My ideal ski day is… skin 3,000 vertical feet, ski back down before the resort opens, second breakfast, alpine ski 20,000 ft of bumps, lunch with my wife, and finish with 10,000 feet of steeps in the afternoon.

Being able to enjoy this day is the goal of my training.

My program is focused on range of movement, strengthening connective tissues and slowing the loss of lean body mass.

Four things from 2017:

1. The plan worked – radical change isn’t required.
2. I can gain muscle in my late-40s — train, eat normally, get jacked — we have been conditioned to believe strength loss is inevitable. Signs of decay are evident in my skin and recovery but my strength is hanging on. I’m fueled on real food, coffee and water – that’s it. Don’t even bother with vitamins.
3. Acute soft tissue injury is my greatest risk – therefore, compound lifts, with full range of motion, are more important than putting up big numbers.
4. My strength peaked four months before I started skiing a lot. A longer base period fits for injury prevention and a target of being really strong in September/October.

To keep me honest, I’ll keep you posted.

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Base One (36 Workouts)

• Twelve of each session
• Twice a week for six weeks
• Split across the week
• Twelve hours of time invested (Huge Return on Investment)

Lower Body

• 4×25 squat #95
• 4×25 leg press #140 (sled #118)
• 4×10 single leg press just the sled
• Leg ext 4×25 each side #20 alt by side
• Single hip bridge each side 4×10 alt by side
• Calves 4×25 alt by straight/bent knee

Upper Body

• 4×25 pull downs (front)
• 4×25 assisted dips
• 4×25 sit ups
• 100 push ups (for the day)

Plyometric Half Blaster (x5 on 30s rest)

• 10x Air Squats
• 5x In-Place Lunges (5x each leg, 10x total)
• 5x Jumping Lunges (5x each leg, 10x total)
• 5x Jump Squats

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My Endurance Corner articles on strength are here – the links will go down eventually as it’s an old version of the site – good stuff that helped me when I was a high-performance athlete