Hey All,

Just wondering what everyone does to boost your fitness and also your skills when you can't get to the snow. Do you do specific exercises? Do you practice your manuals on the carpet in the loungeroom? Airs on the kids' trampoline?

I remember seeing some balance board thing some years ago, like a plank balanced on a small barrel and you had to work to stay balanced on it.

Cheers,

Mud

Trampoline is a good one! Not the kids tramp though, those things are death traps. Go to your local gymnastics center and do some trampoline training. You can practice any aerial trick you want, before trying it on the snow. It's a good cardio work out too!
I've done the balance board thing, it probably does help with overall balance a bit but I don't think it helped my riding much. Might strength your ankles though.

Heh we have one of those supposedly safe spring-free ones. I was thinking more in terms of actually getting on there with the board and just popping up and down a bit to master balance in the air.

They make trampoline boards just for doing that. If you use your snowboard the metal edges will cut holes in your tramp. But I guess you could put duct tape over the edges.

Yoga works best for me. I find it really helps with balance, core strength, and flexibility. Unfortunately I have been a lot lazier than I should be lately. I'm looking forward to getting back into it soon.

At the moment I'm doing 40-60km a week on the exercise bike to strengthen my knee and some cardio along with a mixture of core and hamstring strengthening exercises - basically just targeting my problem areas from past injuries (LCL, hamstring, ribs). Will be looking into yoga shortly for more flexibility and core leading up to the next whistler season since it's only 3 months off now.

hm that's interesting some of you are doing yoga. I do gym occasionally for upper body and core and I commute to work on my pushie which is basically all the leg exercise I do.

any reason as to why you dont train legs at the gym?

yerp, because it would leave my legs too stuffed to ride my bike.

fair enough.

to me thats like putting 500 hp in your car but not upgrading the POS drum brakes, i used to ride my bike after leg days at the gym and unless your going full pelt for an extended period of time i didnt notice any difference really. but it depends on how long/hard your commute is i guess...

ok ok, the real reason I don't train my legs at gym is that I've been studying the BW forums and have come to the conclusion that to be a BW legend you have to have chicken legs.

You had better believe that Mudhoney!!!!!

Two of Boardworld's finest... chicken legs!

And hey, just because they are skinny doesn't mean they aren't strong (or at least I keep telling myself).

there were a few exercises I was doing at the physio before my last season which were all leg specific to help strengthen everything due to my strained LCL. After doing these over a period of time i got to Whistler and I rarely experienced leg fatigue and only on a few occasions had leg burn.

Individual leg presses - out with 2 legs.. back with one to start off with then eventually just the one leg upping the weight every 10 reps. Start on a low weight then build from there.

Small trampoline - jump on. land on one leg and hold for a short period (5secs) then jump off and land on the same leg. Straight on and off to start, then diagonally on and off in both directions.

Hamstring curls - you'll need an exercise ball for this but works really well at strengthening you hamstrings and also your core aswell. Feet on the ball, lying on your back. Lift you body off the ground so just your shoulders on the ground then bring the ball back so your legs are 90 deg to the ground. Once you can do this comfortably (4x10) then lift your pelvis up so that you body is straight.

I wouldn't even know which leg muscles to train. I guess you'd want to be training quads a bit to help maintaining a nice crouched position. Not too sure about lower leg? I guess calf to help with edge pressuring etc. The last lessons I took at Hotham were all about "steering" which involves rotating the lower leg, not sure what would be good for that? Might have a chat to the gym people next time I'm there.

rider26 - 31 August 2011 02:38 PM

Two of Boardworld's finest... chicken legs!

And hey, just because they are skinny doesn't mean they aren't strong (or at least I keep telling myself).

They have managed to keep ya out of Michelle's harms way, so far by the look of it!!!!!