 3:17min (total time minus lunch time). 15 Runs in the trees; powder,chop.
My average HR was 79bpm, with a max of 107bpm. Calories burned: 391 from activity. 197 Cal/hour including my BMR.

Do not be discouraged with your weight loss goals. As skied should be encouraged as part of an active lifestyle.
 

tball

Unzipped
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
4,362
Location
Denver, CO
@surfacehoar, those heart rates seem really low compared to what I see. I know everyone is different, but I think skiing style and terrain greatly influence the workout intensity. How do they compare to your non-skiing workouts? How often are you stopping? Skiing with others? I get my best workouts skiing when I ski alone and try to stop as little as possible.
 

tball

Unzipped
Skier
SkiTalk Supporter
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
4,362
Location
Denver, CO
Here's the data from my most intense day when I wore my chest strap HRM with my Fenix 2, which isn't too often. This was spring bumps at Mary Jane stopping as little as possible, so far from a typical skiers day.

Garmin_Connect.png


Edit to add HR graph:
Garmin_Connect 18.png


I don't put much faith in Garmin to have a good calorie burn estimate. I've heard it said, "Garmin is for athletes and Fitbit is for steppers and calorie counters."

I think @Lady_Salina 's approach to all day calorie estimate by Fitbit is probably the better way to go for the OP.
 
Last edited:

surfacehoar

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
May 12, 2017
Posts
182
They do seem low to me as well, I would have thought i was working harder. I focus most of my training on going up hill. Either hiking,biking,ski touring. Mostly body weight exercises at the gym, my days of heavy squats are over. I'm usually HR in the 130-160 range during exercise. Resting HR is 42 this week.

I generally ski solo on the advance terrain, top to bottom without stopping. I focus on keeping my weight over my feet and moving with the terrain, being liquid, reacting to the variability not bracing into them. Like a running back moving with the tackle, not trying to power through them. My skis are almost always on edge, I don't skid my turns. My average speed is 25 km/h. I don't really try for top speed, but if I don't reach 100km/h max speed in a ski day I'm disappointed.

Skiing a zipper line through bumps, If you bend the ski, keep it on edge, control your speed by finishing the turns, it's pretty efficient. Way easier than being in the back seat, trying to muscle your skis to turn, skidding all over the place. Not directing that to anyone specifically.
 

Karen_skier2.0

AKA - RX2SKI
Skier
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Posts
659
Location
Johnstown, CO
I have the Trace Snow app on my phone. It will report vertical feet, speed, time on lift, actual ski time, tracks which resort you are skiing and lastly calories burned. Is it accurate? I don't know about the calories but the rest of appears to be so. After a day on the slopes you can review everything from your laptop if you desire.

Karl

+1 for Trace Snow

I believe you need to upgrade to the paid version (maybe $15/year) to see your time broken down by actually skiing, standing/stopping, and time on lift.
My Garmin seems to totally overestimate the number of calories. FYI, my calories also seem excessive in the image below--but the calculations also include weight and I am not petite.

session_sheet_1475885.jpg
 

Lady_Salina

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
423
Karen Skier, that would seem on track with what I burn in a day according my HR monitoring calories while skiing for the full day. I tend to believe it as I do track everything and I ski 6 or 7 days a week so I do see it over time. I don't put in activities on my fitbit HR or it will uses weird algorithms that often over estimate. I just let it work out my calories based on the HR, my weight and my VO2 Max and it seems to be pretty accurate that way. As soon as I start syncing to apps or adding in activities the counts go out. I like the over all day average as we do a lot on a ski day other than ski (skating from place to place, carrying skis to and from the car, walking in deep snow in ski boots etc and it adds up at a constant fat burning calorie level over the day. So although it's not the exercise I reach my highest HR's in, I do get them up there on bump runs or when doing some dynamic short radius runs, I find the over all time spent in the day it is greater than most activities I do because of the time spent at it. Skiing is so much fun it's hard to believe the work out quality is there but as we're at for 6 hours in the day instead of 1 or 2 it adds up. Just one more reason to love it. Even with Tball above, he burned calories for the full 350 minutes but the amount given is only for his skiing time (nice app break down). The larger estimates are likely including all calories including base calories burned for survival for the full time out plus the activity. I'm not a feather weight either.
 

Sponsor

Top