Want to up your training when it’s too cold for the bike? Skip the trainer and try these winter sports instead! Here are six of the best cold-weather sports for cyclists to enjoy over the winter season.
The peloton goes frozen?
For many cyclists, winter presents a dilemma. Endure mind-numbing hours on the indoor trainer? Brave those freezing roads, even with numb toes? Unfortunately, sometimes the best base layer doesn’t feel like enough, and staring at the wall during Zwift gets old after a while.
Read more: Making a smooth training switch in autumn? It’s possible. Here’s how to move indoors with ease.
But don’t worry. The off-season has a third option on offer: cross-training with some awesome winter sports.
What makes winter sports like skiing and ice skating so awesome for cyclists looking to diversify their winter activity? It’s not just about maintaining fitness, but can also be a chance to address some physiological imbalances. Months of repetitive pedaling over the spring, summer, and fall can leave your body much stronger in some areas but much weaker in others. Cycling is a low-impact, linear motion that often leads to tight hip flexors, weak lateral stabilizers, and low bone density.
So short version, there’s no reason to settle for endless Zwift sessions. A stint in some winter sports can offer you more fun, more variety, and a chance to improve your body too.
Ready to check out the list? Here are 6 winter sports that are exceptional cross-training for cyclists. Along the way, let’s talk about why they translate to better performance on the bike and how you can make the most of taking up a new wintery activity.
Image from Unsplash.
1. Cross-Country (Nordic) Skiing
This is the “gold standard” of endurance cross-training. Cross-country skiing, specifically the “skate” style, is arguably the closest physiological match to cycling you can find off the bike. But why?
Nordic skiing is a full-body form of exercise that will put you into aerobic mode easily. Unlike cycling, where the upper body stays largely static, skiing requires you to generate propulsion with your arms and core. At the same time, you need to drive with your legs, using movements that are distinct from cycling’s and work different muscle groups. It demands a high VO2 max and the ability to sustain threshold efforts for long periods.
As a result, nordic skiing creates a massive aerobic base. The involvement of the upper body increases the heart’s demand for oxygen, which will allow you to reach higher heart rates than you can on a bike. The result is a big boost to your VO2 max and overall cardiovascular efficiency.
Let’s talk about the skating motion. Getting started on cross-country skis requires a powerful push-off that engages the gluteus medius and maximus in a way cycling rarely does. The lateral push will help stabilize your hips over time, as well as strengthen your knees.
Finally, balance plays a role. To glide efficiently on one ski, your core muscles must fire constantly to maintain balance. This also translates to a more stable torso on the bike.
How to get started:
Treat a classic or skate ski session as a direct replacement for a long weekend endurance ride. Because it involves the whole body, however, it’s a good idea to reduce the volume. A 90-minute ski often carries the same physiological load as a 3-hour ride! Also, start with lower intensity to master technique before chasing those high heart rates.
Image from Unsplash.
2. Alpine (Downhill) Skiing
Wait, downhill skiing, too?! Okay, it may look like gravity is doing all the work… but downhill skiing is also a great strength workout. It targets the specific leg muscles cyclists rely on, but in a completely different way.
If you think about it, alpine skiing is essentially a series of hundreds of squats, each one slightly different than the last. As you carve a turn, your quadriceps and glutes resist the forces trying to compress you into the snow. This requires significant power and isometric strength.
Why does this matter? Well, cycling is almost entirely concentric (shortening the muscle). Skiing is largely eccentric (lengthening under tension). This strengthens the connective tissues and tendons around the knee and hip. The result is an increase in durability and avoiding overuse injuries when you return to higher volume riding!
If you take up skiing, you might notice that a long, aggressive run down a mountain burns your legs in a way that mimics a threshold climb. The “burn” you feel is lactate accumulation. Believe it or not, learning to continue skiing with precision while your legs are cooked will teaches your body to process lactate efficiently… which every cyclist knows from experience can be very useful.
How to get started:
Unlike its cross-country cousin, a day of downhill skiing is more of a substitute for a heavy leg day in the gym, rather than a cardio workout. Schedule it on a day when you are feeling fresh! Avoid any heavy cycling intervals on the trainer the following day… you want to give your legs a chance to recover from the strenuous workout.
3. Fat Biking
If you just can’t bear to be off two wheels, don’t worry. Fat biking is the obvious choice. However, don’t mistake it for just “riding a bike!” Actually, the mechanics and demands of riding on snow can create a unique ride and training experience for cyclists of all levels.
Fat bikes use massive, low-pressure tires to float over the snow. But the rolling resistance is incredibly high, and the surface is unstable. A 10-mile ride on snow can feel like a 30-mile ride on pavement.
One thing you’ll quickly learn on a fat bike: you cannot mash pedals on snow! If you do, the rear wheel breaks traction and spins out. Fat biking forces you to develop a perfectly round, smooth pedal stroke, applying your power evenly through the entire rotation. Building this smoothness will make you significantly more efficient on the road, too.
At the same time, the resistance of the snow forces you to ride at a lower cadence with more torque, which acts as kind of a “big gear” workout. On a fat bike, you can build up some endurance in the quads and hamstrings without knee strain like you might get training on a steep paved climb.
Read more: 5 ways cycling can transform your body.
Finally, fat biking is a great bike handling exercise. The bike will constantly slide and drift underneath you. Staying upright requires a lot of micro-adjustments, which improves your balance. This is also great practice for other cycling disciplines like cyclocross or gravel riding.
How to get started:
Swap out your mid-week tempo trainer ride for a fat bike outing. You’ll want to be careful tracking distance because snow conditions can lead to wildly different experiences and difficulties. Instead, ride by time and effort rather than distance or speed. A 60 to 90-minute ride is usually sufficient for a good workout without excessive fatigue.
Image from Unsplash.
4. Snowshoeing
The last three options were high excitement, but what if you want to enjoy those cozy winter vibes? For those deep winter days when the snow is too soft for skiing or biking, snowshoeing can be a low-barrier, high-reward workout.
For the uninitiated, snowshoeing is essentially hiking with weights on your feet in resistance foam. Yes, we’ve all seen little grannies doing it at the park, but it’s actually a great workout! It eliminates the “bounce” of running while providing a lot of the same benefits to the body. Your muscles will also appreciate the added resistance of lifting the shoe out of the snow with every step.
Why should cyclists try it? As a group, we notoriously have tight, weak hip flexors. The act of lifting a snowshoe out of heavy snow hundreds of times per mile actively strengthens the iliopsoas and hip flexors. And stronger hip flexors improve the upstroke of your pedaling motion.
Walking uphill in snowshoes also engages the hamstrings and glutes more effectively than walking on firm ground. This helps balance the quad-dominance that many cyclists develop. And don’t worry about getting your heartrate up. Snowshoeing is a perfect analog for a zone 2 endurance day. If you don’t feel the heat, just walk faster or find a steeper hill. This allows you to maintain your aerobic conditioning even with such a seemingly calm activity.
Read more: Beginner to zone 2? Learn how this type of training makes you work smarter, not harder.
How to get started:
As suggested above, you can use snowshoeing as a low-stress alternative to Zone 2 trainer rides. What a great choice for days when you need mental recovery from the bike but still want to bank some aerobic time! A 1-2 hour steady hike in snowshoes will keep you in the “fat-burning zone.”
5. Ice Skating / Speed Skating
It’s one of the stereotypical winter sports, and well-loved for good reason. But for cyclists? Well, take a look at the thighs of an Olympic speed skater! You’ll see why this is a favorite cross-training method, too.
Gliding on ice requires you to balance and drive power through one leg at a time completely independently. This quickly highlights and corrects any left-right power imbalances you might be masking on the bike.
Skating also places the body in a crouched, aerodynamic position similar to the drops on a road bike or the aero tuck on a TT bike. It involves long, lateral power strokes. Keep in mind that cycling moves the legs in a fixed sagittal plane (forward and back), which can lead to weak inner and outer thigh muscles. The lateral push of skating targets the adductors and abductors instead. Strengthening these stabilizers prevents the knees from collapsing inward during pedal strokes.
What about isometric strength? Yes, skating is also good for your core! Maintaining a skating crouch builds immense isometric strength in the lower back and core. This really closely mimics how it feels to hold a good position on the bike for an hours-long ride.
How to get started:
Want to get out for a day at the rink? Integrate some skating like you would a high-intensity interval session. Keep skating sessions on the shorter side, as 30 to 45 minutes is often plenty. For a more structured workout, consider alternating between 5 minutes of harder effort and 5 minutes of easy gliding, almost like intervals.
6. Ski Mountaineering (Skimo)
Now here’s one you might not have heard of before! An activity that’s becoming more popular, “skimo” involves using “skins” on the bottom of skis to walk up a mountain, and then skiing back down. It is a great vertical gain workout, and fun too!
What does it feel like for your body? Well, this is pure climbing. You’ll be weight-bearing, fighting against gravity for up to a couple hours. It’s definitely one of the most calorie-intensive winter sports around.
Because it involves hauling your body weight up a slope, it naturally works a variety of muscles and encourages a healthy body composition. In addition, it can build the specific “climbing muscles” (lower back, glutes, calves) without the impact stress of running.
A two-hour skin up a mountain is very slow. It requires much of the same mental state as a long-distance cycling outing. In that sense, it trains the mind to be comfortable with sustained, uncomfortable efforts. And because there is no coasting on the way up, your heart rate will stays elevated throughout. This will help to build your aerobic capacity in a major way. Try some skimo and you might just find that those spring hills feel surprisingly flat when you get back on the bike!
How to get started:
Skimo is a nice replacement for threshold climbing intervals. Plan a route with a consistent uphill gradient and settle into a steady climbing rhythm. Since the descent offers some rest alongside the mentioned benefits of downhill skiing, you can repeat smaller climbs similar to hill repeats on the bike! Just be careful not to overdo it, as this form of exercise can be quite taxing on the body at first.
Image from Unsplash.
Are you interested in trying some of these winter sports this year? Integrating these unique forms of cross-training into your off-season will do more than just break up the monotony! You can builds a more resilient, well-rounded body along the way. By strengthening neglected muscle groups, improving balance, and maintaining high-end aerobic fitness, you can return to the bike in spring not just fresh, but even stronger than when you left off.
But which to choose? Whether it’s the engine-building of Nordic skiing, the leg strength of Alpine skiing, the adventure of fat biking, or exploring on snowshoes… why not give them all a try. Happy winter!
Read more: Cross-training in summer instead? Here are five fantastic options and how they help you become stronger on the bike!
Do you enjoy any of these winter sports during the season where biking outdoors isn’t as easy? Let us know your tips and tricks in the comments or on social media! ★
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