When I went snowboarding at Whistler a few years ago I was in terrible physical shape, on one of the gnarliest mountains in the world. Not a good combination. After that trip, I resolved to stay in better shape and the three holidays I’ve taken since (to Lake Tahoe, Jackson Hole, and Mont Tremblant) have been much more enjoyable. Hopefully you can learn something from my mistakes!
In this thread about getting sore while snowboarding at Snowboardingforum.com, the OP said,
Just Yesterday, i went snowboarding. Today i am hella sore at my neck, arms, legs, and shoulders. Do u guys have a way to prevent this from happening or should i just live with it? Hmm… Maybe i shoulda stretched before i went snowboarding.
The short answer is that there’s next-to-nothing that you can do now (i.e., after you discover you’re sore) to fix it. Compare it to working out: if you never go to the gym and work out, and tomorrow you decide to do a bunch of lunges and deep squats, you’re going to be in serious pain
Same with snowboarding.
Even if you work out regularly (including cardio, resistance, etc.) when you go snowboarding you are going to use muscles that you didn’t know you had, and you are going to use the muscles you do know about in ways that you’ve never worked them before. So you need to be creative and come up with ways to keep those muscles working hard in the off-season.
As to the OP’s specific pains:
- The pain in your shoulders comes from lifting yourself off your ass, either from falling or at the top of the hill when you sit down to put your bindings on. You probably pressed up like that 40+ times yesterday. Do that in your living room in the middle of july, and you’ll be sore the next day, too
- The neck soreness is definitely from falling. Not much you can do about that except to practice, get better, and stop falling.
- Legs, well that’s a no-brainer. Snowboarding does a lot of work on legs & core. You’re using your quads in a way you’ve probably never used them, and your doing a lot of standing on your toes which strains your feet & calf muscles.
So, now that we know why you’re sore after snowboarding, what can you do to prevent it in the future?
Here are a few tips that should help you prepare for snowboarding.
For the shoulders/arms, tricep dips are probably the single best thing you could do to simulate the motion of standing yourself up on a snowboard. These can be done with no equipment whatsoever. You could also try to make your own plyometric routine which mimics the act of pushing yourself up, from a seated position to full-upright.
The neck pain, well, don’t fall! From this I surmise OP is a beginner, in which case taking a lesson will help tremendously!
And as for the legs/feet, you can build up this strength in your calves & toes by doing lots of jumping rope. If you have access to a gym, I would also recommend calf raises and leg extensions (for the quadriceps muscle). I hate jumping rope, but the payoff is huge: I rode 4 days straight at Mont Tremblant last year. I could never have done that without a decent amount of off-slope training.
Last but not least, do some cardio. This means running, or using the elliptical/treadmill/stationary bike at the gym. Do this the day after you hit the slopes hard, it will loosen up your sore muscles and help you recover faster. And keep it up in the off-season, too.
