Snowboard all summer!
If you’re letting your summer days slip away by simply sitting at home thinking about the past snowboarding seasons and hoping for a good season next year, then you need to catch up! There are tons of things you need to do this summer before you’re ready to tear up the slopes on 09/08.
Always go swimming in the summer. Swimming and snowboarding don’t usually go together, so make the most of it. It’s a good low-impact exercise that will only strengthen the muscles you use for snowboarding and can even help you recover from injuries you didn’t know were there. Don’t forget to use that suntan oil and reintroduce sunlight to the parts of your body that have been covered in snowboard gear for the last few months (this is really important, just ask Lauri Heiskari!)
Choose an alternate board sport of some sort. Some people skateboard, some people wakeboard, some people surf. Grab an old skateboard, find a trampoline, and start trying tricks (I bought a huge trampoline at PennySaver for $40). Don’t you like those things or are you just too busy? No apologies! Find an old skateboard or something similar and buy a 2 liter soda…now you have a balance board. Do yourself a favor and improve your legs, your balance and your orientation (know where the board is). You can’t afford to miss out on a board this summer if you want to pull off all those inverts you were landing last season!
Speaking of inverts…and trampolines, if you don’t have one, find one. Like I said, I found a really cheap one at PennySaver, some people can’t wait for the extra lawn space! Trampolines are a great way to get acquainted with this snowboarding thing called airtime, not to mention you shouldn’t even think about going inverted until you can flip on a trampoline. If you’re still not convinced, how about aerobic exercise and the fact that you’ll have spring-loaded jumping legs after a summer on your trampoline? Seriously, and especially if you’re serious about snowboarding, grab a trampoline. It is an incredibly useful tool.
Other than that, you could go to extreme snowboarding athlete status. You know, go to the gym and lift a couple of hundred pounds and then enjoy a nice Big Gulp sized protein shake. In reality, lifting heavy weights is an incredible waste of time. Heavy weights get your muscles used to very slow and controlled movements. Snowboarding is the complete opposite of slow and controlled. You want to be fast and agile… like Terje Haakonsen, the “sprocking cat”. You’re better off just doing some push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and then go rollerblading or whatever you have for your aerobic workout. Don’t forget to swim!