Exercises for snowboarding/skiing

                Hello everyone with the coming of winter, mountains are getting ready and some are even opening.  This all means that snowboarding season is upon us.  I absolutely love boarding and am extremely excited for this upcoming season and feel it is time to prepare.  There is nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of a boarding day and your legs begin to fatigue and give up on you.  This post will is going to focusing on exercises to help you prepare yourself for a season of hitting the mountains.

 (Sis and I boarding Cayons in Utah))

                Training your legs is vitally important for preparing for the season but I also like to add balancing exercises to help increase your body’s ability to balance itself.  That is why I love this first exercise, the one leg toe touch with a hop.  If you are a vet of Insanity then you will know what I am talking about.  You start off by standing with your feet together and lift one leg so you knee is at a 90˚ angle.  Then bend forward keeping bent leg even with body and touch your toes or the floor with both hands.  Begin coming back up and when body is in the start position jump.  Start with 10 per side and as you feel comfortable and your leg strength and balance builds feel free to increase the amount of reps.

                The next exercise I like to do for snowboarding are squats.  This includes regular weighted squats as well as pulsing squats.  These squats you start with your feet shoulder width apart going halfway through the squat so you are in the sit position and instead of coming back up hold it and start small pulses.  Do 5 pulses and on the next one explode jump so your arms and legs are fully extended where you would resemble a starfish.

                Now it's time that we directly attack out abdominals.  For this I love doing Russian twists.  Start off by sitting on the floor feet flat with knees bent.  Fully extend your arms lean back slightly while lifting your feet and twist side to side.  I also like doing crunches with 4 twists on a declined bench.  Do 10reps per set and increase amount of sets or amount of reps per set.  These are great exercises and you stomach will soon be on fire.

                Another exercise that are good for preparing you are walking lunges.  I enjoy these much more than regular lunges.  Walking lunges not only increase your leg strength but also helps you increase your balance.  Start by grabbing dumbbells or any weighted item that you are comfortable holding for some time.  The amount of room you have can determine how many lunges you can do.  Starting with 6-10 reps (keep it even so both legs are strengthened evenly) and if you want to challenge yourself do 10 lunges in one direction turn around and do 10 more ending where you began.

                It is important that you remember to exercise your upper body as it helps you with rotating your body.  A good upper body work out are bench tricep dips with balance ball.  Start by grabbing a bench, a balance ball, and extra weight if you want more of a challenge.  Sit on edge of the bench and place heels on top of the exercise ball.  Dip down and come back up keeping heels on top of the ball.  These help increase your upper body strength and also helps increase you body’s ability to balance itself.

                These are some of my favorite exercises to help prepare for the upcoming season.  Remember that these are only a few and there are many more that you can add to your repertoire.  Remember stay hydrated and to stretch, who knows maybe I’ll see you out on the mountain.

Till next time

Bogo Out

Proper Stretching Techniques for Pre and Post Exercise Part 2

                Today we are continuing our discussion of proper stretching for pre and post work outs.  To summarize what we covered on our last post it is important to perform dynamic stretches prior to any workout or sporting events.  Dynamic stretches run the body through its range of motion and properly warms up joints and muscles for any activity.

                Once you have completed you work out or event it is now time to cooldown and to do static stretches.  While dynamic stretching brings the body through a range of motion static stretching stretches the muscle to the point of tension and can be held for 30 seconds to 2 minutes.  Static stretching helps increase flexibility and range of motion.

                Static stretches include triceps stretch.  For this stretch you place your hand in the middle of back between your shoulder blades and with the opposite hand you push your elbow down and hold.  A chest stretch has you lock your hands behind you back about waist level and slowly lift arms straight up.  Some static stretches for your legs include hamstring stretch also known as toe touch.  For this stretch you can either be sitting or standing.  You bend at the waist and touch your toes and hold.  Another leg stretch is the quadriceps stretch.  This is when you lift your foot and grab with the hand on the same side and lift up towards your butt.  These are just a few static stretches that can be done.

                So in closing it is important to remember that for any physical activity that you are conducting, you warm up to complete dynamic stretches before you activity and you conduct static stretches during or after your cooldown.  We stretch to maintain flexibility and range of motion, this helps prevent injuries and properly prepares your body for your next activity.

Stay safe and have fun