Helping skiers and boarders get ready for the season

Host: A couple of weeks ago we talked about fitness to get ready for ski season. Today we'll get ready for snowboard season and keep us safe while we're out there.

Jamie: We can all do the standard thing: get your legs and upper body strong, getting ready for snowboarding or skiing. I ski and snowboard. Learning how to do the snowboarding fully has been really interesting. It's helping me get creative and give exercises to my clients. Here are two that I love to do. One is, think about snowboarding: it's loading on that front foot to get good control, and also the back foot to some extent. We'll do an offloaded squat. 15-pounder here. I'll have you hold it in one hand, right here. Keep it not close to the middle but right on that shoulder, like you've got right there. I'll have you squat down. You just did the sneaky hand, where you took the left hand and said, let me help it. If you do that at home, it doesn't help you. We'll go again. Boom, and up. Beautiful. Just keep that by the head. You'll notice as you do this, you're feeling that core stabilize, but when you look in the mirror, everything is centered. You aren't drifting left. You feel that?

Host: Yeah. Looks centered.

Jamie: You look dead center. The core and everything there is loading on one side. This is starting to be more true to snowboarding.

Host: I can feel it.

Jamie: The second thing is when you think about our power and the ability to react. Of course, going through the snow, we need to make sure we have good front-to-back balance.

Host: All about the edges.

Jamie: I'll give you some advanced movements. Super fun one. You'll stand next to it and I'll have you jump from here. We'll have the board going front to back, and you'll go from here, stick the landing, step off.

Host: And you just showed us it's possible to land without landing on the front or back edge. On the count of three, I'll jump over.

Jamie: And then land and try to balance. You got it, good. Boom. Yeah. Look at that.

Host: That was great. How many do we want to do?

Jamie: We'd do ten to the left, also ten to the right. It's just a fun drill. If you fail at it and are horrible, that's great. We want to learn how to get that front foot control.

Host: I'll try one more time. Getting cocky here. Like a cat.

Jamie: Like a tired cat. That's one I love. And also, most snowboarders, if they hurt themselves, it's their shoulders. Make sure you do a lot of stretching. We don't want the shoulder injury.

Host: Sounds good.