Cold Weather Training

Since we’ve entered the winter season, I thought I’d share a little bit of my childhood in the snow...

When I was five and six years old, I lived in Iceland. My father was stationed there while he served in the U.S. Navy. During most of the year, the weather is quite mild. But in winter, it can get cold enough to throw boiling water from a pot out the front door and watch it freeze before it hits the ground.

I remember bundling up and my friends and I would go to the corner playground to build snowmen. One kid and I tried to ride the see-saw. He sat on the low end, and I climbed up on the high end. He suddenly stood up and I thought I was going to plop straight to the ground, as kids often cruelly play this joke on each other. But, it was so cold, ice had frozen the pivot point and I was suspended in mid-air. We laughed so hard our boogers shot out of our noses like icicles.

Now a Californian (SF Bay Area since 1975), I still prefer cooler weather. Even in winter, people often ask me “Aren’t you freezing?” because I normally wear shorts and a t-shirt. I just explain, “I’m used to it.”

Not so much, recently. In the past eight months, I’ve dropped about 23 pounds. I’ve always been a little on the porky side, even as a little kid. I really love bacon. And cheese. Oh, did I mention rice and potatoes, too? Well, smaller portions are the secret to my weight loss. But now I’m not so insulated. Perhaps, age and a smaller appetite have a lot to do with it, too.

I do an awful lot of outdoor training. I’ll hike in the woods and find an opening among the trees and practice kata for a couple of hours, then hike back. Sometimes the woods can be bitter cold. So can Northern California beaches where I also train.

Being able to withstand cold extremes is all a matter of diet and training. I believe conditioning yourself to endure cold requires regular exposure and having eaten enough calories to fuel a metabolic rate to keep your muscles active, since they are what generate body heat.

In Japan, group outdoor training in the snow is called fuyu-gasshuku.