Next Level Skiing

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Following explosive wins in the 2025 Freewride World Tour in Georgia and Kicking Horse, 4-year tour veteran Marcus Goguen claimed his first FWT world champion title. His unflappable style and huge tricks are not by chance. The 21-year-old Whistler skier has spent almost a decade following a strict training regimen. And now he's sharing. His Adrenaline Performance program offers skiers customized strength plans to ward off injuries and boost performance. Listen in as the big-mountain boss shares how he is infusing structured training regimens into his freeride skiing, the importance of post skiing workouts, the role of a daily routine in comp-day confidence and how to make your body your armor. Topics: 3:00 "Everything I've done in my life is for skiing." 3:20 The Whistler Freeride Club": peer pressure, buddies, and coaches 4:30 Competing in downhill bike racing 5:30 Honing fast-twitch eye-hand coordination 6:15 Training regimen inspired by his uncle, Canada's legendary Olympic racer Thomas Grandi 7:00 Mixing the structure of training with the fun of freeride skiing 7:40 The building blocks of training 8:30 Maintenance workouts during the ski season to maintain strength 9:00 Maximizing the ski day with gym workouts 12:30 Getting into training after enduring pain at age 12 14:00 Results of training by age 14 15:00 An injury-free ski career 16:05 "In freeride, there's a lot of impact." 16:50 Structure should be fun 17:10 The evolution of Adrenaline Performance 18:00 App-driven motivation with coaches, peers 20:30 Beginner, intermediate, advanced, and Olympic-tiered programs 21:40 Building strength and infusing explosiveness into that strength 23:30 A year-round training program for all mountain athletes 25:20 Meditation to start the day, then mobility, then supplements 25:45 Creatine, omegas, collagen 29:40 The role of daily routines, so "every day is a competition day." 30:00 Skiing with E. coli poisoning 34:00 Accountability and follow-through with Adrenaline Performance app 35:12 Best advice: put a smile on your face at the start gate Quotes: "I try to do as many different sports as possible and that will always transfer over to my skiing." - Marcus "My muscles are my armor." - Marcus "You need to listen to your body because it's easy to burn yourself out if you go too hard." - Marcus "To continue improving in the game, we all need some structure." - Marcus Resources: Marcus on Instagram Adrenaline Performance Wagner Custom Skis

McRae Williams navigated from a childhood on trampolines to aerials on his hometown water ramps at the Olympic Training Center in Park City to become one of the most explosive slopestyle skiers in the sport. He's a World Cup world champion, two-time Olympian and three-time X Games medalist who is channeling years of Olympic-level training into audacious filming performances in remote backcountry locations. Listen in as the 35-year-old slopestyle pioneer explores his work as a mindful athlete with a keen focus on his mental game honed through passions for diverse mountain sports, from flyfishing, pow surfing and mountain biking. Thanks for listening to Next Level Skiing

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Josh Daiek skis remote, highly technical terrain with jaw-dropping speed and flow. After a decade competing on the Freeride World Tour, he's moved into ripping the loneliest lines in the lower 48, snowmobiling deep into Nevada's Sierra and Ruby ranges and skiing down steep, rock-choked chutes far from anywhere. The 42-year-old Salomon-sponsored skier has made two movies — Mountain State and Mountain State 2.0 — detailing his crew's exploration of overlooked terrain in Nevada. You've seen his clips in the Gram and they are scroll-stoppers. Listen in as Josh connects his high-speed, fast-twitch ski style with exploration and patience, the role of repetition in dynamic skiing, using speed to navigate consequential terrain and learning from mistakes on this illuminating episode of Next Level Skiing. Topics: 2:30 The holiday ski family in Michigan, "like the East Coast minus the mountains." 4:30 Moving to Tahoe 5:34 "Rat-packing" at Kirkwood 7:18 10 years on the Freeride World Tour 8:00 Getting serious about training 9:30 Squats, dead lifts, core, shoulders and bike for cardio 12:00 Keeping the mind in-tune with fast-twitch reactions: "bang, bang, bang, react, react, react" 14:00 Time in the saddle and the role of repetition 14:00 Skiing every day all winter 15:20 Learning from mistakes and experience 16:20 The biggest mistakes 17:30 "You'll never catch me wearing ear pods in the mountains" 22:00 Exploring remote lines in Nevada 26:20 Melding a fast ski style with making movies and exploring unasked lines in Nevada 30:00 Using speed as an asset in consequential terrain 32:00 All about the fall line, fast and fluid. Straight and to the point. No bullshit. 34:10 Skiing for Salomon for 13 years 35:00 Best piece of advice: Ask yourself 'Why are you doing this?' Quotes: "When [I] wanted to give up, competition really kept me motivated." - Josh "That's what's more important to me is making split-second decisions." - Josh "When I'm in the mountains, and I'm in nature, I really want to be there." - Josh "Be present in that moment. That's what works for me." - Josh Resources: 💻Josh on Facebook 💻Josh on Instagram 💻Josh on YouTube 💻Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. From the concrete staircases of Pittsburgh to the steepest and deepest lines across three continents, Tom Wallisch has pushed skiing into new realms for more than 25 years. The pioneer of urban skiing infuses a one-of-a-kind creativity and style across all sorts of powdery landscapes. His mastery of park and big mountain steeps is coupled with a filming prowess and business acumen that sustains a vibrant ski career at age 38. Listen in as Tom talks about his Pittsburgh roots, an "East Coast work ethic" that grows from failure, connecting mind and body and "using inspiration in a good way." Topics: 1:30 Finding skiing after unfulfilling spins through team sports 3:00 Growing up skiing city handrails in Pittsburgh. "It's all we had." 4:10 Flipping U-turns to check out quad kink rails 6:10 Transitioning from rails to steep lines 10:20 Thinking differently and creative approaches to skiing 12:40 Honing a business expertise in the ski industry 15:30 Balancing the core insiders with newcomers while announcing for NBC at the Olympics 23:10 The "nitty-gritty balance" and edge control from rail skiing 25:14 Body mechanics and repetition 27:00 Learning how to fall correctly 29:10 Listening to your body. Being smart. Knowing when to push 31:10 Teaching kids at Camp Woodward 34:20 Best advice: Find happiness or fun on the slopes on bad days on the mundane days. Quotes: "We didn't have powder. We didn't have anything like that. So the thing that was the most relatable and the thing that seemed achievable to me were the rails, the urban skiing." "With the Wallisch Project, the one thing we all wanted to do was film everything." "The work ethic from the East Coast, from rail skiing, is like, just hike it again, try it again. And at the same time, if you approach life in that way or skiing in that way, you never get overcome by failure." Resources: Tom on Instagram RENDITION Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Maggie Voisin soared from her Whitefish, Montana, roots into three Olympics and 11 X Games, where she's collected 7 slopestyle medals. Now 26, she's bounced back from several injuries and surgeries to build a soaring career in front of the cameras, filming with Teton Gravity Research and announcing for the X Games. She's navigated incredible pressure as one of the youngest American Winter Olympians, as devastating grief, finding strength and solace on skis. Listen in as Maggie talks about transferring her slopestyle-honed mental fortitude over to big lines in Alaska, strategies for healing, recovering from "the hardest thing ever," and inspiring the next generation of female rippers. Topics: 1:10 Growing up in Whitefish. Dad was a semi-reformed ski bum. 2:00 "Something in the water in Whitefish." Tanner Hall. Tommy Moe. Parkin Costain. 3:50 15 years old and winning silver in first X Games months before skiing in the Olympics 4:20 Younger sibling rippers 6:30 The transition from a decade of teams, coaches and training to filming in AK 8:40 Mental fortitude in slopestyle moving over to steep lines in Alaska 12:10 Breathwork to settle nerves 13:40 Calming concerns around injuries 14:30 Four knee and one ankle surgeries 16:00 Red light, sauna, yoga, breathing, stretching and mindset. "The body is powerful. It's going to heal." 17:40 The importance of rest, meditation 21:30 "The hardest thing ever." Losing Michael to suicide. 23:40 Living and carrying Michael's legacy forward. "I walk through this life differently." 26:40 "They are everywhere." 29:00 A deep, internal knowing that the strength was there. 30:00 "We are human beings who need community." 31:00 Announcing at the Winter X Games with deep knowledge and a feminine perspective 34:30 Inspiring the next generation. 35:30 Best advice: "Fun comes first." Quotes: "The mind can just take over. We all know this." "I always take a deep breath, and on the exhale is when I drop, and I feel like that just really centers me." "In this world, we're always athletes." "If I can live every day, half the way that [my brother] lived his 23 years, that's what I wake up every day and remember." Resources: Maggie on Instagram Maggie Voisin Unleashed: An Exclusive Season Edit Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Salt Lake City skier Mali Noyes, in the spring of 2025, channeled her Nordic skiing roots and more than a decade of ski touring in Utah's Wasatch to set a new bar for swift steep skiing in the West. The 36-year-old skied all 93 lines detailed in Andrew McClean's seminal steep skiing bible "The Chuting Gallery. It took her only 47 days. An epic achievement. Listen in as Mali shares insights into how her Nordic skiing background fueled her exploration of backcountry steeps, pushing through mental fatigue, mentorship, and honing intuition in consequential avalanche terrain. Topics: 2:30 Growing up Nordic skiing in Sun Valley 3:30 Taking up alpine skiing with mom's boots after college 4:00 After three years of downhill skiing, joining the Freeride World Tour. "I crashed my way through … overwhelmed and scared." 4:50 Transitioning to backcountry with Nordic fitness, big-mountain skills, and "a love gf spending long days" in the mountains. 4:20 An "obsessive personality" and the Chuting Gallery project 5:20 The mindset of Nordic: finding weaknesses and improving 8:10 "I wonder how fast I could ski all them?" 10:30 Getting stronger with back-to-back-to-back days 12:0 The physical part was manageable. The mental part was the crux 13:30 A brief breakdown in Cottonwood Creek on Day 24 16:30 The spreadsheet motivator 17:40 Eight rest days in three months 18:30 Balancing objective-driven skiing with safety 19:30 The most in-depth book review of any book ever published 21:10 The mountains are horrible teachers 24:10 Mentorship in the backcountry 29:00 Vetting (and being vetted by) ski partners 31:20 Honing intuition in the backcountry 36:52 Best advice: dreaming big Quotes: "You just get good when all you do is ski." "On my rest days, I started binge watching, like, The White Lotus had just come out. So it was, like, ones that took my brain away from skiing because if I didn't distract myself, all I would do is think about what to ski." "That spide-y sense feeling you get is through experience." Resources: Mali on Instagram Mali on YouTube Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. 26-year-old Parkin Costain grew up in Whitefish as a skiing prodigy. For the last decade, he has been pushing big-mountain skiing with a high-speed, swift-footed style in the heaviest, most technical terrain around. With bust-out performances (like stomping a ridiculous double backflip into Corbets at Kings and Queens) and jaw-dropping segments in Warren Miller and TGR, Parker's fluid, athletic style is helping to define today's big mountain skiing. In this episode of Next Level Skiing, Parker discusses emulating Candide to get banned from his home hill in Whitefish, blending a life on a bike with his globe-trotting adventures on skis, knee-stabilization exercises, unwinding from a ski day, and his new film, "Flipbook." Topics: 2:25 Booted from Whitefish. "It was always such a funny little feud we had going on." 6:00 Honing aerial tricks and bringing them into the backcountry / big mountain terrain 7:10 Being comfortable and confident at each step of learning 8:15 Growing up on mountain bikes, "I almost try to mountain bike like I ski." 9:20 Building trails with his dad, finding inspiration for ski lines 11:50 Early contest and emerging into a ski career 13:40 First time filming with Warren Miller and TGR 14:50 Navigating rocks at Big Sky for fast-twitch talents 16:00 Developing speed in technical terrain 18:00 Preventative maintenance in the gym with a Bosu ball, plyometrics, Adrenaline Performance program by Marcus Goguen 19:00 Working out in gyms since 12 21:04 Mixed success gap jumping with Jake Hopfinger 23:30 Spinning, rowing, and treadmill after skiing 24:07 Making Flipbook 26:30 Drones and social media enabling pro skiers without gatekeepers 29:19 "You're able to build a career out of it on your own if you put in the work." 34:59 "The gnarliest crash ever" on a pillow line in BC 34:40 Bouncing back from a scary crash 35:33 Controlling your speed with piles of snow and careful navigation Quotes: "I also feel like fortunate with the timing there because the event had started a few years prior to that, but it hadn't like fully exploded yet. So when Jake and I were getting to compete there, it was like so many eyes were on that that sponsors took notice." "Big Sky's just made out of like literal daggers everywhere. You have to hone in on your abilities a little bit and understand the terrain and interpret it differently than you do at other resorts. There's plenty of insanely gnarly terrain you can get yourself into." "I've never played video games. I was always outside." "I did the full front flip, so my feet went back because if I had gone headfirst into that thing, it would have been so much worse. It would have been definitely the end of my life, actually. On camera, it looks gnarly, but in person, if you see what I actually fell through, it was the gnarliest thing I've ever experienced." Resources: Parkin Costain on Instagram Wagner Custom Skis

Pete Wagner was building proprietary software to customize golf clubs when he bought a pair of skis in the early 2000s. The mechanical engineer and computer scientist wrestled those skis for a season before realizing he had purchased the wrong skis for his style. Why wasn't anyone designing skis like he was designing golf clubs or like boot fitters adjusted ski boots? In 2006, the expert skier launched Wagner Custom Skis with an exploratory questionnaire that helps skier identify their dream skis and software that guides a warehouse full of machines in building those skis. Nearly 20 years later, Wagner's team of 15 ski builders in Telluride are crafting skis built precisely for individuals taking their skiing to the next level. Tune in to hear Pete's riff on ski design and the manufacturing process, trends in ski designs, and how a customized ski - like a custom-fit ski boot — can improve your every minute on snow. Topics: 1:00 - A background in material science and design software for golf 6:00 - Buying the wrong skis. How come no one is focusing on fit like in golf and cycling? 7:10 - 2006 launch of Wagner Skis with "rapid prototyping" software 8:00 - How custom ski boot fitters inspired the Wagner business plan 13::40 - Building a database of ski designs 16:00 - Customization for beginner and intermediate skiers 18:00 - Optimizing ski design with 2,500 different material combinations 19:00 - Versatility for beginners 23:00 - Ski design trends in the mid-2000s to now 25:00 - Adding rocker to the tip and tail with camber underfoot 27:10 - Matching individuals to skis 28:20 - Manufacturing without molds 36:00 - Repeat customers and changing designs as skiers refine their demands Quotes: "A ski that has the right flex pattern and stiffness, the benefit of that is that it will be stiff enough to give you good stability if you're going fast." - Pete Wagner "The business model of the big companies is not about customization or agility. Their business model is that they go out in the late winter and spring, get people to try their next year's models, collect orders, mass produce stuff throughout the spring and summer, and then deliver them to the shop in the fall." - Pete Wagner "What we realized is that you can keep things simple." - Pete Wagner "Skiing has a lot to offer people. There are different things you can focus on and that's what makes it such a great activity and way to spend your time. And that's our goal." - Pete Wagner Resources: Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Willie Volckhausen started skiing when he was 2 and raced with Sunlight's local ski club for over a decade. He spent 18 years coaching young skiers with the Aspen Valley Ski Club, developing not just ripping racers but athletes with a lifelong passion for skiing. And now he's a ski instructor with the Aspen Ski School who spends his summers working his family's farm near Paonia. Over his decades of being coached and coaching, Willie's picked up more than a few techniques for improving our turns. Listen in and hear Willie talk about critical drills, his description of the best coach in the world, how farming has informed his skiing and when to find the perfect turn. Topics: 1:00: 18 years skiing with the Bad News Bears of ski racing at Ski Sunlight 3:10: Transitioning to alpine racing coach for U12s for the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club 6:20: Balancing performance and victory with sustaining a passion for skiing 7:00: The best year for winning at Aspen Valley Ski Club wasn't about the podiums 10:10: No pedestals for elite skiers 12:10: What coaching and young racers taught him about skiing 16:00: "Skiing is the easy part" about being a ski instructor 17:00: Standing on the outside ski 19:40: The up and over drill 20:20: The best coach in the world "should be totally deaf and totally mute." 26:00: How learning patience through farming helps with skiing 30:50: How can you identify the perfect turn? Wait. Quotes: "Ski racing is an individual sport that is dominated by teams." - Willie Volckhausen "It's not all about that one person. Only one person's gonna win and there's ten of us. So what are the other nine kids supposed to do the day that so-and-so wins the race? That's what we focused on a lot." - Willie Volckhausen "Coaches and mentors have that opportunity every day to not put their elite athletes on a pedestal. The kids who win know they're good. They know they're going to win again. They know they're expected to win. I think that's some of the worst pressure we could possibly put on junior athletes." - Willie Volckhausen "If you tuck and roll, get your feet back below you, and you stand up without ever stopping, technically that's not a crash; that's a ground trick." - Willie Volckhausen Resources: Willie's Instagram Wagner Custom Skis

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Brody Leven doesn't dabble. He's an all-in type of skier. When he decided he was done with park skiing, he moved from 100 days of high-flying park time every season to 100 days of climbing and skiing mountains. And now it's been 10 years since the Fischer Ski-sponsored athlete has ridden a chairlift. He's never eaten meat. During the pandemic, he started exercising outside every day. Now he's more than four years in without missing a single day. He's a lifelong vegetarian, a vehement climate advocate, and, as he says, "obsessed with ideas and doing things that are hard." Tune in and hear Brody talk about growing up skiing in Ohio, his pursuit of untracked sno,w and his evolution into one of the world's top ski mountaineers who considers his skiing outside the traditional definitions used by both pro skiers and ski mountaineers. Topics: 1:10: An after-school ski program in Ohio. 4:00: Moving to Salt Lake City in 2005 for the skiing 12:10: Going from 100 days in the park to 100 days in the backcountry. 14:20: Ten years without riding lifts. 15:40: Principled skiing. 24:00: Perfecting turns without ever skiing on a groomer. 28:30: Climbing and skiing peaks in Uganda, Romania and Georgia. 30:10: The "thief of credibility" in the culture of ski mountaineering. 36:00: The light and fast ethos in ski mountaineering. 41:00: Jumping into exercising outside every day 49:00: Tackling climate change is like coming to a mountain with lots of little steps. Quotes: "When you're back there, you're listening to what the mountains are telling you and what your intuition is telling you and the frequency with which you do it, you know, getting out there so regularly and, you know, kind of higher risk terrain, you develop that fluency, right? And you push yourself to a spot where you have an intuitive fluency." Jason Blevins "I'm not like a woo-woo person, I'm very logical. And so when I say the essence of skiing, I do not mean that in any sort of woo-woo way. I mean, literally, it's how you move around the mountain on skis." Brody Leven "There's this culture of doing cool things and being quiet about it but secretly hoping other people hype you up in the parking lots. And like that's, it's just so weird for me. It's uncomfortable for me. I don't know. So I hype it up myself because I get back and I'm proud of it that part of my job is letting people know what I've done." Brody Leven "In hindsight, I didn't know it at the time, but I think in hindsight, finding that consistency was some way of having control over such an otherwise out-of-our-control situation. And so much of my life seems to lack that control." Brody Leven Resources: brodyleven.com Wagner Custom Skis