Research looks at whether or not snowmobiling may actually count as exercise
New research at the University of Guelph is seeking to find out whether or not there could be health benefits from snowmobiling.
The Canadian Council of Snowmobile Organizations (CCSO) enlisted U of G professor Dr. Jamie Burr to research the potential fitness benefits of snowmobiling. Burr has done similar research in the past on off-road motorcycling, ATVing, and downhill mountain biking. Along with Burr’s guidance, the project is being led by U of G master’s student Tania Pereira.
The project began last fall with a survey of snowmobilers across Canada.
In an interview with The Ontarion, Burr called this survey a “crucial first step,” noting that the researchers know they’re not expert (or even recreational) snowmobilers.The survey allowed them to understand the snowmobilers’ experiences, including what they thought of their own fitness and what they thought was hard about snowmobiling.
Burr said one of the things that came out of this survey was that “there are differences depending on where you live. If you live out west, in the mountains, your riding style depends on the type of terrain you’re going to be doing and whether it’s groomed or not. It’s totally different from the east coast.”
Over the winter, the researchers designed a course near Haliburton, Ont. According to the survey, the course contained what snowmobilers would consider characteristics of a hard ride, including hills, fresh snow, and trail blazing, and what they would consider an easy ride, including groomed trails and minor changes in elevation.
The researchers monitored how the participants were doing when riding the trail and immediately after the ride through a fitness test.
The fitness test, Burr said, is an important part of the study, “Because we need to understand how hard [snowmobiling] is for you, not how hard it is at all.”
The researchers recruited participants by going to local snowmobile clubs and the study is still open to any snowmobilers that want to join.
Burr noted that there may be “a bit of a bias, in that 20-year-olds are probably less likely to participate in that kind of research.”In addition, Burr acknowledged that there’s a big difference between how people snowmobile—for example, young guys who are out for the weekend versus a family snowmobiling.
“It appears you can do this in many different ways,” Burr said. “One of the things we’ll be doing is looking at what percentage of a ride is extremely hard, how much of it is kind of hard, and how much of it is barely moving, so that we can actually say, over a typical ride, how much would actually count as exercise.”
The researchers are in Revelstoke, B.C. this week to repeat the test. They will design the new course to be representative of what’s out there, which will include more severe terrain and high altitudes.Burr suspects that there will be big differences between the results for Haliburton and Revelstoke because, “A lot of it is off trail out there, because people go out there for the powder,” and that “anything that causes you to stand up, and shift your weight more, and actually pull the sled—things like digging out—you probably do more of that when you’re not on a trail. I think that will make the demands much higher.”
Although it is too early to make definitive statements about the results, Burr does think, based off of his past experiences and results of the survey, that “there will be parts that are physically demanding and could be expected to stimulate health benefits, like any other exercise, and I think there are parts that won’t be,” he said, comparing it to walking, which can be either really good or very light exercise.
While many a snowmobiling weekend is often accompanied by partying or consuming alcohol, the researchers are only interested in the physiology, not the lifestyle.
“We’re not suggesting people do or do not do the sport,” Burr explained, noting that the focus of this study is solely on exercise.
Photo by Kylie Armishaw/The Ontarion.