Never too old to shred - snowboarding!
Never too old to shred - snowboarding
More and more adult boarders are appearing on the slopes of Western ski resorts, joining the legions of brash young skate-and-surf types who have...read more
Alpine snowboarding
Alpine snowboarding is for those of you who are a little more extreme about speed than most. Alpine snowboarding encompasses more than just speed. Other areas often included are racing and extreme...read more
Snowboarding at night
Nighttime snowboarding is another aspect of snowboarding that is unlike any other that you may have tried so far. Many people find snowboarding at night to be very relaxing, exciting and offer a new...read more
Crosstraining To Be A Better SnowBoarder
By Gregg Hall
In all sports you will be able to obtain optimal performance
levels by including cross-training in your regimen. Snowboarding
is no exception to this and we would like to give you some
suggestions that will help you to cross-train and become a
better snowboarder.
The first cross-training sport for a snowboarder is
skateboarding. It is the easiest and most obvious transition for
a snowboarder to make. Snowboarding actually kind of owes its
very existence to the sport of skateboarding and they offer many
similarities and movements. The great thing about skateboarding
is that you don't need snow or mountains to be able to train.
Skateboards come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. The ones I
recommend are those ridden by surfers who cross-train with
skateboards.
They are the "longboard" or "carveboard" style of skateboard and
come with oversize wheels as well. You can even get an off-road
version that will allow you to carve down large hills giving you
a very similar experience to snowboarding.
The next options are wakeboarding and surfing. Both of these
sports will keep you in great shape for snowboarding but for
most snowboarders wakeboarding will probably be the easier of
the two to realize just because of geographical issues. In most
cases snowboarders will have much easier access to a lake or
large pond on which to do wakeboarding than they will to
surfing, unless they live on the west coast and have the beaches
within a couple of hours drive. Wakeboarding has some similar
movements to snowboarding but it also brings the upper body into
the equation as well, something many snowboarders are sorely
lacking. The major issue you will have to deal with is having
access to a boat.
The next sport we want to look at is surfing. Surfing is a great
sport with many similar muscles being used as used is
snowboarding. Like wakeboarding though, surfing also requires
the development of upper body strength due to the paddling
involved in getting out to the waves.
If you really get into the sport and get into the big wave
riding that has been popularized of late by guys like Laird
Hamilton you will definitely get the same adrenaline rush that
you get snowboarding down a mountain. Actually, it is more like
snowboarding with an avalanche behind you!
Another sport you can get into that is fairly easy for
snowboarders due to their location is mountain biking. It
doesn't offer the similarities in movement but it will keep you
in shape physically and aerobically for the snowboarding season.
About the author:
Gregg Hall is a business consultant and author for many online
and offline businesses and lives with his 16 year old
surfer/skater son in Navarre Florida. Check out
http://www.skateandsnowshop.com for you skate and snowboard
gear.
