A snowboard blog designed to develop snowboarders snowboarding skills and technical understanding through means of written and pictorial bio-mechanical articles, weekly snowboarding tips and freestyle trick how tos.
Read more and about the author, Chris Skinner, here.
Background:Second week in my 5 week trampoline training to see how trampolining skills can transfer into freestyle snowboarding by improving my level of proprioception
It’s Tuesday again and time for another snowboard article.
Two weeks ago I spoke about the muscles in the lower legs and their actions, Stretch the calf muscle & improve your riding. I also mentioned at the end of the post how one particular muscle action was important when it came to turning on a snowboard, especially the heel to toe edge turn.
So what’s going on down there?
How while there are many muscles that we use, and movements that these muscles make, when we snowboard, lets talk about a one group in particular and their actions.
This group comprises of Tibialis Anterior, Extensor Digitorum Longus and Extensor Hallucis Longus and are located along the anterior aspect of the lower leg (shin-bone -> foot)
All three muscles aid in dorsiflexing the foot (pointing toes to the sky). Independently, Tibialis Anterior lifts up the foot and the remaining two lift up the foot and curl the toes. A good way to describe this is if you were to lie your leg out straight, keep your toes in line with your foot and bring you foot up towards you, then curl the toes towards you respectively.
I’ve decided to create a couple of themed categories. The first being ‘Tips Mondays’.
The idea behind it is that every Monday I’ll post a tip up for a sport that I coach. This could be anything from snowboarding, skiing to surfing.
For the time being and up until the end of the winter season I’ll concentrate on the winter sports, then as we move into the summer I’ll be adding in some surfing ones.
This weeks ‘Tips Mondays’ is a Snowboard Tip:
Lets talk tactics for tricks, whether they be on-snow jibbing around, rails, boxes or in the air off kickers and in the pipe the same rules apply.
Here’s a simple strategy to follow to break down and to help you focus on the trick at hand.
I know the topic of trampolining and snowboarding has come up a few times before but I thought I’d document the next 5 weeks while I give it a go to see how these skills can transfer into freestyle snowboarding.
The main focus being on improving my level of proprioception, writing a short post each week (Thursdays), outlining what I did and how it went, highlighting any benefits.
Week 1:
Background:Last week was the first. It’s been a while since I step foot on a trampoline so this should be fun interesting.
Location: Tolworth Recreation Centre. My local big recreation centre where they pretty much do every indoor sport under the sun (apart from indoor skiing and snowboarding..!). read more
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel like you are at the top of your game every day of your holiday (or season) and not just that first day out on the slopes? Delivering powerful movements, quick yet decisive with no injuries or painful nicks to get rid of first thing in the morning.
After a long day on the slopes and putting our bodies through dozens of movements, we should consider ‘putting the pieces’ back together so to speak.
It’s good for you!
By giving your body just 10 minutes of yoga you’re essentially saying, “well done, you’ve done good today”
As well increasing Flexibility – yoga has positions that act upon the various joints of the body including those joints that are never really on the ‘radar screen’ let alone exercised, so it’s a great way to prepare your body for that ski or snowboard holiday and for any ‘mishaps’ that may occur when you are away!
Routine
Give the following video routine a go for a week, just once a day (if you’re super keen, do it twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon).
You can go as slow as you like, pausing the video at any time, but try to stick with it from start to finish. Feel the difference, notice how the body feels connected and grounded, strong yet flexible.
I practice yoga myself but not nearly enough, the way I feel after a routine is amazing, stronger, more flexible and full of energy. So I encourage you to try it for yourself.
Video
The video is courtesy of Nadya Andreeva, a certified yoga instructor and writer based in NYC – read more about Nadya http://www.realyoganyc.com.
Benefits of Yoga
Apart from just stretching out the muscles yoga has many other benefits as well, such as but not limited to:
– Increasing lubrication of the joints, ligaments and tendons.
– Complete Detoxification: this comes by gently stretching muscles and joints which in turn massages the various organs ensuring optimum blood supply helping flushing out toxins and provide nourishment.
Last Sundays Definition snowboard camps freestyle course at SNO!zone Milton Keynes went down a storm. A small group but a great atmosphere.
Rails, intro to ollies and technical riding feedback was all on the menu for the morning.
After lunch it was off to the kicker which saw good development in all areas including set challenges for grabs with ‘grab around the board’ and the odd game of PIG which is very similar to In Your Face (minus the spray though..).
How to snowboard better through stretching and improved flexibility
One of the biggest obstacles to come across when coaching any sport is something that you have little or no control over. Over the last 10 years coaching I have found it to be a lack of flexibility in students – regardless of their level.
You can of course tell them to go away, showing them what stretches to do, and encourage stretching. But at the end of the day, for the most part, it is out of your control.
Now how about if the student knew the benefits from stretching and keeping their body flexible as well as strong – would that change the way they thought about their sport? If so, the role of the coach is not only to show / demonstrate or describe a task but also to encourage out of training hours to improve on flexibility, if of course this is not already incorporated in the session.
You see me stretching..?
How many of us actually stretch before and after a session on the slopes?
One area of the body in particular that I have found holds people back is flexibility in the ankle joint. Because we use this joint so much during our everyday life, muscles and tendons associated with it become tightened.
The area in question is triceps surae (or more commonly known as the calf muscles). Triceps surae is actually made up of 3 muscles but only 2 will be referred to here,Gastrocnemius and Soleus both of which attach to the calcaneal (Achilles) tendon which in turn connects to the heel bone.
It’s a gorgeous morning in London and while I’m sat here with the birds tweeting in the back ground researching a few more wordpress plugins for my blog, I thought I’d share some of the one’s that I currently have active.
Why 14 I hear you ask, well out of the many WP plugins that I use I would highly recommend the following 14.
I’ve listed the plugins in alphabetical order with the description that comes with them, my reason for choosing them and a link to the plugin page. For some of the plugins that I use, I specifically looked for ones with shortcode that could be manually placed into the code / post or page – not just widgets in the sidebar.
For this reason, I find them a lot easier to work with and more suited to the way I have my site set up. read more
What Snowboard setup would you Buy if you were given £500
Now that the season has passed half way point, various outlets and shops will be preparing for their spring sales of winter gear. So, I think it’s time for a little hypothetical question.
Imagine you were walking past a snowboard shop and the shop owner came running out. He charges up to you and says – ‘It’s your lucky day – I’m going to give you anything in my shop up to the value of £500′! read more
It’s a gorgeous morning in London and while I’m sat here with the birds tweeting in the back ground researching a few more wordpress plugins for my blog, I thought I’d share some of the one’s that I currently have active.
Now that the season has passed half way point, various outlets and shops will be preparing for their spring sales of winter gear. So, I think it’s time for a little hypothetical question.