Not very many, especially when you think about how your muscles are screaming in pain as you swoosh your way through deep piles of snow, or pole your way across an uphill section to another run.
On Monday and Tuesday of spring break, I wore my WW ActiveLink . . . I also wore it in the car as we drove to Colorado and managed to score one point! But while skiing, I only earned 2 activity points.
Whaaaat? *said like a 'Despicable Me' minion*
I literally worked my bum off and my thighs were burning in pain along with the serious tricep workout I got while poling. So what gives?
The ski lifts, baby. The ski lifts were the kicker.
I might have been working hard while skiing down those steep blue and black slopes, but I was also sitting on a ski lift from 5-12 minutes between runs. This is the valuable information that you can get from the WW ActiveLink or any other monitoring device. When I plugged it in and it calculated the points, it also shows how much activity you accrued in shorter increments--and no, I don't think shivering on the ski lifts helped me earn any points. :-(
Good to know, right?
Though I didn't earn as many activity points as I thought I would, I also learned that any amount of poling will work your triceps and lats very efficiently.
Think about it: you have to propel your body weight up an incline using only two poles, while on a pair of skies . . . sometimes directly into the 30 mph wind. Yes, this was rough.
Why couldn't it have been a tail wind??
Who knows? Life works in mysterious ways.
As I mentioned there are numerous flat areas in a ski resort: the area where numerous lifts dump you off, the area in front of the on-mountain food places, the area where numerous runs merge into one run taking you to the next mountain, or a catwalk that zigzags across the steeper runs that your daughter wants to ski because they're 'fun'.
No matter where you are, you will find areas on a downhill mountain where you have to pole your way across an expanse. This is where I discovered my friends--pecs, lats and triceps. They were sad that I hadn't spent much time time with them in the past, and made themselves known that they were on the slopes to party hard.
They joined my friends, the quads and hams . . .
I might not have earned many activity points, but I had fun and managed to work some muscles that normally didn't get much toning on my walks.
I love skiing.
But I love skiing more when I can wear sunglasses, but I can't complain because I had my buddies, quads, hams, pecs, lats, and triceps joining me on the trip.
Later, Peeps!
I'm pretty sure I got a workout just from reading this. So how did the skiing compare to your usual power-walk?
ReplyDeleteSkiing worked other muscles than power-walking, especially my quads. When you ski powder and powder that becomes piles and ice from the snowboarders, you have to keep a slight squat to stay in your heels, otherwise you would do a facer when you stopped short in a snow pile. :-)
ReplyDeleteI've been snow skiing exactly once. Spent most of the week at the bottom drinking wine and watching the others ski in.
ReplyDeleteYeah, not my thing.
LOL! Just like everything else in life, there is a learning curve, Cydni.
ReplyDeleteYou have to decide if the risk and pain are worth the reward.