Most splitboarders train for the wrong thing. They worry about whether they can get up the hill, when the real problem is arriving at the top with nothing left for the way down.
The climb is slow and you can pace it. The descent is where fatigue turns into bad decisions, sloppy technique and injuries — and it comes at the end of the day, when you’re already empty.
Six weeks is enough to change that meaningfully. Not to transform you, but to make a real difference to how your first tours feel.
A note on where this comes from: I teach PE for a living and splitboard in the winter. This is a practical programme built on standard training principles — not a prescription, and not a substitute for advice from a physio or doctor if you have an injury history.
What touring actually demands
Four things, in rough order of what limits people:
- Aerobic endurance. Hours of steady, sub-maximal effort. Most riders run out of this before they run out of strength.
- Leg strength endurance. Not a heavy single lift — the capacity to keep producing moderate force for hours, then still control a board.
- Ankle and hip stability. Sidehilling on a firm skin track, kick turns, catching yourself in awkward snow.
- Load carrying. Everything above, with a pack.
The six-week outline
Three sessions a week. Two strength, one long aerobic. If you can only do two, make one strength and one long.
Weeks 1–2 · build the base
Strength (2×/week)
- Split squats or step-ups, 3 × 10–12 per leg. This is the single most transferable exercise for touring — it’s a kick turn, a step up, and a stable landing all in one.
- Deadlift or hip hinge, 3 × 8–10, moderate load.
- Calf raises, 3 × 15, slow lowering.
- Single-leg balance work, 3 × 30 seconds per side, eyes closed if it’s easy.
- Core: side planks and dead bugs, 3 sets.
Aerobic (1×/week)
- 60–90 minutes continuous, conversational pace. Hiking uphill beats running for specificity. Stairs work if you have no hills.
Weeks 3–4 · add load and time
- Same strength session, more load or more reps, and add weighted step-ups using a loaded pack rather than dumbbells — that’s the actual movement.
- Aerobic session goes to 90–120 minutes, with the pack on. Start light and build; a pack that’s too heavy too early buys you an injury, not fitness.
- Add one short interval session if you have time: 6 × 3 minutes hard uphill, easy back down.
Weeks 5–6 · specificity, then back off
- Longest session in week 5: a full day out, with the pack you’ll actually carry, on the steepest ground you can find.
- Week 6 is deliberately lighter. Two thirds of the volume, keep the intensity. You want to arrive at the season fresh, not cooked.
The thing everyone skips
Ankles. Sidehilling on a firm skin track loads the ankle in a way nothing else in your life does. If you’ve rolled an ankle before, five minutes of balance work three times a week for six weeks does more for your season than any amount of squatting.
Pacing, which is fitness you don’t have to train
Two things will improve your day more than any of the above:
Start slower than feels right. The first thirty minutes set the tone for the whole day. Going out hard and settling later is the most common mistake in touring, and it costs you on the descent.
Eat and drink before you need to. By the time you feel it, you’re already behind. Eat on a schedule, not on demand.
If you’re starting from nothing
Don’t do the programme above. Walk uphill for an hour, twice a week, for six weeks. That’s it — and it will do more for your first tours than a complicated plan you abandon in week two.
Consistency beats sophistication, every time.
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