Winter Sports By: Lisa Ritchie

Winter is right around the corner, but that’s no reason to ignore your workout!

Snowboarding is on the rise along with snowshoeing, skiing, sledding, and ice skating. Many of the same skills are used for all of these sports including balance, agility, coordination, leveraging body weight, and cardiovascular ability.

Cardio is the backbone of snow sports. Biking, running, elliptical training or inline skating can help increase your endurance levels. Interval training can help with the anaerobic demands of playing at higher altitudes. Inline skating and cross-country ski simulators are great examples of off-season training as they use similar movements of muscle groups. Strength training should focus on those muscles used for stabilization of the knees, ankles, hips, lower back, shoulders, and wrists.

Be sure to also include strengthening your core - your abs and back as these are supportive and generate much of your steering motion. Flexibility is also needed for successful skiing, skating, and snowboarding. Joints must be capable of quick changes in direction and balancing moves. Coordination and agility drills should also be included and don’t forget, warm up before and cool down after each session. I’m Lisa Ritchie and that’s your Fit in a Minute.