Mountain sports are no joke. Mountain Biking, Skiing, Nordic Skiing, Trail Running, SUP, whatever the choice; all around fitness is key. Here at PPPC, cross training is a year round endeavor with the focus being balance, strength, and power training.
We keep a number of work out items around the PPPC office; dumbbells, perfect push up handles, all forms of resistance bands, foam rollers, and a Indo Board. If you are not familiar with the skate/surf scene or don’t have friends involved with those heavily balance/power oriented sports, you probably have not come across Indo Boards.
The Indo Board itself is a fantastic work out but when you combine it with weights, Whole New Ball Game!!
Here the Intern demonstrates a basic squat with a dumbbell curl on each repetition. This is not the type of training that can be launched into without already having a solid Indo Board background as you can definitely get seriously hurt if the board would happen to go shooting out from under your feet so these workouts should not be attempted until you feel comfortable and in control on the board!
The Indo Board can also be used as a way to promote core stability while doing push ups;
Once you get the board properly positioned get busy with the ultimate power/balance/core push up on the planet!
Pushing your body weight while maintaining side to side stability is a killer way to promote real core strength especially for muscle groups like the abs, shoulders, lower back, and forearms.
The next time you are looking to up the balance and power quotient in your cross training do it PPPC style and GO INDO!!
Keep on Training!
PPPC
(All Pedal-n-Pole photo’s are shot on a Canon G1X)