Melodie Buell Celebrates How Mountain Biking Mentally and Physically Prepares Her for Skiing

New PSIA-AASI Adaptive Team member Melodie Buell closes out our Summer Workout series with an in-depth examination of all the ways mountain biking helps her mind and body stay in shape for skiing and teaching.

For additional offseason workout insights, check out the entire collection of posts from the PSIA-AASI National Team.

Q: What’s your go-to offseason workout or outdoor sport, and why is it what you like to do?

A: I bike. A range of disciplines: DH/Park, XC, Gravel, Road. I thoroughly enjoy it all, and the challenge each presents substantiates a purpose in my own growth – physically, in my teaching, and in my relationship with myself. I also supplement with CrossFit year-round.

Q: Do you teach or compete in this sport, or has it led to any great adventures around the world?

A: I’m grateful to work full time year-round as the education and training manager for Oregon Adaptive Sports, and that means my summers are full of riding. I teach and train our instructor team, develop content, get the opportunity to help get more aMTB’ers hooked on the sport, and help those who are already sold move toward and meet their goals.

The benefits are incredible. I’m teaching a sport that carries over so much of what we do as pros on snow. The fresh perspective of working with people on bikes illuminates details within my relationships with my students, reveals how bodies move effectively within each sport and in their environments, keeps my teaching sharp, and inevitably brings fresh ideas into all my teaching.

Q: What’s the most important impact this has on the work you do on snow?

A: Diversity. A change of environment helps me shift my perspective on what I do with my students.

For me, each discipline of biking seems to serve a purpose in my overall training, which directly relates to my ski performance. Road and gravel tend to draw out the long contemplative thoughts and gives me an opportunity to work through the inside voices, change the script, and push me into a space to move past what I think my body can do, in time and distance. While Park/DH, and XC, especially technical descents, keep me incredibly present and honed in on what’s immediately happening (and it’s SO fun).

My CrossFit workouts help me build strength, agility, and so much more so I have big strong muscles to support my body when I crash or things don’t go as planned.

All of this influences how I bring biking into my students’ experience; it takes a well-shaped mindset, ideally including fun, understanding, and a pursuit of challenge.

I believe that consistently pushing myself means I’m familiar with being uncomfortable. My goals typically include some level of being uncomfortable; the more familiar I am with that feeling, the more I can push myself.

Q: Anything else?

A: Being on the dirt keeps me connected to how my body moves with what’s under me. It’s constantly moving, just like we move on snow, and I am responding to everything that’s happening to get the result I want. The tenacity it takes to stay with myself on long road rides and gnarly chunky DH descents tunes me up. This is all the same within my teaching and in skiing!

Q: Do you have any other fun summer plans or good offseason reading suggestions you’d like to share?

A: I recently read The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor, Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future by Yung Pueblo, Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, and I’m in the middle of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia. I enjoy books that expand my perspective of how I experience life, and what I can do to change or improve my relationships with others. This directly impacts the quality of lessons I give, and my ability to help manage things like burnout, guests who are in discomfort, and instructors who are seeking belonging.

I just got back from another mountain biking trip in the Kootenays in British Columbia; that place has a piece of my heart.

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Teaching snowsports requires year-round physical preparation. To help keep your edge during the summer and throughout the year, pick up your copy of Fitness for Skiing and Snowboarding.