Freeride World Tour Skier Lily Bradley Trains by Going to Punk Shows

Lily Bradley (they/them) is a Tahoe native. In 2022, they were a rookie on the Freeride World Tour, achieving two podium finishes, and a spot for 2023. Unfortunately, due to injuries, Bradley was unable to compete in 2023.

They were back for the 2024 season, securing a third-place finish on the 5th stop of the tour. Bradley is one of the best freeskiers in the world, but how do they spend their time off the snow? How do they unwind? How do they prep for next season?

To answer these questions, we called Bradley up directly. When they picked up, they were next to a river. Bradley was calm and jovial, energetically joking that the sound of trickling water would make for nice ASMR behind the call. They were prepping for an upcoming summer trip to Machu Piccu, Peru, with their family.

Ski season, for Bradley, is exciting, but also exhausting. They explained that "after the tour, [they are] usually looking for no more airplanes, no more travel."

"I wanna be able to hang out in one place for a few months. I get a little bit less hyper-focused on performance and it'll be a chill period to just focus on nature in a low-stakes way."

For Bradley, summer offers a time for rest and resets. "I don't get super invested in training until fall. I do work out over the summer, I do my physical therapy, but mostly I just focus on mountain biking and hiking and that kind of stuff. Just to try and stay loosely in shape over the summer. Fall is when I start lifting and that kind of stuff."

However, no summer looks the same. Bradley sees the season as an opportunity to try new things and experience new locations.

"I'm in my early twenties, so I don't really have a career. I've been getting an odd job in a new place every summer and then just doing the job and training. I was a boot fitter, I worked at a summer camp last year, and now I'm working at a preschool. I'm not tied down to anything."

Sometimes, this looks like a focused and planned-out, ski-minded summer. Bradley explained that a few seasons ago, they "went to New Zealand to train, which was super awesome. I stayed with Jess Hotter and I had a really great training season."

"It definitely feels good to see all the other athletes training and be like, let's go to the gym, let's feel inspired, let's go work out."

Time in the gym functions as more than just progression for Lily Bradley. Bradley is no stranger to injuries .

"I plateaued after my first injury because I felt like I was finally getting back flips off of any takeoff and I could 360 big cliffs. I was really pushing myself going into the season two years ago, and then I had my knee injury. When I came back from my knee injury and I was like, okay, I'm teasing back into competition."

"I'm just focusing really hard on [physical therapy] over the summer and getting strong. It's such a mental game getting back into skiing. You can be physically fit but mentally trying to progress again, it's really hard."

"This season I wanted to do some scary stuff on skis and focus on getting strong and then also just getting time on snow, feeling adrenaline and trying to catch up to those years that I missed."

However, last summer, keeping up with their predictably unpredictable rhythm, Bradley again shifted gears. "I took the summer off and was just living in Santa Cruz, just taking it easy."

This summer, the pendulum swung again, and Bradley wants to catch up on ski training. "I missed a season and a half with all my knee injuries."

This is hardly the only consideration taken into account when choosing where to set up camp for the warmer months.

Bradley wanted to find somewhere they could live that had access to nature, access to skiing, but also be in a city environment that would "have less bro-ey, jock culture. Somewhere I could use nature as a coping mechanism."

"I wanted to be able to have nature and then also just be in a city that has queer and trans people so that I wouldn't feel alone." While they are focused and know what needs to be done while skiing is not in season, Bradley takes the summer to reset. I asked them if they consumes ski media when they are not skiing.

Bradley jovially responded, "In fall, when I'm getting the itch, I'll watch some Greg Stump classics, . I try to watch GNAR every season and just get stoked on how fun and silly and ridiculous skiing is. But over the summer I do not engage with ski media really at all. I get really stressed out by competition."

"I really struggle with the mental part of that and so I definitely use summer as a recovery. Building up good self-care habits, working on getting in a good mental routine, going to therapy, working on self-compassion, meditating and just focusing on making time for all this stuff that gets a little bit less prioritized during comp season."

Bradley finds opportunities to train, physically, in unconventional ways. Specifically, by going to the club and going to punk shows in the off season.

"Low key, it's a really good workout, it keeps your cardio fit, gives you a great adrenaline immersion program. You're dodging fists, you're moshing, you're running around, you're hot, you gotta push through the heat."

"I was at a show last week and this dude is like, 'this is more cardio than all of my bike rides combined this week.'"

"I'm definitely not as planned out as a lot of professional athletes who are very training minded. I love working out, I work out a lot, but I also wanna really enjoy my summer and so I want to be able to not have pressure on myself during the summer that I feel during the winter. I try to do a balance."

Related: Drew Petersen's New Film About Running, Skiing, And Mental Health, "Feel It All," Releases August 17th

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