Today's workout courtesy of Crossfit Seattle

Workout of the day in Seattle, All about the legs!

Warmup
3* 10 air squats/10 push ups 10 v-ups

Round 1(max 20x)
1*10 back squat just bar
1*20 back squat just bar
1-3 rounds at higher weight till max @ 20 reps

Round 2
4* 20 Wall Ball & sprint 100 meters

Notes: Last round of wall ball just about claimed my breakfast, great start to the ski season try it!

New Ideas for a new season

As the cold front hits Seattle, I am frantically organizing my life around the coming ski season, certainly a problem with a one track mind. Last time I mentioned some new ideas about my approach to fitness and taken the next step to start a new company with a good friend of mine, Christi Masi, founder of the Healthy Bride & Healthy Goddess and all around multi-sport bad-ass. The new venture is NW Athlete, a fitness program based on Rob Shaul's Mt Athlete for the Northwest and my clients who for years have asked about mountain fitness.

For the last year I have worked out with Crossfit and found a new level of durability and strength to compliment the usual running and climbing. For me, this compliments my new passion in sustainability as this makes all mountain sports a long time pursuit with the knowledge I am doing everything I can for fitness and injury prevention. As Christi asked me for a top ten list, here is what we came up with for our top ten reasons for getting fit for ski season:

1. Because you are tired of skiing the one day tours and want to do a three tram ride day at La Grave or ski off Rainier and still have the stamina for all the beer you can drink afterwards.

2. Your kids are becoming better skiers than you, and you want to blow their minds this year by leaving them in the dust.

3. You are one year older this year and you know you better work at getting in shape so you don’t hurt yourself this year.

4. That trip to Rogers Pass will be WAY more fun if you can ski the mountain top to bottom without stopping.

5. Those new skis will feel lighter if you actually workout a bit more...

6. That couloir/traverse/ski descent just keeps calling to you and THIS is the year!

7. You want strong legs and core anyway.

8. Your BFF is begging you to do it with her.

9. To get your friend to go on BCA Guides trip this season, you have to go.

10. Because you know it will be a great season if you get of the couch and just do it!

With that in mind, an hour a day starting now will get you ready, starting Oct 15 I will start posting workouts you can follow and ask about for the first 8 week periodization program to get you ready for the December opening day!

Cheers,
Matt

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Sometimes, getting back to basics really enables one to strip away the useless fluff and unleash the machine within, or at least that is the misconception I operate under. As sport specific as climbing and skiing are, the core, adaptive fitness takes a back seat, til now...

With the growth of Crossfit and Mt Athlete, I think it is time to reconsider what real mountain fitness is. First, let's examine some benchmarks to gauge what constitutes a fit skier or climber. Then we will break down the components.

Skiing requires dynamic leg strength and power endurance to competently ski a big alpine run in any condition.



Touring like nordic skiing delves into deeper muscle endurance and specific fitness that must be trained in the discipline.

One aspect that all of these disciplines have in common is adaptive, core fitness.