Crash Diets That Work

Two extreme sports that have seen a huge upsurge in their popularity over the last decade are surfing and snowboarding. It might be the case that one takes place on snow covered mountains and the other often takes place in warm waters with sandy beaches, but that doesn’t stop people enjoying both sports. But does being good at one sport necessarily mean that you will be good at the other? Lets compare 3 of the main elements needed for these sports.

Upper Body Strength. Surfing is one of those sports that is absolutely grueling on the upper-body, and if its not in good condition you wont be going anywhere fast. You need endurance in order to repetitively paddle surfboards out to see against breaking waves, and power is need in the pop-up phase of getting upright on the board when you have caught a wave. In comparison, snowboarding does not require anywhere near the upper body condition as surfing, as snowboarding is mainly a sport powered by the legs and torso

Timing. Both snowboarding and surfing require honed timing skills. Timing your turns just right in snowboarding isn’t easy, especially on the steeper runs, and unless you have got it sussed, you can quite easily be eating snow before you know it. Timing is also very important in surfing, not only when trying to pick up a wave, but also knowing when to turn, flex, or indeed bail out.

Lower Body Strength & Agility. Although surfing is reliant on having a strong and agile lower body, snowboarding is the sport that is more leg-focused. Snowboards require great skill and agility to turn and carve, and if your leg muscles are not in good condition you will simply not be able to ride well. Don’t for one minute think though that surfing does not require you to have good lower body fitness and flexibility, because it certainly does.

Tags: fitness, skills, snowboarding, snowboards, surfboards, surfing

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 2:47 am and is filed under Crash Diets That Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.