Tom Gellie and another skier explain why most people crash after day one of backcountry trips. They cover protein targets (0.8g per pound of body weight), eight uninterrupted hours of sleep, and a warm-up routine of yoga, cycling, and jump rope before you ski. Treat it like a sport and you'll actually last.
Everyone can go ski one day, but how are you on day 2 or 3 or 4? You know, people start to fall off. Ah bro, I need a half day off. I'm gonna— you know, I'm like, bro, we're in Japan. Like, we're— you know, it's, it's day 4 of the helicopter ski trip and like, you're tired today? Did you eat breakfast? No. Like, show me what you ate for lunch. Like, it cannot include a Monster Energy and a beer.
There's not many other sports where you might be up at like 7:30, on the lift at 8:30, going hard, and then the day ends at maybe 4.
We can still take those lessons out of high-performance Olympic-level skiing and say, hey, you know, let's get a— every few, you know, every hour, let's eat a bar on the lift. Look, you can do that. Like, just make sure some water. Are you laying in bed for 8 hours without looking at your phone? Yes or no? Not looking at your phone 8 hours. I need you to rest. If you want to recover, grow a body, get stronger, build bone density, have you like lay in bed for 8 hours. And usually the 8.8 grams or gram of protein per pound body weight. I stretch and I warm, and now the best athletes are doing yoga before they go on the hill, and I'll get on the bike and I'll be prepped and I'll jump rope. And so by the time I strap in the boots, I'm actually warm like I'm actually going to go do a sport, and I'm treating skiing like a sport.
