Snowshoeing in the Winter: The Complete Guide for Moving the Body in the Snow Without Hurting It

Why the Snowshoeing Is Exactly the Movement That the Cold Season Asks From Us

There is a moment, in the months of January and February, in which the body seems to enter into a sort of letargy. The hours of light become few, the cold pushes us toward the sofa, and the joints begin to complain like the old hinges of a gate. I have seen this happen to many persons, and also to myself, before I discovered the snowshoeing.

The snowshoeing is not the skiing. It does not ask from you the technique of a sport practiced since the childhood. You put on the snowshoes, you take the first step, and already you are walking. The gesture is the same one of the normal walking, only a little more wide, a little more slow. And yet, the effort for the cardiovascular system is considerable: the heart must pump with more force, the legs must lift more weight, the core stays in constant tension for maintaining the equilibrium on the uneven surface of the snow.

In a session of sixty minutes at moderate pace, a person of average weight can consume between the 400 and the 600 calories. But the numbers, in my experience, are the part less important. What counts is that the snowshoeing gives you the movement in a season in which the movement seems impossible. And this, for the health of the vessels and of the heart, is a thing of not little value.

How the Cold Acts on the Circulation: What Happens Inside the Body

Here is a point that too many persons ignore, and that instead is fundamental. When the temperature goes below the five degrees, the blood vessels of the extremities begin to restrict themselves. It is a mechanism of defence, natural and intelligent: the body concentrates the warm blood toward the vital organs, and the hands, the feet, the nose receive less flow.

This vasocostriction is normal for a brief exposure. But when you walk for one hour, two hours in the cold, the circulatory system works under a prolonged stress. The heart must compensate, the capillaries must adapt, and if the vascular walls are not in good conditions, the effort becomes heavier.

For this reason, before beginning a programme of winter activity, I always suggest to my readers of making a small preparation. Not only the physical training, but also the care of the microcirculation. In the months in which I was building my routine of snowshoeing, I had introduced in my daily habits the Cardiobalance, a preparation of natural origin thought for supporting the tone and the elasticity of the vessels. I had found the information on cardiobalance.biz after a conversation with my general practitioner, who reminded me that the cold season is the period in which the vascular system asks more attention, not less.

It is not a question of substituting the movement with a supplement. It is a question of putting the body in the best conditions for responding to the effort. The snowshoeing does the rest.

The Equipment Necessary: What Serves Truly and What Is Only Marketing

I have made the mistake, the first winter, of buying too many things. Let me save you the same error. What serves truly is this:

• The snowshoes. For the flat or gently hilly terrain, the models with the plate of 22-25 inches are sufficient. You do not need the ultralight racing models. You need a binding that holds well the boot.
• The boots. Waterproof, with a good ankle support. The boots of trekking that you already possess go well, if they are not of canvas.
• The poles. Not optional. They reduce the load on the knees of until the 25 percent, and on the snow they give stability.
• The clothing in layers. First layer in merino wool or synthetic fabric (never the cotton, that retains the sweat and makes you freeze). Second layer in fleece. Third layer antivento, only if there is wind.
• The gaiters. Those little sleeves that go from the boot to the knee and impede to the snow of entering inside.

The table below can help you to understand the temperature and the corresponding layers:

The First Outings: A Practical Programme for Who Starts From Zero

Do not make the error of the first day to walk three hours. The snowshoeing uses the muscles in a way different from the walking on the asphalt: the hip flexors, the adductors, the stabilisers of the ankle work more, and the day after they will present the bill.

The scheme that I have followed, and that I suggest, is this one:

Week 1 and 2. Two outings of thirty minutes on flat terrain, at a pace in which you can still speak without losing the breath. The objective is not the fitness. The objective is to teach to the body the new gesture.

Week 3 and 4. Two outings of forty-five minutes, introducing a gentle slope. The heart rate will go up. It is normal. You must feel the warmth in the chest, not the burning in the throat.

Week 5 and 6. Three outings of sixty minutes, with variations of terrain. Here the cardiovascular benefit becomes concrete and measurable. You will notice that the breath arrives more easily, that the legs recover more in fret.

After the sixth week, you can insert the intervals: five minutes at brisk pace alternated to three minutes of walking relaxed. This type of work is excellent for the elasticity of the vessels, because it teaches them to dilate and to restrict in rapid succession.

The Mistakes That Ruin the Experience (and the Knees)

In the years I have accompanied friends on the snow, I have seen always the same errors:

• To lean too much forward. On the snow, the weight must stay centred over the foot. If you lean forward, you load the lumbar zone and you lose adhesion.
• To walk with the feet too close. With the snowshoes, the stance must be more wide than normal, otherwise the plates hit one against the other and you lose the rhythm.
• To ignore the hydration. In the cold, the sensation of thirst diminishes, but the body loses liquids through the respiration. Bring always a thermos with warm water or tea.
• To start without warming the joints. Five minutes of ankle circles, of gentle squats, of rotation of the hips. The cold makes the synovial liquid more viscous; the joints need a little time for becoming fluid.

How to Make the Snowshoeing a Habit and Not an Episode

The truth is simple: the benefit for the circulation, for the heart, for the tone of the vessels does not arrive from the single outing of the Sunday. It arrives from the regularity. Three times the week, even only for thirty minutes, produce in four-six weeks a change that you feel in the legs when you climb the stairs, in the breath when you walk in hurry, in the colour of the skin of the face that becomes more rosy and less grey.

I prepare the outings the evening before. I put the snowshoes near the door. I decide the path. I check the weather. This small ritual eliminates the excuses of the morning, when the bed is warm and outside it is dark.

And when I return, after the stretching, after the hot shower, I take my moment of quiet with the preparations that I have chosen for the vascular support. It has become a gesture automatic, like brushing the teeth. Not because it is magic, but because the constancy in the small things is what builds the large results.

The winter is long. The snow is there, free, silent, and it asks only that you walk on it. Put on the snowshoes. The rest comes by itself, one step at a time, in the white silence that makes well also to the head.