What Kind of Underwear to Wear While Skiing

From trying to heed an instructor’s directions, to keeping your center of gravity low, to avoiding wipeouts at every turn, skiing is tough for beginners. The occasional accidents and wipeouts are inevitable; but do they have to be all that unpleasant? They don’t if you know what to wear when skiing, keeping yourself both dry and warm, even while your face may be planted in the snow.

Here is a quick guide for not only choosing the right kind of clothes to wear, but the right kind of underwear to make sure you keep yourself dry while on the slopes.

We’ll take a look at the overall garments to wear, from the outside inward. You’ll want to wear a lightweight, water-resistant exterior as both a pair of pants and your coat. These are easy to find – but the goal is that snow falls off of you as easily it would if it were falling off of a hot plate.

Your inner layer should be constructed out of materials that are warm, flexible, and resistant to moisture. Cotton is a no-no, especially for your underwear, because your underwear will represent the core of your inner layer. Cotton absorbs moisture – while it might do a good job of keeping you warm outdoors, if you work with it in the snow, it’s not the most fun material to be wearing.

Instead, check out underwear built for skiing, underwear like Zyflex Thermal Shorts. This pair of underwear is water resistant, meaning that even if snow gets through the cracks and crevasses of your water-resistant outer layer, it still has your inner layer to contend with. This underwear is also flexible and still helps your skin breathe, even while forming a sort of “water-tight” protection layer for your, ahem, private parts.

Other types of “thermal” underwear will be appropriate for this situation, as you’ll want to focus simply on avoiding cotton and finding something that advertises itself as water-resistant. Water-resistance is one of the keys to building both a solid outer and inner layer of clothing when out skiing. Even if you don’t plan on falling over that much, you still want to be prepared. If you don’t want to admit that you might fall, tell yourself that you’re protecting your skin from runaway snowballs.

Remember the rule of thumb for skiing underwear: avoid the cotton, and flock to the water-resistant materials. You’ll find that keeping dry is one of the best ways to stay warm outdoors.

Originally posted 2008-12-15 04:55:52.

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