Suggestions for fitness circuit

OK, I have calmed down, and have put away the nutrition part of my brain and notes for now, THIS is the actual advice about summer training for snowboarding…

Firstly, what are the main physical attributes you need for snowboarding:

- Aerobic capacity, to be able to stay out there all day, or even just lap the park constantly, you need to have a good aerobic fitness level
- Muscular power in your legs, for initiating and holding turns, and for jumps etc
- Muscular endurance, again to be able to stay out there all day without fatigue

To work on these, one of the best methods as far as combining muscular power and endurance training is interval, or similarly fartlek running. Both of these are maximal (or a predetermined intensity) sprint efforts, combined with rest periods - walking in Interval running, and jogging in fartlek. These are great to do around an oval or park, if you have one handy, and you don’t have to do them for a huge period of time to get the benefits. You should be aiming to work at a 1:2 work:rest ratio initially, but working this up to a 1:1 ratio is good once you become more accustomed to it. doing 12 minutes, with a 30 second work period and a 60 second rest will get you 6 high intensity sprints with 6 one minute jogs in between, which depending on how hard you work in the sprints should tire you out a bit…you should aim to do these 3-4 times a week, and aim to increase the work:rest ratio again as you are comfortable. You can adjust the work/rest times to suit your needs, if you find this is too much, start lower (10:20s, and working for 5 minutes) and work up from there. In my opinion, this is one of the best ways to train for a variety of events and purposes, and should provide gains and improvement if you work hard enough at it. If you could only choose one of these exercises to add to a program you already had in mind, this would be the one I would suggest, as it will increase both leg power and endurance, as well as aerobic capacity.

Another great method for increasing muscular power is plyometrics, which is a training style that aims to use fast paced movements to increase the functioning of a neuro-muscular adaptation called the stretch-shorten cycle - basically when a muscle is stretched it gains elastic energy (like a rubber band), and if the muscle is contracted quickly after this, this stored energy can be used to create a greater force, and hence train the muscle to produce this force more, and increase the overall power in the muscle. However, this needs to occur quickly (ie basically instantly), or the energy is released as heat, and the stretch-shorten cycle doe snot function as well.

Plyometric exercises include drop jumps (where you jump off of a box down to the ground, and spring off instantly aiming for maximum height), bounding (running aiming to push off with maximal force and get as big a stride in as possible with as short a ground contact time as you can - over about 20-30 minutes), ladder runs (or just quick-steps - aiming to take as many steps in a short amount of time - over about 10-15 metres) - 3 sets of 10-15 reps, 4x a week for each exercise is about what you should be aiming for, and increase the distance, then number of reps, then sets once you become more comfortable…

hopefully these give you a couple of ideas, will come back later but the (literal) couple of hours I had have been whisked away and now I have to go…sorry about the length, hope you can pick out what you want from it and it is slightly useful…

Bangabain, don’t have any problems with anything you have put forward although I think it may come on a bit strong for someone who doesn’t have an active interest in training and nutrition, tried to keep my thoughts as simple as I could.  I remember when I first started researching stuff that too many acronyms, scientific descriptions and buzz words started to confuse all hell out of me.

To be perfectly honest I haven’t done any sport specific training for some time, I have been doing a more bodybuilding based training routine for a few years now.  Having said that I have probably learnt far more about nutrition since then than I ever did before, a combination of a desire to know more and the abundance of information in the internet age have helped.  When your training hard you need extra protein regardless of the type of training, your muscles are being damaged and need to be repaired. 

Depending upon who you talk to or what you read there are varying numbers quoted as to how much protein you need.  When I’m training hard and really watching my diet I try to get in between 3-4 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight.  At a minimum for a male who is training I think 2grams per kg is required.  Because I was doing weight training and no intensive cardio I didn’t need heaps of carbs so my carb intake was more like 2 sometimes 3 grams of carbs per kg.  Fats I get from flaxseed oil and fish oil tablets and a minimal amount of fats from other sources when cooking in the realm of 0.5grams per kg. 

One thing with diet being that protein and fat together is fine, carbs and protein together are fine, carbs and fats together are bad bad bad.  Carbs are going to fuel your body so eating fats with them is going to make your body store it, not a desired outcome.  So what can you eat and when?  I try to keep the majoirty of my carb intake to the morning and munch with only a small amount of high GI carbs with my protein after I train.  After hard training your body is very responsive to insulin, high GI carbs activate an insulin response in the body that shuttles the protein to the muscles allowing them to begin the recovery process asap.  Thats an extremely basic explanation of what happens but its an accepted fact that high GI carbs after training facilitate the delivery of protein to the muscles and the 30min period after you stop training is the window of time in which this response works best.  I like to down a protein shake myself during this time that has fast acting whey protein and maltodextrin mix in it.

I used to have an excel spreadsheet somewhere that listed out my meals and the nutrition breakdown for each in cals of protein, carbs fats and total calories for each meal.  it was very anal way of doing things but that way at least you had and idea of how much your were eating.  I challenge everyone to spend a week and write down what they eat every day for that week and work out their calorie intake for each day that week, I can guarantee you that most ppl will be suprised at just how many cals they are eating.

Bangabain mentioned plyometric training and a little bit about the eccentric and concentric portions of the lift or exercise.  the eccentric portion of the lift is generally speaking easier, because it’s easier and most people are far stronger on the eccentric portion it is beneificial to make this the slowest, most controlled portion of the lift.  There are studies out there that show time under tension is as important as the amount of weight used.  I try to be explosive in the concentric part of the lift, have a pause at the top and then lower it slowly. 

I like the idea of plyometrics when it comes to snowboard specific training but i also think that isometrics could be of use.  Isometrics involve time under tension primarily, eg:  a bodyweight squat, go down 30% of the total range of movement and hold for 10secs, then down to 50%, hold for 10 secs, then 75% and hold for 10secs and work your way back up to the top through the same points and holds.  Your legs will generally be feeling it after a few of those and they help with ability to maintain strength and endurance, for instance long heelside traverses burn your quads and long toeside traverses burn your calves, it’s a similar thing and prepares your muscles for that kind of strain.

As far as core exercises, situps and crunches are better than nothing but your body rarely does a movement similar to a situp and almost never does anything resembling a crunch.  Core stability exercises like straight and side grenage’s (no idea on the spelling but essentially making yourself into a plank on your elbows and toes and doing an isometric hold is what I’m talking about), ab wheel rolls, swiss ball rolls, and leg raises both lying down and in the upright leg raise at the gym will help immensely.  The upright leg raise is probably the most snowboard specific, will help with pulling your board up under you when you hit jumps to get that extra bit of height.

I might shut up for now, kinda crapping on about all kinds of different things which are probably very confusing, if the OP could explain exactly what it is they are looking for from their training it would help myself and others know what to help him with.

Wow, thanks bangabain the diet aspect is great. I never knew that you were meant to consume so many carbs for exercise.
Thanks to all who’ve posted. Far exceeded my expectations

Ok, I think there’s enough nutrition information from Nthnbeaches and I to write the Boardworld textbook of snowboard and other training nutrition, so we might leave it at that

Another training exercise that I myself have been subjected to in our last few weeks of cricket preseason that I think would be extremely useful for snowboarding (moreso the lapping the park style, but would definitely be applicable to all forms) is stair runs…seems so simple, and someone has probably mentioned them before now, but chuck about 10 BIG stair sets (50-100 stairs) in a session and you will be hurting for the rest of the week…obviously the aim is to go as fast as possible, and you can train different styles by alternating between hitting every step on the way up (more focus on endurance, but still focussing on power), and every second step (more focus on power, but still endurance)...also on the way down the stair set aim to jog down, but stay in control of your speed. This is the same principle as holding bench presses against gravity - it will train the muscles in a different way which will increase your overall fitness, strength & power.

Oh and wall squats are definitely another great one for the quads…