Skiing: Recreation or Fitness?

Going on a ski trip – more than any other vacation – brings out the question of fitness vs. recreation. Many people ski for fun and that’s perfectly fine. Some of us think this is also good fitness. For those of us, it is a good reminder to have CrossFit’s definition of fitness. Is your skiing or riding crossing many modalities, times and many physical skills?
If your CrossFit box programmed the same 10-mile run 7 days in a row, you’d probably quit. Yet, that is exactly what happens to those on the skis on the same type of runs every day.
One way to make mountain sports more fitness-like is taking full advantage of the great options already there. For fun here is a 7-day more CF-like programming:
Day 1 – Powder skiing – target 20,000 vertical feet per 4 hours
Day 2 – Snowboarding (rocker) – moguls and jumps – high intensity
Day 3 – Ski blades – forest runs including extensive climbing
Day 4 – Racing Board – speed intervals – high speed 3-5 min runs
Day 5 – Carver skiing – no pole carving on steep runs 10 rounds – max 30 sec variation
Day 6 – Snow shoe climb – 2000ft climb for time
Day 7 – Ski – mogul runs 8-10 rounds
MetCon
I may not follow the above plan, but so far turned out that way. So today the snowboard was swapped for short skis and a lot of technical and speedy ski runs in the forest.