Keep Skateboarding Fit All Winter

Winter is often a time when skaters lay around and let their skateboarding skills rust. Don't give in! Stay active! I'm not saying you can't play video games and take naps, but there are also some things you can do to keep your skateboarding fitness level up over the winter:

• Stretching - If you are older than a teenager, you need to get into stretching before you skate anyway. But everyone should get in the habit of keeping themselves flexible, especially over the winter. Flexibility is key to many tricks, and also VERY important to avoiding injury. Not sure what stretches to do? No worries - read Skateboarding Stretches, written by a physical therapist!
• Cardio - Any cardio you do will help you overall. So, if you go jogging, run on a treadmill, or roughhouse around with friends breaking furniture for at least half an hour, you will be exercising your heart. So if you do something BESIDES skateboarding, and keep your heart rate up, you will be able to skate better, longer and harder. It's kinda wierd how the body works, huh? Of course, skateboarding is cardio if you push hard ... but during the winter, you might need to ride a bike, jump rope or join a fight club.
• Core - Your core is the area around your middle (so your back, abs, sides, etc). The stronger this area is, the stronger you are. A lot of focus has been given to core exercising over the last few years, and a lot of it is good. Things like pilates are actually good for you, but I tend to shy away from things like that ... because I'm a boy. It's not very often you see a masculine guy saying much about working your core. But it IS important, and there are things you can do for it that don't look anything like pilates. Sit ups, crunches, pull ups, even push ups all help the core. But if you can deal with it, buying a pilates video to work on at home would be good for you...
• Weight Training - I love weight lifting. Not a lot of skaters do - you look around, and most pro skaters are super skinny. That's good - they have good core strength, they're loose and skateboarding itself provides a lot of cardio. But you CAN weight lift if you want to - you just need to also be doing cardio and stretching or you'll end up big and buff and slow and heavy... I recommend working out the legs, back and stomach. The last two overlap with core workouts, but that's OK. With core exercises, you do a lot of reps with low weight. With weight training, you do the opposite. Do them both, and you'll be balanced. For leg workouts, squats (get help on how to do it, or you'll kill yourself), leg extensions, leg curls and calf raises should be fine.

Don't lose all the fitness you've gained from skateboarding - keep yourself active and healthy, and you'll do even better than you did before, once the sun comes back out!