Generally, fitness centers are available free to guests staying at ski resort properties, though some may be part of a single hotel. Access by locals may be courted, welcomed or tolerated. Several top clubs cater specifically to regular local members with multi-week conditioning programs, as well as fitness testing and training for the area’s skiing employees.
At a minimum, ski area facilities offer weight and cardiovascular training apparatus, free weights, space for aerobics and stretch classes and a swimming pool, hot tubs, saunas and/or steam rooms, plus showers and locker rooms. A few include a climbing wall, racquetball or squash courts or other indoor sports venues.
But, increasingly, ski area fitness center directors report that users of the equipment want more and better. As they learn about what sophisticated machines can do, they expect to find the latest devices at resort centers. This makes outfitting a workout facility and keeping it up to date, a major expense. But many area operators have discovered this can pay dividends both in guest satisfaction and in serving the local community.
The brands of basic apparatus installed in the weight rooms of some of the top clubs in skiing read like a catalogue of fitness machinery: Cybex Eagle at the Sugartree Athletic Club at Sugarloaf, Me.; a full Nautilus circuit and Universal equipment at the Spa at Great Gorge, N.J.; Universal and Cybex at Vail’s Cascade Club; a complete Kaiser circuit at Snowbird’s Cliff Spa; Paramount at Loon Mountain, N.H.; stair climbers, cycles, rowing machines, Nordic Traks and other devices at the Copper Mountain Racquet and Athletic Club.
“The addition of the Stair Master a couple of years ago was positive move number one,” says Diane Coleman of the Copper Mountain Club. “We have three and need more. Another good piece is a treadmill, but cost is a factor. It’s over $5,000 compared to $2,200 for a good Stair Master.”
Fitness directors and club managers always seek to upgrade. “We have old Nautilus equipment, and we need to think about that,” confesses Coleman. “It was made by a company that went bankrupt after ours came out. The new Nautilus equipment has been substantially improved. The old is positive cam. The new is negative [cam].”
Diane Woodman, fitness center manager at the Loon Mountain Spa, says, “We have the Nordic Trak, rowers and bikes, but unfortunately we don’t have Life Cycle, Life Step or Versa Climber. We’re aiming to purchase the Versa Climber, because you can do two if not three exercises with it. Most people who work out are looking for state-of-the-art equipment.”
The Cliff Spa at Snowbird has two sections to the weight room — one with a full set of Kaiser pneumatic equipment for resistance training and the other with treadmills, Life Cycles, Skier’s Edge and Nordic Trak ski simulators, stair steppers and a rowing machine for cardio vascular work, but there are still gaps to fill. “We’re trying to work out arrangements for free weights and dumb bells,” says Cliff Spa operations manager Keith Arbon.
Some clubs succeed in getting new gear and others keep upping their inventory of popular pieces and adding new or different apparatus. “We’ve added eight Life Cycles and four Life Steps,” says Pete Peters, general manager of Vail’s Cascade Club. “We also have a lot of free-weight cable systems, because people are aware of resistance training for injury prevention and strength.”
Sugartree has a Hammer Strength freestanding system designed to work the upper and lower abdomen and the pro model Kneed Speed, a lower-body workout device developed for speedskaters, but “wonderful for skiers,” according to fitness director Marcia Macdonald.
Barbara Lorber has in her fitness arsenal at the Spa at Great Gorge equipment by Life Step, Turbo Bike, Life Cycle and Stair Master, and for those really serious about being in top shape, she’s hot on the Gauntlet and the Versa Climber, which she says, “Is so high-energy for endurance that it’s almost anaerobic.”
For transient guests, such feel-good amenities as hot tubs and pools universally get the highest use (the Cliff Spa’s 40-seat roof-top hot tub is at capacity after skiing). Lorber at Great Gorge finds that her members who work hard at pre-season conditioning often taper off once the ski season starts and begin filling the hot tub and pool. These facilities are tops with families too. In Colorado, the Hyatt Regency Beaver Creek recently expanded its fitness space, among other things adding separate locker rooms for youngsters.
Aerobics and stretch classes are usually popular, though they are occasionally tough for guests. “We have aerobics and lap swims, but some [guests] have difficulty at 9,600 feet,” says Diane Coleman of the Copper Mountain Racquet and Athletic Club.
“When I took over in February, there was one aerobics class a day,” says Sugartree’s Marcia Macdonald. “Now we’re up to at least four a day. We also have an aqua fitness class.”
Step aerobic classes are what’s hot today for transients. “Step aerobics is our most popular class,” says Coleman. “But the popularity of the instructor is the leading reason people take a class.” These classes are also tailored to suit location. The clientele at The Spa at Great Gorge, for example, emphasizes power moves off the platform in its step aerobics classes, while Loon Mountain’s fitness center adds an afternoon aerobics class for weekend guests during busy periods.
Clubs at high-altitude resorts often tone down their aerobics classes for guests. “We do a morning stretch and tone class that’s half stretch and half low-impact aerobics,” says the Cliff Spa’s Arbon. “In the afternoon, we do a class with 10 to 15 minutes of stretch just to cool down from skiing. Aerobics at 8,500 feet is difficult for a lot of people, so we do nothing above low impact.”
To cater to locals and selected guests, serious health clubs also put major emphasis on creating cross-training regimens largely for locals, but also for hard-core guests who want to keep their routines up while on vacation. For instance, at Sugartree, Marcia Macdonald has created the Peak Performance program that begins with a fitness analysis and offers a personal training regimen working toward ski-specific cross-training.
“Local skiers are more aware of being in shape to ski instead of skiing into shape,” Coleman says, adding that Copper Mountain tests skiing employees’ fitness, “so that’s a motivation.”
“We have many specialized programs,” notes Macdonald at Sugarloaf. “We do a lot of cross-training with ski school, including strength training. We have classes for kids, teens, men and women. The women’s strength training is now our biggest class, so we are splitting it into two levels, one mainly for guests and an advanced one for regulars.” She added that the Sugartree facility even has a serious competition-training program for racers at the Carabasset Valley Academy.
Similarly, the Spa at Great Gorge has a pre-season conditioning program for regular members that includes the ski area’s season pass holders, who get a spa membership, as well as residents of nearby communities. For ski conditioning, director Barbara Lorber is enthusiastic about pliometrics, conditioning moves developed to train athletes who jump. She has also “a pre-season protocol developed for our weight-training facility. It includes quad work, endurance work and step work instead of a rower for cardio vascular.”
Vail’s Cascade Club also offers a pre-season evaluation for Vail Associates’ skiing employees and a ski-oriented conditioning program that runs for six weeks before the mountain opens. “It was small in the beginning,” says general manager Pete Peters. “It took four years to get up to 60 participants. Now we have about 80, which is about our limit.”
No fitness director could help but envy Mike Vinchese, who heads the brand-new fitness center at the opulent Doral Telluride Hotel and Spa. The 42,000-square-foot, four-story spa includes two health and fitness levels and a separate two-story center for massage and beauty treatments. The budget for outfitting just the workout facility was $500,000 — excluding the swimming pools and indoor courts.
What does this buy? Vinchese says he has, “Cybex’s top-end line for the pro who seriously wants to work out,” as well as the Cybex 6000, a $50,000 apparatus used by professional sports teams for injured athletes and available, at the Doral, for guests recovering from injuries who want to continue their rehabilitation while on vacation. “People plan their ski vacation, get hurt, still come here and can continue their therapy,” he says.
Of what happens for run-of-the-mill equipment at the Doral, Vinchese adds that “for ski conditioning, equipment that works the legs and abdominals is the most popular equipment. We have a power squat rack, a squatting sled, free-weight leg press, leg extension, seated leg extension, a multi-direction hip and thigh machine and a seated calf raise. They’re all excellent for skiers. You’d have to go to a major club to compete with us for equipment and classes, though here, it’s just part of our facility.”
