A New Year of Measurable Ski Training – More Watts, Better Performance

It is late April, the leaves are beginning to burst on the trees and the ski season feels far away. Another way to look at it is that we are approaching New Year’s Eve. For many cross-country skiers, the training year begins in May, so now is the time for New Year’s resolutions. This year we are going to do everything right and finally reach the edge of our potential.

Training programs matter — but measurable training matters more

Choosing the right training program is not easy. There are probably as many training programs as there are coaches, and there are many roads to Rome. The most important factor is often not which program you follow, but how you follow it — and when it comes to the HOW of training, everything revolves around managing intensity, volume, and monitoring capacity. This requires measurability.
We can never quality-assure something that is not measurable, and the single most relevant metric in endurance sports is power.

Why power is the most important metric in endurance sports

Endurance sports like cycling, skiing, and running are fundamentally about performing work, and power is work per unit of time. In other words: power defines work intensity — and capacity is the ability to maintain intensity over time.
In cycling, this is a given. All serious cyclists have power meters and know their power profile, meaning how much power they can hold over different durations¹. A cyclist who knows their power profile knows exactly how to set interval intensity, and the development of their profile directly reflects improved capacity.

Skiers have always sought measurability — now technology makes it possible

Measuring power is the ultimate form of measurable training, but long before power meters became mainstream in cycling, endurance athletes sought ways to train measurably. In Scandinavia, test bikes have long been central to winter training, but using them in summer was once unthinkable. That changed in the 90s, when leading cyclists — following the motto “better strong than tan” — began using test bikes in summer to control intensity.
After the introduction of power meters, cyclists could finally achieve the same level of measurability outdoors as indoors.

The same trend is now transforming cross-country skiing

A similar development is now happening in skiing. More and more athletes use the SkiErg and treadmill for structured, measurable training.
We recently heard Torleif Syrstad in Vasapodden explain how he changed his training this year, focusing heavily on SkiErg and treadmill sessions — something he sees as one of the keys behind his strong season. He is not alone. Both elite athletes and recreational skiers are turning to the SkiErg because it is so measurable.

But SkiErg isn’t the whole picture — real skiing requires real direction of force

A drawback of the SkiErg is that it is very forgiving of poor technique. No matter how you pull, the force always enters the flywheel. You can produce high power even if your technique would not make you fast on snow.
The treadmill, however, forces you to direct power forward — similar to outdoors — making it far more technique-relevant. Unfortunately, ski-specific treadmills are rare, while SkiErgs are widely available.

The Skisens vision: power in every training session — and every race

At Skisens, our vision is that every ambitious skier will soon have a power meter in every training session and eventually every race. When that day comes, skiers can work with power the same way cyclists do.
Along the way, we are learning everything there is to know about making skiing measurable. At Skisens, we have done extensive treadmill testing — first to validate our force measurement, but also to learn what power means for cross-country skiers. Before you can use a tool effectively, you must understand it.

Why skiing watts are not the same as cycling watts

Much of today’s understanding of power comes from cycling. Even though skiers and cyclists share the same physiology, their movement patterns differ, as do their biomechanical limitations. A major difference is that cyclists have gears, meaning power output is relatively independent of resistance. Skiers do not have this luxury.

These differences mean we will need to think differently about power in skiing. For example:

Skiers cannot empty their anaerobic reserves as quickly as cyclists, especially on flat terrain with low resistance.
Skiers cannot reach the same long-duration watts per kilo as cyclists due to lower mechanical efficiency.

Building a power profile for skiers — from threshold to sprints

The differences above are mostly about understanding the numbers. In practice, we are convinced that skiers will use most of the same tools as cyclists.
Knowledge grows organically: from understanding threshold power (long durations), to understanding short-duration power and building complete power profiles for skiers.
What does the power profile look like for a sprinter such as Kristine Stavås Skistad versus a distance skier like Ebba Andersson?

From SkiErg watts → treadmill watts → outdoor watts

We are moving step by step: from watts on the SkiErg, to watts on the treadmill, and finally to watts outdoors. Currently there is solid knowledge of SkiErg threshold watts. We know that male elite skiers exceed 4 W/kg, and women are about 15% lower.
We also know how SkiErg threshold watts correlate with performance among recreational Vasaloppet skiers: a 20% drop from elite wave to wave 1, and about 10% per wave down to wave 4². Beyond that, the effect drop is marginal because technique becomes the main limiting factor.

SkiErg vs skiing: why the correlation is limited

Knowledge of short-duration watts is more limited, but according to the Swedish Ski Federation performance profile³, the strongest junior women reach ~200 watts and junior men ~350 watts over 1000 m on the SkiErg.
The data also shows that the correlation between SkiErg watts and real skiing performance is weak. The SkiErg is valuable for building a power profile — but it is not fully representative of skiing.

Our treadmill tests at Skisens show that most skiers struggle to reach their SkiErg power on the treadmill — and those who are strongest on the SkiErg often drop relatively more on the treadmill. The best skiers, however, perform strongly in both environments, combining high capacity with efficient technique.

Our advice for skiers entering the 24/25 training season

For those wanting to make 24/25 the year of measurable training, here is our main advice:
Use the SkiErg to build and monitor capacity — but ensure your roller-ski and on-snow performance improves at the same rate.
And when you are ready for full measurability outdoors, we are here for you.
We can see exactly how much power you produce in the ski tracks, and through your force curves we can identify your technical improvement potential.

A New Year of Measurable Training – More Watts, Better Skiing Performance