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Dressing for Cross Country Skiing |
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Written by Mark Buckaway
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Friday, 08 January 2010 18:42 |
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Clothing (Advanced through Beginner readers) Underwear is the most important part of dressing for skiing. Contrary to popular belief, the wicking ability of clothing is secondary to ventilation. The body functions optimally within a very narrow temperature zone. Body heat is a byproduct of work, and when you're active you need to expel the extra heat created by your muscles in order to perform at your potential and be as comfortable as you can be. Next-to-skin underwear products (rather than loose fitting underwear) help you expel heat thereby greatly reducing the loss of fluids, preserving your most important energy source, and keeping you in the optimal temperature zone.
The body perspires as a means of temperature control. Proper garments allow moisture to move away from the skin at an appropriate rate, while air-channels next to the skin should increase airflow thus keeping your temperature within the zone of peak performance.
Both an overly wet shirt and a shirt with overly active wicking properties lead to dehydration in the long term. A skier looses 0.2 pints each 1/2 mile, about 2 pints per hour, or 1.5 % of your body weight, drinking helps, but the body can only absorb around 1.2 pints per hour. Hence preserving your fluids by maintaining optimal body temperature helps you to increase your performance (see also "Energy and Hydration" "Performance" section).
Instead of wicking moisture away faster and faster good underwear balances the wicking and ventilation properties of their garments to help you stay within the optimal temperature zone.
Hats and gloves are a vital part of staying warm in cold conditions. Having cold fingers or ears can be dangerous and at best will make your ski outing much less fun. While the under-layer of clothing is designed to ventilate thereby allowing the body to breath and expel heat before condensation occurs. The second layer should transport heat away from the skin leaving your skin dry and allowing your body to keep vital fluids rather than sweating them away. This runs contrary to what one might think for outdoor winter wear, but the truth is, cross-country skiing produces enough heat to keep the body warm (and that modern clothing easily maintains this heat in even extreme conditions), so the major consideration when cross-country skiing is keeping from over-heating. The outer layer protects the body from the elements by not allowing wind, rain or snow to penetrate and wet the skin while venting the body's heat at an appropriate rate. Your body can lose heat through 5 different methods, respiration (breathing), radiation (emission of rays of heat from the body), evaporation (sweat or moisture turning in to a gas), conduction (heat lose from touch) and convection (wind, air movement).
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Last Updated on Monday, 11 January 2010 01:41 |
