Key Snowboarding Exercises
Lower-Body Exercise Is Key to Riding Down the Slopes
(excerpt from wsj.com by Jen Murphy)
While cruising down the mountain on a snowboard can look effortless it actually requires a lot of lower body strength. “Snowboarding is a great workout,” says Luke Sheppard, the manager of the Burton Snowboard Academy at Northstar, Calif. “Riders really use their leg muscles, and will primarily feel the effort in their quad muscles and the calf muscles and glutes.”
He says doing squats is a great way to prepare your legs. “And biking keeps the legs in shape and hits on cardio.” He says the biggest mistake beginners make is that they try to force themselves into contorted positions when they ride.
“People try to get low [to the ground] and end up making it harder to balance and move around their center of mass,” he says. “They need to relax their body.” Mr. Sheppard says the shoulders, hips, and knees should be stacked over the feet and riders should try to have the spine upright. “Make movements with the lower body to help start turns, change edges and steer the board,” he says.
Whether you’re a beginner or Jake Burton, stretching and hydration are key to a pain-free winter season.
“Foam rolling the legs will make the morning after a hard day of riding 100 times better,” says Mr. Sheppard.
He also suggests yoga-type stretches such as pigeon pose...for the full article, visit this link.
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