Get Fit for Snowboarding: The Ultimate Snowboard Workout
If you are fired up for the slopes and eager to ride this workout is designed to get you mountain ready. These four moves have been selected to help you build upper and lower body strength, balance and improve your posture.
Although it may be the exhilaration of the ride that every boarder chases, it is also important to prevent injuries and this means training off the slopes as well as on.
These moves will help build muscle to make you stronger and faster on your snowboard just like the Canadian Olympians Maëlle Ricker and Mike Robertson. So, perhaps not as strong and fast as them, but these exercises will definitely help improve your techniques on the slopes.
Training Guidelines:
- Perform two sets of the listed (reps) with a rest of around 60 seconds between each set.
- Throughout the workout, concentrate on breathing correctly. Do not hold your breath during an exercise.
- Engage your core during all exercises.
- Always warm-up using a cardio focused exercise (ex. elliptical or biking)
- If you ever feel pain or a muscle hurting. Stop before you injure yourself!
- Spin and stretch for recovery. This is very important to prevent injury and stiffness.
- You should aim to be doing this work-out 3 times a week
1. Side Plank Plus Leg Raise
This could be considered one of the most important exercises for staying healthy throughout the snowboard season. The glute and hip muscle groups are activated and stabilized with this movement. To keep your knees safe and protected the gluteus medius must be constantly working, and this exercise definitely gets these fired up.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EAPH1YAvTc[/youtube]
Directions:
- Lie on your side parallel to a wall with approximately eight to ten inches between the wall and your mat
- Perform a side plank and remain in this posture for the entire exercise
- Raise the top leg up and move the heel back until it touches the wall
- Press the heel against the wall and keep it raised for the duration of the exercise
- Make sure to keep both legs straight
Reps: Twenty to Thirty, or 30 seconds to one minute each leg.
Option: You can lay at on the ground without the plank and progress up to incorporating it into the movement.
2. Single-Leg Dumbbell Deadlift
This exercise is performed to build hamstring strength which will help prevent injury to the knees and also increases the boarders balance.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4x7W1dPb0[/youtube]
Directions:
- Hold dumbbell in your right hand and stand on your left leg.
- Keeping the dumbbell close to your body, lower it down until you are around mid-shin level
- Send your right leg backwards and lifted, straightening your hamstring and engaging your glute
- Return to the starting position by following the same movement back to the ground
- Finish one complete side depending on how many reps you choose before changing sides
Reps: Ten to fifteen for hypertrophy, six to ten for strength, one to five for power.
Tips: Maintain a flat back and neutral spine throughout the movement. Remember that this exercise should be done in a controlled manner, as it enhances balance as well.
Option: This movement can be done with two dumbbells or a barbell on two legs until your balance improves enough to perform the movement correctly on one leg.
3. Squats and Press
If you want to improve as a snowboarder you must do squats. This exercise is the king of all lower-body exercises. When it comes to snowboarding, the squat is perhaps the best training technique to date for exaggerating the movements experienced on the mountain.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM7dF4ZwXns[/youtube]
Directions:
- Begin in a squat stance, holding a dumbbell or medicine ball at chest height.
- Perform a squat by pushing your hips and glutes backwards and lowering your body
- Push through both legs driving upwards and lifting the dumbbell overhead
Reps: 10 – 15 for hypertrophy and 1 – 5 for power.
4. Scapular Wall Slides
This exercise will help improve your posture and keep your shoulders healthy. Snowboarders spend the majority of their time on the mountain in a less-than-perfect postural position, which causes their shoulders to rotate forward. This exercise activates the rhomboid and scapulae muscles.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g81XGXb1N6Q[/youtube]
Directions:
- Stand with back against the wall and take your hands up overhead
- Keeping your shoulders pretty tight against the wall, slide your hands down the wall and in the process use that arm motion to drive the motion of the shoulder blades
- The shoulder blades should go down and back
- You should feed muscle activation in your mid back and a little bit of stretch in the front of your shoulders
Reps: 20 – 25
Source:Â Flickr user pincusvt
