Wholistic Fitness

The wind rips at Steve Ilg’s shoulders as he stabs with repetitious tenacity carbide-tipped ski poles into the asphalt road. He is a lone figure leaning into the gales along the choppy roads surrounding his home in tiny Baderville in Northern Arizona, elevation 7,553′.

“If I waited for the wind to die down around here? I’d never get any training done! I figure it’s good for resistance-training!” shouts Ilg above the roar of wind as he leans into another gust. On his feet are inline skates which he uses to replicate the fierce, poetic tempo of nordic (or cross-country) ski racing. Ilg is the two-time Arizona Nordic Ski Champion in a state better known for its saguaro cactus and Superbowl football team than for ski racing.

It could be another two months before the snows cover this land for Ilg to train directly on cross-country skis. That doesn’t matter to this former National Nordic Combined Ski Team Member. “You never get a second chance at your pre-season,” shouts Ilg as he pumps his legs and arms in decade-evolved strength and synergy.

Whether it’s adding volume to his unique multisport legacy or seeking another layer of sweat-based spiritual depth with his local yoga students, the 47 year-old “multi-sport mutant” as OUTSIDE MAGAZINE has called him, has a plethora of reasons to remain competitive. OUTSIDE again; “Ilg has achieved mastery in more sports than most of us will ever try.”

Ilg apparently has reached his childhood dream; to be one of the fittest human beings in the most versatile sense of the phrase. The founder of Wholistic Fitness®, author of five books, a celebrity yoga teacher and fitness trainer in Hollywood, Ilg also possesses a body most 20 year-olds would envy. His seemingly ageless body has also amassed a veritable pantheon of podiums. ULTRA-CYCLING Magazine in fact, named Ilg, “The World’s Fittest Human,” after he helped set a new Team Course Record in the grueling Furnace Creek 508 (miles) through Death Valley, California in 2004. Ilg shrugs the title off, “Oh, they just wrote that because they were fascinated that someone who could actually do pull ups and a half-decent forward fold could also win an ultra race!”

With over 200 podiums in 23 different sports, including 7 World Championship appearances in 5-different sports and two State Championships in two different sports, you’d think Ilg would have quenched his appetite for trophies or ‘heavy metal’ as he calls them. Nope. In fact, according to Ilg, the podiums are mere side-effects from his practice of yoga which he calls, Wholistic Fitness®. Ilg considers himself a “feeble fitness monk,” and “an endless beginner with only the pursuit of wholeness” as his goal.

A FALL INTO GRACE

As a sponsored rock, ice, and mountain climber during the late seventies and early eighties, Ilg fell sixty-feet off the notorious “Diamond Face” of Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park while attempting a winter ascent. “Too much freeze/thaw action. The cliff was vulnerable,” Ilg non-emotionally states as the reason why he fell. “I pulled off a hunk of the Peak about the size of a Corolla. I still apologize to that beautiful wall for doing that. Guess I don’t know my own strength,” he wryly chuckles.

A lumbar vertebrae was fractured and the connective tissue of his pelvis was torqued and twisted, resulting in a lifetime of neural pain. “Two water bottles on the outside of my pack probably saved my life,” guesses Ilg. The water bottles may have cushioned his impact somewhat, yet the fall paralyzed the left side of his lower body. With the help of his partner, Joe Black, he escaped from the Peak under his own power, though details are foggy due to excruciating pain. He recalls “intuitively rocking back and forth in a yoga posture combined with pranayams (yogic breathing techniques) all night long to keep neural and pranic (life force) activity feeding my connective tissue.”

The pair spent all night on a tiny ledge as a winter storm howled around them. At the time, Ilg was already a champion runner, skier, bodybuilder, and student of Tibetan Buddhist Yoga in Boulder, Colorado. He refused external medical help. “I recognized this incident immediately as my Karma playing out. I went within and began re-wiring my subtle anatomy through pranayams (yogic breathing exercises). I couldn’t move my body, so I moved my breath, bit by bit, into the searing neural pain. I began decompressing the impact on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels through the use of my breath regulation and mental visualizations.”

That was 1981. Today, Ilg still must practice a daily rigorous yogic discipline just to mitigate the pain. Most sports for Ilg inflict major dosages of intense spine and hip pain.

“Most exacting is the pain of running,” Ilg says, “due to the chronic compressive forces of running, it’s really gnarly on my broken body.” Nevertheless, this very summer Ilg won the Overall Title at the Pagosa Mountain Duathlon Long Course, in September he finished in the top 25 of his age group at Imogene Pass Race, and 3rd Place in his age group at the Soulstice Mountain Trail Race above Flagstaff. Imogene Pass Race alone requires running 17.1 miles over a 13,000′ pass. The race is known as a ‘world class brutal beating’ with its 7-mile, 4,000′ drop which crushes even the healthiest of spines.

In 2002, The New York Times did a profile on Ilg, calling him “an quixotic blend of Ram Dass and Vince Lombardi.” He even entertained several New York City book publishers curious about doing a book on his unmatched athletic accomplishments in spite of his paralyzing injury. “They couldn’t figure out how to market my wholeness,” Ilg says without remorse, “We live in an era which rewards specialization, not versatility, especially in sports. This, to me, is sad. We should leave specialization to the insects and re-focus on cultivation of wholeness, of versatility, of balance.”

THE SNOW MUST GO ON

Of all his passions for multi-disciplined sweat, Ilg’s most revered is for the snow sports. “I grew up in Durango, Colorado. We were coached in skiing from 7th Grade up. I was from the country and when the snow fell, I would be on either snowshoes or cross country skis. I never went inside until after dark. I loved and still love the sweet simplicity of skis gliding over snow. Especially magical to me is snowshoe racing, where we literally run on water…it just happens to be frozen!”

By 16 years old, Ilg found National success as a Nordic Combined Ski Racer where athletes ski jump for distance on Day One and then compete in a cross-country endurance ski race on Day Two. “It’s such a fantastic sport,” he eagerly preaches, “the combination of fast-twitch power, skill, and bravery on Day One into suffering like a three-legged dog on Day Two! You can’t beat that type of physiologic and mental fitness! My only wish is that more American’s would get into how cool Nordic sports are…not to mention how healthy they are for all ages!”

After three decades of world class winter fitness, Ilg has put a small plug in his Ski Bum tendencies. “I have to…I’m a new daddy!” On September 11th, 2007 Steve, and his partner Joy, celebrated the arrival of their daughter, Dewachen. “Yup, for sure she is my podium now. She’s got the Nordic Jumping bug in her genes…she is constantly jumping off of stairs and anything else. She’s got great form too, better than I ever had!” smiles a beaming Ilg.

Ilg plans however, to defend his State Nordic title this winter as well as his creation of the “Flagstaff Winter Triathlon” in which no one has yet contested him. The latter event combines a 10-kilometer Snowshoe Race plus two Nordic Ski Races of the AZ State Nordic Series which require two races in two different nordic ski disciplines; the Classic Style (or Diagonal Stride) and the relatively new, Skate Style (or Freestyle).

Last season, Ilg won the Classic race with a commanding 4-minute gap over former State Champion and acclaimed National Nordic Ski Instructor Ken Walters, an icon of southwest nordic skiing. On the final Skate Style race, Ilg was passed by Walters at 2 kilometers into the 10 kilometer race. “Each pole plant, each ski step of those 8 remaining kilometers hurt more and felt longer than all of Mt. Taylor!” Ilg recounted, referring to the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon – a 75-kilometer, 4-sport event (cycling, running, cross-country skiing, and snowhoeing…see above photo) in New Mexico in which Ilg finished in the Overall top 20 just one week before the Arizona State Nordic Finals.

Those 20 seconds which saved Ilg the title came with a big lesson. “Yeah, I’ve learned my lesson. As a new Daddy, you only have so much recuperative energy from parenting, working, training and competing. Last year, I had zero juice from Mt. Taylor. My spine pain was still big from the running inherent to doing Taylor. I hung on, barely, but I know that Ken (Walters) is gonna be drilling it hard this winter so I gotta be fresher than last year. Plus, there are several fantastic young cyclists that are maturing as nordic ski racers, so a 3-Peat is gonna be very hard to accomplish.”

The rivalry between Ilg and Walters goes back three years and heats up the cold snow the moment it begins falling through the graceful Ponderosa limbs. The two athletes could not be more different. Walters is the stalwart champion of years past and is nearly neurotic about the technique of nordic ski racing and the science of waxing. Ilg is the acknowledged maestro of versatility and overall fitness. At last year’s final ceremony, Walters – who finished second overall in the Series – outwardly accused Ilg of “having no ski technique.”

The yogi smiled in reply but said nothing as he held the Championship trophy close. When asked directly about the comment from Walters, the reigning Champion again smiled and replied, “Well, if it is true that I don’t have ‘any’ ski technique, than I guess I’m just lucky that winning races is about more than just technique!”

The winter of 09/10 is definitely starting out hot! For more information and to keep abreast of the Arizona Nordic State Championship Series and many other winter events, visit; www.FlagstaffNordicCenter.com

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Inspired? if you are interested in helping to support Steve’s winter racing expenses email him directly at: stevewholisticfitnesscom