Autumn belongs to apple orchards and slow cookers, unless you’re a skier. Then it belongs to gear hunts, fresh wax, and lift ticket research. The excitement lasts from the first turning leaf to about 10 P.M. on opening day.
Your quads burn, your calves feel tight, and you wonder why you skipped those hip and groin stretches. To understand why day two hits so hard, I spoke to Milica McDowell, DPT, owner of Clearwater Physical Therapy in Bozeman, Montana. She has 20-plus years of clinical experience, grew up skiing at Alyeska Resort in Alaska, and is married to Paul Herberger, a retired Freeride World Tour skier turned coach.
So she knows a thing or two about the day-two body aches. On day one, McDowell says, most skiers feel “absolutely nothing…except for adrenaline.” On day two, the tables turn and “most of us feel like we’ve been hit by a snowcat overnight.” She links the inevitable discomfort to three causes. The first is eccentric loading, which happens when a muscle works while it lengthens, like the lowering half of a squat.
In one study, 24 fit skiers spent four hours on the slopes. A day later, they still had reduced eccentric strength in their hamstrings and quads. McDowell calls the result “itty-bitty microtraumas in our muscle.” A 2019 research review puts soreness from unfamiliar eccentric work at its worst 24 to 72 hours after.
The second is a gap between gym fitness and ski fitness. Strength training and cardio help, McDowell says, but they’re “not specific to the demands of carving turns for hours on end.” A study of elite racers shows skiing leans on slow lowering and long, steady holds. While physical therapist Matt Hastings points to slow-tempo lifts and wall sits, McDowell notes that it’s “really really hard to prepare for hours in that flexed ankle and flexed knee position.” The third is altitude.
Thin air makes it harder to deliver oxygen to your muscles, so fatigue sets in sooner, and Cleveland Clinic says headache and fatigue can show up within a day or so of arriving. As McDowell puts it, “it’s harder work to do the work.” Some soreness is normal, but it rarely lasts more than five days. If you wake up feeling hungover “without knocking back too many après PBRs,” McDowell says, thin air might be why.
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