Do Your Workouts Include These 5 Components?
To make sure you are covering all your bases with your training, you need to be including all 5 of the following components into your workout. If you include all of these you are going to enhance your surf and snow performance in record time…
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1. Foam Rolling
I recommend everyone should start their workout with a few minutes of Self Myofascial Release (SMR)otherwise known as foam rolling.
This is a great way to massage your muscles and improve the tissue quality so that your muscles will work more effectively during the workout. It can also help promote mobility and flexibility in your muscles.
2. Dynamic Warmup
The second and perhaps most important part of your workout is the Dynamic Warmup as it will help prepare your body for the strength exercises that follow. There are also some added benefits such as improving mobility and ironing out any muscle or postural imbalances.
Your dynamic warmup should include the following…
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Corrective Exercises – These will help improve common muscle and postural imbalances. For example exercises to improve the movement at your thoracic spine, which is a common problem as most people will tend to move more from their lumbar spine increasing the risk of back injury.
Mobility Exercises – These exercises will help enhance your ability to actively move through a full range of motion which will directly improve your movement patterns in your chosen sport helping you to be more efficient, expend less energy and reduce your injury risk.
Activation Exercises – These will help turn on any dormant muscles so that when you are performing the strength exercises your muscles are more likely to fire in the correct sequence. For example many people have underactive glutes so that when they perform squat and lunge movements they become quad dominant. By performing glute activation exercises you can fire up the muscles so they will switch on and be used correctly when needed.
3. Functional Strength
The main part of your workout is the functional strength component and should include the following…
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Balance, Core Stability and Rotational Core Exercises - Stability is extremely important for any surf or snow sport athlete and therefore needs to be adequately trained. Exercises should be included that challenge your balance and core stability. In addition, as surf and snow sports require lots of rotational movements, you need to train both rotational stability and rotational power.
Multi-joint Exercises – The focus of your strength training should be on multi-joint exercises that use multi-planar movements (the 3 planes of movement). Gone are the days of doing isolated body building exercises. Instead you need to be doing compound movements like Squatting, Lunging, Lifting, Pushing (horizontal and vertical) and Pulling (horizontal and vertical).
Power Exercises – You will also benefit from including some power exercises which are basically strength exercises performed explosively (eg squat jumps).
4. Energy System Training (EST)
Energy System Training refers to the cardiovascular component of the workout. This can be done after the functional strength training part of your workout, or depending on time you may choose to split it up and do it on a different day, alternating days between strength and cardio.
The most effective way to train your energy systems is with High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) as it has been scientifically proven to significantly improve both your Aerobic (with oxygen – for more sustained efforts) and Anaerobic (without oxygen – more short burst energy) energy systems simultaneously.
Using High Intensity Interval Training also allows you to do a
shorter workout and produce better resultswhen compared to traditional cardio training. However sometimes you may still want to perform other more traditional forms of cardio for variety because High Intensity Interval Training is just plain hard work and you may not want to do it all the time.
5. Static Stretching
Old school static stretching has it’s place at the very end of your workout. Stretching will help your muscles recover and promote increases in flexibility. Static stretching can also be done everyday and anytime of the day (not just with exercise). In fact to make good gains in flexibility it is better to stretch frequently so your muscles will stay lengthened and not revert back to being short and tight.
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So there you have it, my checklist for the perfect workout. How do your workouts compare?
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