Functional, high-quality clothing is essential for winter sports enthusiasts: cold, wet, hours of physical exertion. You sweat even though the thermometer reads -20°. You want to stay dry. High demands are placed on winter sports clothing. How do you dress on a day when you're doing sports in the cold?
The layering or onion principle
The most important thing for winter sports enthusiasts is their clothing. How do you dress on a day when you're doing sport in the cold? You sweat and yet you want to stay dry. Thanks to the new materials, warm winter sports are possible.
1. functional underwear (wool or synthetic fiber): ensures sweat wicking and heat insulation.
2. microfleece: reliably transports body moisture to the outside.
3. thermal fleece: thermal insulation and further removal of moisture
4. the firewall: hard and softshell jackets that protect against rain, snow and wind.
Breathability
Breathability does not mean that clothing actively breathes. Due to differences in temperature (°C) and relative humidity (%), physical equalization processes are set in motion to eliminate these imbalances. When we exercise outside in the cold, the area under our clothing close to our body heats up. Temperatures of around 35°C and 100% relative humidity (sweat) prevail. On a typical winter's day in the Alps, the temperature is well below freezing. As the above-mentioned processes seek to establish a balance, both the temperature close to the body and the humidity must be reduced. This only works if the clothing allows water vapor transport. If this is the case, we speak of breathability. You will find out later how the textiles need to be constructed.
Water density in mm water column
First of all, the term "mm water column". If a measuring cylinder is filled 10 cm high with water, we speak of a 100 mm high water column. This column exerts a certain pressure on the base of the measuring cylinder: The higher the water column, the higher the pressure.
Now to the water density. According to the DIN standard, a fabric is waterproof if it can withstand the pressure of a 1300 mm water column without letting even a drop through. The test: A measuring cylinder without a base with a diameter of 10 cm is required. A piece of material is stretched over this opening and the cylinder is filled 1300 mm high with water. If the fabric retains the water, it is waterproof (according to the DIN standard). For functional jackets and pants, values between 10,000 mm and 20,000 mm are not uncommon. The height of the water column therefore describes the impermeability of the fabrics.
Membranes and coatings
These materials are the firewall that can keep our temperature envelope in the green range during winter sports. They are incorporated into clothing as membranes, e.g. Gore-Tex®, Sympatex® or as coatings, e.g. Hyvent®, Texapore®.
Membranes and their simple functional principle
Imagine a conventional powdered sugar sieve. Only the finest sugar dust gets through. Lumps don't stand a chance! The same goes for the materials. They are porous. The pores are large enough for water molecules (steam/sweat) to easily pass through. The water droplets (clumps of water molecules), on the other hand, are simply far too large to seep through.
What you need to know: Water in its liquid state is a lump of water molecules. So-called hydrogen bonds hold the molecules together. These bridges are so strong that even "normal" pressing does not get the droplets through the membrane. Once again, remember the pressure of the water column.
