Basic Snowboarding

Snowboarding – an immensely popular winter sport - requires oodles of guts, courage, untiring practice, perseverance and expertise to master the skill of gliding down the snowy slope of a mountain and switching and flipping to draw accolades. It involves balance and control and is definitely not a game for the fainthearted or for weaklings.

You need to be physically at your fittest level to perform the crazy and risky stunts apart from exercising regularly and mastering the skills. Remember, snowboarding is just like any other sport and to excel at this game you need to improve your stamina, strength, and fitness.

You can do that by performing certain exercises and usually these exercises are more or less similar to the ones required to sharpen the skills of players in other fields like skiing, skating, athletics, tennis, football, baseball, cricket, swimming etc.

Some of the exercises you need to perform are cardio vascular exercises, flexibility increasing work outs and strength training. The latter is basically a muscle building ancillary exercise regime that will improve your core strength and stamina and cut out on rigidity. The best exercises for a keen and dedicated snowboarding enthusiast are

• Abdominal exercises
• Calf raises
• Leg extensions
• Leg curls
• Pull down
• Seated row
• Leg press

They will help you to increase your control and balance.

Also before starting your snowboarding session at a snowy mountainous venue, you should practice skateboarding or surfing for 15 to 20 minutes. In fact you should regularly practice skiing, surfing and skateboarding to better yourself during the off seasons as they are pretty similar to snowboarding and will sharpen your coordination, balance, and boarding tricks.

If you want to get and stay in shape all year through, cardio vascular exercises are indispensable and so are roller blading, yoga, and mountain biking all of which focus on the legs.

Basically you have to concentrate on exercises which will strengthen your leg and calf muscles. You can also join a gym where the fitness instructor will show you the appropriate exercises that will target the legs.

If you are really serious about snowboarding and want to train for new jumps, you should start practicing on a trampoline. You may try out a diverse range of tricks and spins on it.

Follow all these up with stretching routines before and after your snowboarding sessions to retain your flexibility and agility. If you do it hopefully you will not end up pulling a muscle or encounter torn ligaments or sprained muscle. Combine this stretching with free hand exercises which will also warm up the body. For stretches I will recommend

• Abdominal stretches
• Back stretches
• Calf stretches
• Hip stretches
• Quad stretches
• Hamstring stretches