As if we needed another excuse to get out in the snow! Believe it or not, you might actually lose weight on your next ski holiday despite all the Schnapps and wiener schnitzel. Skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports are a fantastic way to burn calories and stay healthy, in addition to getting you outside in the fresh air with the gorgeous scenery! So just how many calories do we burn while skiing and snowboarding?
As you might imagine, a World Cup athlete will burn more calories than a holidaymaker who just wants to take it easy on their ski holiday. How many calories you burn also depends on several other factors, namely:
Your skiing style:
Do you tackle moguls, which require lots of leg strength, or are you happy enough on an easy green?
Your age and weight:
We burn calories differently depending on our body types
The weather:
Are you sweating from the sun, or shivering from the cold?
The snow conditions:
Do you have to wade your way through spring snow, or are you trying not to skid on the ice?
Skiers with a more active skiing style burn more calories
To get a general idea of how many calories we burn while skiing, we’ll assume we’re talking about an average skier, who likes to make wide turns on red slopes, with an occasional stab at a black piste or quicker, shorter turns. Depending on their weight, this skier would burn between 400 calories (for a person weighing appr. 9 stone) and 560 calories (for a person weighing appr. 13 stone) every hour. This average number of calories burned includes the time spent queuing and on the lift. Generally, we also burn more calories on colder days.
The average snowboarder burns just 300 calories an hour, but again, this depends on how hard you’re pushing yourself. Freestyling tricks in the snow park, for example, will burn a lot more calories than practising carving on the nursery slopes – although anybody who’s learned snowboarding as an adult will be able to confirm you definitely burn a lot of calories every time you have to pick yourself up off the ground!
Snowboarding burns less calories than skiing
Cross-country skiing has a reputation for being relaxing, but it might not be well-deserved. This is actually a high-energy sport that requires a ton of stamina, especially when going uphill and using the “skating” movement. It’s easy to see why cross-country skiers can burn 800 calories an hour! So next time you want to burn off that schnitzel, maybe consider spending a few hours cross-country skiing instead of downhill skiing...
Ski touring is a way to experience skiing the way it was back in the days before we had such well-established lift systems. Ski tourers “earn their turns” by trudging up the mountain carrying all their gear and only then do they get to ski downhill. Like cross-country skiing, ski touring also burns more calories
Ski touring takes a lot of energy
Ice skating uses not only your muscles, but also your balance and endurance, just like skiing. All these factors combined mean that ice skaters can burn as much as 600 calories an hour.
While it might not appear to be a very tiring sport, tobogganing forces you to automatically contract your back and stomach muscles. If the toboggan run is steep, you might also need to use your legs to brake. You can easily wind up burning around 300 calories an hour while tobogganing.
Source:
Gesundheit-blog.at
As if we needed another excuse to get out in the snow! Believe it or not, you might actually lose weight on your next ski holiday despite all the Schnapps and wiener schnitzel. Skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports are a fantastic way to burn calories and stay healthy, in addition to getting you outside in the fresh air with the gorgeous scenery! So just how many calories do we burn while skiing and snowboarding?
As you might imagine, a World Cup athlete will burn more calories than a holidaymaker who just wants to take it easy on their ski holiday. How many calories you burn also depends on several other factors, namely:
Your skiing style:
Do you tackle moguls, which require lots of leg strength, or are you happy enough on an easy green?
Your age and weight:
We burn calories differently depending on our body types
The weather:
Are you sweating from the sun, or shivering from the cold?
The snow conditions:
Do you have to wade your way through spring snow, or are you trying not to skid on the ice?
Skiers with a more active skiing style burn more calories
To get a general idea of how many calories we burn while skiing, we’ll assume we’re talking about an average skier, who likes to make wide turns on red slopes, with an occasional stab at a black piste or quicker, shorter turns. Depending on their weight, this skier would burn between 400 calories (for a person weighing appr. 9 stone) and 560 calories (for a person weighing appr. 13 stone) every hour. This average number of calories burned includes the time spent queuing and on the lift. Generally, we also burn more calories on colder days.
The average snowboarder burns just 300 calories an hour, but again, this depends on how hard you’re pushing yourself. Freestyling tricks in the snow park, for example, will burn a lot more calories than practising carving on the nursery slopes – although anybody who’s learned snowboarding as an adult will be able to confirm you definitely burn a lot of calories every time you have to pick yourself up off the ground!
Snowboarding burns less calories than skiing
Cross-country skiing has a reputation for being relaxing, but it might not be well-deserved. This is actually a high-energy sport that requires a ton of stamina, especially when going uphill and using the “skating” movement. It’s easy to see why cross-country skiers can burn 800 calories an hour! So next time you want to burn off that schnitzel, maybe consider spending a few hours cross-country skiing instead of downhill skiing...
Ski touring is a way to experience skiing the way it was back in the days before we had such well-established lift systems. Ski tourers “earn their turns” by trudging up the mountain carrying all their gear and only then do they get to ski downhill. Like cross-country skiing, ski touring also burns more calories
Ski touring takes a lot of energy
Ice skating uses not only your muscles, but also your balance and endurance, just like skiing. All these factors combined mean that ice skaters can burn as much as 600 calories an hour.
While it might not appear to be a very tiring sport, tobogganing forces you to automatically contract your back and stomach muscles. If the toboggan run is steep, you might also need to use your legs to brake. You can easily wind up burning around 300 calories an hour while tobogganing.
Source:
Gesundheit-blog.at
Born and raised in the ski paradise of Vancouver, Canada, I learned to ski before I can remember, balancing precariously on my parents’ skis as they sailed down the hill. I started snowboarding in my teens and am now delighted to be exploring everything Europe’s ski scene has to offer!
