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To perform better on a snowboard you have to be physically prepared and well-trained. I’ll share with you the 10 best exercises for snowboarding to keep you strong and fit.
The benefits of snowboarding of being well trained are:
- reduced risk of injury;
- makes you more agile;
- makes you hardy;
- makes you well-balanced;
- makes you more flexible.
These exercises will help you prepare for the snowboarding season and are designed to condition all the main muscle groups. Especially the ones involved while riding:
- Legs;
- Core;
- Upper body.
Workout duration: about 30 minutes;
Each exercise duration: 30 seconds, with 10-second breaks between exercises;
Rounds: two;
Workout frequency: at least 3 times a week.
NOTE: This is an intermediate-level of workout.
Warmup
Before each workout, you should do a small warmup. You can start off with a 3-5 minute jump rope, jumping jacks, and jogging.
Burpees
Burpee is a full-body exercise. It is great for training agility, coordination, and strength.
There are many variations of burpees. If you’ve never done them before I recommend you start with the basic burpee.
The burpees will help you build up endurance. It’ll be very useful on long runs, hiking up in the backcountry, or taking multiple laps in the park.
This is one of the most universal exercises for snowboarding, as it targets most of the muscles in your body.
Squats
Squats are the foundation exercise for the lower body, especially for snowboarders. Since you’ll spend most of the time in that position. And the legs will take the main load while riding.
Squats will help you improve dynamic motions while riding. Such as applying pressure on edges while braking or performing turns with up-unweighting.
Squats target the following muscles: quads, glutes, hamstrings, and calves.
Squat Hold
To further improve your leg muscles there’s an awesome challenging exercise just for that. The squat hold is a static exercise. It improves the strength and endurance of your muscles.
It’s an important exercise for snowboarding. You’ll be in a similar static position while riding quite a lot. So you’ll want to have strong legs on long runs.
Squat Holds targets the following muscles: quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes.
Wall sits
Another static exercise for leg muscles is wall sits. It’s quite similar to squat hold, the difference is you have to lean against a wall.
This one is also a perfect static exercise for snowboarders. It helps build up muscle endurance. You’ll be thankful you did those on that top to bottom double-diamond run.
Wall sits target the following muscles: quadriceps.
Lunges
Lunges are another great exercise to strengthen a bunch of your leg muscles as well as to improve your balance.
You’ll perform many movements with one foot strapped to a snowboard. So in a way, lunges imitate that, imagine climbing uphill with only one foot strapped to a snowboard.
Lunges target the following muscles: quads, hamstrings, calves, glutes, and abs.
Plank
Plank exercise trains the core of your body. Needless to say, you have to have a strong core just in order to stand straight and maintain a balance.
Plank is a static exercise. It will challenge your core muscles and make them more firm.
Your core muscles will be initiated the whole time during riding, especially while doing tricks. You’ll need to maintain that counter-rotational posture on jibs you know.
Plank target the following muscles: abs.
Push-ups
This is one of the basic exercises for the upper body. Push-ups will make your chest, back, arms, and even core stronger.
If you fall on a snowboard, having a strong upper body is going to help you get up quicker and with ease. Also, it will ease out the carrying of snowboard around or hiking up with it.
Push-ups target the following muscles: back, shoulders, triceps, core, and pectoral muscles.
Bicycles
This is a dynamic exercise for your abs. Unlike static exercises like Plank, the Bicycles will give a dynamic load to your core muscles by flexing and extending.
Again core muscles play an important part in your body while snowboarding. Being able to reach for a snowboard to grab it is an awesome feeling. So you’ll have to work for it. Believe me, it will pay off on the slopes.
Bicycles target the following muscles: abs.
Bridges
While that exercise might look funny, the looks might be deceiving. This is good exercise for your hips and glutes.
The benefit of Bridges is they’ll help you stay in balance on the snowboard. You’ll become more stable and will be able to adjust your balance faster. Another benefit is in conjunction with Squats you can increase your Ollie height.
Bridges target the following muscles: glutes, hips, core, and hamstrings.
Stretching
At the end of the workout, spend at least 5 minutes stretching. It will relax your muscles and help your body loosen up after a workout.
Conclusion
You might be overwhelmed after finishing reading this article. My advice would be don’t rush! Start small and gradually build your way up.
These are quite simple exercises for snowboarding and:
The best thing about these exercises is that they don’t require any equipment and can be done virtually anywhere, anytime.
If you are dedicated to improving your snowboarding skills there’s a lot you can do, but staying in good shape is the foundation before you continue any further.
