fitness

what do people do in terms of fitness for snowboarding specifically?
ie what fitness do they do aimed at improving their boarding….rather than just other sports they play

apparently cycling is real good - to get in touch with your legs muscles before going out and destroying them all in one days shredding

For my body, I find stretching is the most important thing to work on pre-season. Flexability not only helps my riding, but I fatigue less, and reduce the risk of injury.

Snowboarding specific strength can be built pretty quickly, just by snowboarding. I guess if you only have a few days on the snow… cycling, squats, anything that works your core, and running up and down stairs, and hiking are all really good.

I usually only run as exercise, but if I was all serious about being fit for snowboarding I would begin some core strengthening like yoga or something.
running and cycling I think help with those large muscle groups.
There are many small muscle groups in the lower legs and ankles that are hard to get into shape for riding.

Anything to do with core is great and I find wall sits work perfectly for those thighs to get strong… you want to do exercises that will help with fatiguing less and strength of the overall body

I find cardio and flexibility to be the most important when it comes to riding. You want to be able to last longer and ride more often

Yoga for any sport in general, Keeps your muscles loose and your head in the right frame of mind.

Any cardio activities as well, i find running and swimming the best. Swimming is great for surfing, your able to paddle longer surf stronger and take on heavy beat downs

Hey Cmat. How you going? In response to your question regarding what exercises are best to do to improve your riding you need to think about what muscles you are using and what actions you are doing specifically when snowboarding.

For example, when you are snowboarding you are constantly in a squat position, getting as low as you can by bending your knees and sticking your butt out behind you. While snowboarding in between each turn your are standing up and then as you dig your toe edge or heel edge in you are bending back into your squat. So without a doubt practicing as many squats as you can will help with muscle endurance and stamina, and will decrease the leg burn you’ll get half way down the run.

Try standing squats, squat jumps, lunges, lunge jumps, weighted squats and squats on either side of the BOSU. Keep this up until your quads and glutes are burning, then take a rest and do it again!! The stronger those muscles the better a boarder you will be! It will help with your board control, stamina & endurance, carving, landing jumps, speed and over all technique! Good luck and enjoy squatting!

Jules x

that wall chair excersise (justed called chair in my yoga book) is awesome, i did it for a while, increasing the time progressively over the weeks, i found at the end i could just about watch a snowboard section (so long as it wasn’t romain de marchi’s in vivid!). anyways dunno whether it did anything for my legs but i’ll tell you what, if you’ve got the mental strength to go through all that pain for so bloody long and know no one else is making you do it…..lets just say hitting big booters shouldn’t be a problem for you.

I always struggle with hiking in the winter.
What exercise can i do to help me on those -15 degree powder days, where everyone is more running than hiking up the mountain? i find its not my legs that get tired, but more my lungs that get out of breath.
does anyone have and tips on how i can improve this?

That’s aerobic fitness; you need to get your heart rate up and keep it up for 20+ minutes to improve. Running, hiking, swimming, cycling, power walking, rowing machine etc…

I would suggest as pre-season training to power hike up the hill for 20 mins. It will work on the specific muscles as Jules suggested, but also works on your aerobic fitness.

thanks for the good ideas ... now i just need the motivation and time

A good tip i read in a book once was just before you’re about to start a bit of grueling exercise try and take deep breaths for a few minutes before so that when you start your body has loads of oxygen in its blood.  So if your hiking along a flat but you can see a steep coming, try and boost your bloody oxygen level.  I’m not a doctor, just repeating the tip, also i’m a placebo addict, thats stuffs dope!

Might seem ridiculous to some but wiifit (the game on wii) does some surprisingly good core and flexibility work. Those + cardiovascular/aerobic work seems to give a high fitness level.

If you want to get in shape for the boarding season there are many things people have suggested here that would work quite well. Definatley getting the body prepared for what its going to face out there is the best prep you can do.
You should definaltly be stretching and training your core including your lower back as this is what is keeping you upright and strong in an athletic position while on your board. Work on things such as super-mans, plank holds, bridges and cobra stretches, back extensions.

As for strength work boost your legs with squats and lunges dead-lifts are also very handy too. Make it interesting make sure you progress yourself don’t just sit on the same weight and reps. Also do unilateral things such as 1 legged squats, slit jump lunges, step ups (with and without extension) lots of simple moves like squats, lunges, bounding side to side, 1 leg holds do all this on wobble boards or bosu’s as this will also help your core on balance aspects but also builds your muscle proprioception. Which helps your muscles react more swiftly in instances like ankle and knee twists.

Cardio work is a must if your going to be going up and down the mountain all day and you want enough energy and stamina to do it. Just change it up a little you don’t have to run 10kms every session or run a half marathon. Work in your target heart rate zone of around 75-85% of your max HR (max HR= 220-age) basic calculation. The time needed for this is around 20-40 mins a session on cardio training.

Obviously there are different rep ranges and weights/sets you would use and also different rest periods and strategies on what part of training your in eg. off season, pre season, competition etc. I hope this helps some of you out with your training goals if you have any questions or want to know anything else drop me a msg.

Excellent advice, thanks for sharing diddy.

Agree with everything you have said above diddy.
One thing i also find very useful is doing plyometric (explosive/power) exercises as well. They definatly help with jumps and getting that extra power from your legs, as well as being able to absorb landings more effectively without losing too much energy. Hill sprints are also another good one I do that definatly helps with those sessions you spend hiking the park or to some fresh pow