It’s hard to imagine downhill skiing champion
Lindsey Vonn being any more impressive on the hill. She's the most-decorated woman in the history of alpine skiing, after all—and the most-successful American race skier ever, with four overall World Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal. She's even made a
formal bid to be allowed to enter the men's competition at next year's World Cup.
That kind of skill and speed doesn’t come through pure ambition or genetics alone—she trains hard. Like four to five hours a day hard. Working out is basically Vonn’s life when she’s not racing, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
That kind of skill and speed doesn’t come through pure ambition or genetics alone—she trains hard.
Because she's constantly recovering from injuries—par for the course in her line of work—she spends an incredible amount of time with her physical therapist, Lindsay Winninger, who she affectionately refers to as The Brain. (Vonn calls herself Pinky.) Their typical gym routine starts at 7 a.m. and includes a 2 1/2 to 3-hour workout followed by a protein shake, nap, lunch, second workout, physical therapy, dinner, and bed. But she’s on the road eight months a year, meaning her travel routine has to be seriously on point, too.
Her constant travel buddy? TheraBand's CLX. (She also always carries a variety of resistance bands in her backpack for the hill.) “I do a lot of glute work especially, because part of my routine for warming up my knee is getting my glutes to activate,” says Vonn, who puts the band around her knees, which she fractured last year, for monster walks and leg extensions that she says activate all the muscles around the joint to protect it. She’s especially fond of slipping her feet into the band’s pockets for diagonal rear leg lifts, which she says target the top part of the glute for lifting and shaping the bum. Her slogan: “Go big or go home.”
While in hotel rooms, Vonn works her core, too. Planks are a go-to move, with the CLX band over her back and around her shoulders and her hands in the loops for extra resistance. “You can also do side planks and reaches with it on your hands. Those are easy, but I like being creative. With core, you can literally come up with anything,” she says. As for reps, the mega athlete says she pushes until she can’t do more...and then she does another two to three—which is about as badass as she is.
Like Vonn, model Behati Prinsloo also packs resistance bands for travel workouts. Here are 9 anywhere exercises you can do with your own.
