speaker-0: Ride, teach, inspire. This is the Dropping Next podcast brought to you by the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Dropping Next podcast. I'm Rob Whelan alongside Geneviève Piloteau here on episode 11. And we are solidly into our off season now and a time when we should probably start thinking about training for next winter. But I'll guess that not everybody is. So that's what this show is all about. And we have Cassie alumni, John Smits. in the guest spot today and I'm going to turn it over to Jen to introduce John.
speaker-1: Hi everyone, I Rob. I John. John, welcome to the show. Super stoked to have you here with us today. ⁓ John currently lives in the UK. He's a Cassie colleague, ⁓ level four evaluator, former regional coordinator of Valverland BC, ⁓ technical committee man member for a number of years, and he is also a bachelor's of sport performance and physical activity and a certified personal trainer. Am I missing anything, John?
speaker-2: No, that's most of it. I'm sure there's a few other names people might use, but ⁓ yeah, that's most of it.
speaker-1: Ha ha.
speaker-0: Nice. So jumping into this episode here, just kind of want to introduce how we're going to go about it. This isn't really intended to be like a how to train or how to work out like tutorial. It's going to be more kind of things to think about ⁓ processes, groundwork, goal setting, all around the theme of training just to kind of either strengthen ⁓ the program you're already on. or to help you develop from the ground up. As usual, we have two sections of the podcast. First section is gonna be a little bit more global, and then we'll hit the palette cleanser, and then on the backside of the episode, we'll dive into some more practical things to apply into your training. So jumping into it, I guess Jen talked about it a little bit, but Snowboard Podcast, Cassie Podcast, tell us a little bit about your journey with Cassie and how you got to where you're at now, a little bit of the journey.
speaker-2: Well, thanks to be here for having me. It's great to be here. ⁓ I started teaching snowboarding back in two thousand two, two thousand three at Rabbit Hill in Edmonton. ⁓ I did a number of years ⁓ teaching there, part time. and then as I was going to university, I decided I needed a little break to go to the mountains. ⁓ so I took a year off, ⁓ worked for a year at Sunshine Village, ⁓ and then went back to finish my degree over the Following four years, kind of stretching those last two years out. I go to university in the fall while ⁓ teaching snowboarding in the winter. ⁓ after working at Sunshine, I moved to Lake Louise, worked there for a number of years. worked my way up through the ranks, got to level four, and continuing to improve my evaluator level. ⁓ and then one of the last jobs I held before being a regional coordinator, I was working with freestyle programs ⁓ at at COP ⁓ in Calgary. So that was a really fun job being out there working with athletes and kids that just wanted to go fast and not listen so much. yeah, so that that was the long and short of it really. ⁓ I started being an evaluator pretty early in my stint, ⁓ teaching snowboarding. I think it was my third year I got into evaluating, because at that time ⁓ you could be a level two and become an evaluator for level one courses. so yeah, I was really fortunate the way that all worked out. I was able to get lots of experience ⁓ early and just kind of maintained momentum as much as I could throughout my entire
speaker-0: career. That's cool. I love to love the story. I don't know a lot about you, John. This is this is going to be a learning process for me too. We live on opposite sides of the country when you were in Canada and you left Cassie like the moment I came into my role that I'm in now. So we never really got to work together. So this is kind of exciting to get to know you on this level.
speaker-1: That's awesome.
speaker-2: Yeah, and you know, ⁓ the reality of that was I was raising starting a family. ⁓ it's pretty hard for us. My wife is English, my mom was in Edmonton, my dad was in Kelowna. We had some friends that moved away, ⁓ and we just needed a bit more support raising the family, so maybe had to make the tough decision to walk away and it was yeah, definitely definitely ⁓ a difficult choice to make. But we're in a good place now and ⁓ really happy with Two kids here. ⁓ yeah. Just living a family life. Awesome.
speaker-1: John, can you ⁓ also tell us a little bit more about your profession outside of snowboarding and what's your your background in terms of how it relates to sports and training?
speaker-2: ⁓ so while I was in Canada, I primarily worked, you know, as a snowboard instructor in the winter, bike mechanic, mountain bike coach in the in the summers. I did a little bit of personal training in Canada, but it was difficult to really pursue a career in that. ⁓ just because if you built up any momentum or steam and you got some clients in in the summer months, it was difficult to maintain that in the winter when I was on snow fall time. ⁓ so when we moved to the UK, I found an opportunity locally to work at a chiropractor's clinic as a personal trainer. ⁓ and that way I was actually getting pretty consistent hours ⁓ and able to kind of hone my new craft my craft in the new area. so I had already had a certification in Canada, but I recertified under a British organization and just kind of got to work here. and that was actually really interesting population to work with. ⁓ most of the clients were people that came into the gym or came into the chiropractor's office because they had some kind of issues and pain that they were dealing with and had since been cleared for exercise. So frequently ⁓ I most of the sessions were group sessions ⁓ with either one to four people in the session ⁓ and we do you know some basic mobility and then a lot of them ⁓ some strength work and a little bit of conditioning as well. So ⁓ most of my expertise in the last couple of years has been working with ⁓ older populations, kind of people fifty years old plus. ⁓ but it's great to see the progress some of them have made over the years and you know, similar it's a slower burn to teaching snowboarding. Print probably not so sweet as ⁓ watching someone make their first turns. ⁓ but it's a longer game when you see someone progress, improve in strength and their capability of movement. And really the best thing is hearing about ⁓ the improvement of their quality of life. You know, they're they're standing taller, they're walking further, they're enjoying enjoying time with their grandkids, climbing mountains, doing things that they didn't think they could accomplish without ⁓ support of a personal trainer and the other therapists at the at the clinical.
speaker-1: That's cool. That's a pretty cool mission to accompany people with their their journey and in and training.
speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ and I guess prior to that, what initially got me into personal training, ⁓ I should say I just grew up playing lots of sports. ⁓ thought I was gonna be a phys ed teacher in Canada and then I got caught up teaching snowboarding. ⁓ so that's why I went into the Phys Ed faculty and ⁓ decided to see sports sciences as ⁓ as a degree. And it's great. I ⁓ learned lots of practical stuff, most if not you know, just for keeping myself healthy and active for a lifetime. And I think that's really paid off, helping me get more out of my own time on snow and sports and it's wonderful to be able to share that knowledge with other people.
speaker-1: And also filter that through the teach of snow teaching snowboarding. Talking about snowboarding, are you still a shredding in the UK?
speaker-2: The shredding in the UK is quite limited. There's dry slopes, ⁓ a couple snow domes and some small ski areas that are very rarely open in Scotland and Wales. ⁓ I've done one session at a snow dome, but I've been fortunate enough to make it over to Europe ⁓ for a week or two every year for the last few seasons. ⁓ so I've explored a few different resorts in France and in Austria. So that's been lots of fun ⁓ exploring. New resorts and experiencing European scheme.
speaker-1: Nice and some good food.
speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, that's the primary culture.
speaker-1: I guess that's one of the things that we miss the most from you w ⁓ in our Cassie meeting is your food review. Just gonna say it there. Rob you can keep it. I think it's ⁓ legendary.
speaker-2: Yeah, I know how to order for the table. It's ⁓ special skill available over to
speaker-0: ⁓ That's like the thing I like the least when we go out as a group. I'm like, please let somebody else order.
speaker-2: Especially sushi. I feel like I can pretty much nail that.
speaker-0: Nice. So, John, I plucked this question from a virtual member session that you did back in 2022 alongside Jen and James about training. And for those of you who haven't seen it, I'll link it in the show notes because it's a really good practical resource to help you build on what you're going to learn today. What is your training philosophy?
speaker-2: Well, that's interesting. I think I've only had to ever really define it in a setting like this on that last call. A lot of times it's just something that sits up in the air. but I think there's a couple of key phrases that I I'd like to get across and one is ⁓ train with intention and play with purpose, which it just ⁓ means to say when you're training, be present in the moment. It's time to put your phone down, focus on what you're doing, focus on the goals that you want to achieve in the session. ⁓ And work hard. Do it with purpose. If you're just going through the motions, ⁓ that's probably not going to get you the best results. And then when it comes to play, especially when it comes to training, I think that gives you an opportunity to apply these new Capacities in a in a real sport. Go out in the world and do something with your friends, whether that's a pickup game of basketball or riding a mountain bike, skateboarding, doing something that gets you outside and also challenging your fitness but in a different aspect. ⁓ but also in regards to training, I think it's important to know that we're humans and not robots, so you can't regiment everything you do in your training. You have to leave a little bit of improvisation, ⁓ where you can experiment, play around, just find different methods of moving to ⁓ to challenge yourself, whether that's swinging a kettlebell or dancing or doing yoga, trying headstands, who knows.
speaker-0: whatever. Yeah, I like that. Keep it fun, right? Like if it's fun, you're going to be more inclined to do it.
speaker-2: Yeah, definitely. Like that play factor, it just it's always something that's helped me recharge my batteries. ⁓ and then the other phrase that I especially working with the populations of the clinic, a little bit older and ⁓ getting a little wiser in my own training, is ⁓ simply put, work hard and be kind to your body. So it's important to work hard. And you know, get through progressive overload where you're challenging yourself and you're getting better and better. ⁓ but you have to realize not every session can be your best session. Sometimes it just has to be a good session. ⁓ if you're really not feeling it, it's okay to take it easy, call it off. ⁓ but in addition to working hard, you also need to rest, recover properly, so you know, hydrating, sleeping, getting good quality food into yourself. ⁓ and just relax every now and then. And it's okay to have whatever dessert you like every once in a while. ⁓ 'cause that's
speaker-0: Mm. That's really good advice. I know that Jen's really good at that. We've talked about this and I am not like, I'm good at pushing through pain and like to a stubborn level. It's like, yeah, I should be more kind to myself. Thanks for that advice.
speaker-2: ⁓ there's a certain amount of suffering that it takes to progress and improve and but you need to just do a little bit all the time. And I'm sure you've you've both experienced it where you work too hard, you run yourself into the ground, and then all of a sudden you can't train for three days because your body's sore and it aches. And it's it takes time, like you said, Jen, to experiment and find out what your recovery limit is, and try and balance those things out. Because really you want to be recovering a good amount like being a little bit sore when you start a session is good, but if you're achy and in pain all the time when you're starting a session, that's you're not setting yourself up for performance. So you've got to kind of juggle those factors of your intensity and how frequently you're doing it and how how well you're able to rest in order to get ⁓ good out positive outcomes from your training.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Kind of links to my next question of ⁓ how you would explain like what is a good foundation of a good training. Like if you were to sum up a little bit ⁓ the last few things you mentioned.
speaker-2: Great question. Can be potentially very complex. ⁓ and it's but it doesn't have to be. Keeping it simple, when it comes to basic health recommendations, you know, they say you should generally be doing two to three resistance training sessions a week, full body resistance training sessions a week, accumulating like two and a half hours of moderate vis vigorous activity, like cardiovascular physical activity a week, or 75% of vigorous. So take those words for what you will. ⁓ but that's just kind of a benchmark, like baseline, what they're recommending recommending ⁓ for general health. So if you are an athlete, we instead of just thinking about those kind of recommendations, you also have to think a little bit more about something called general physical preparedness. So and that includes ⁓ strength, like we just discussed. ⁓ cardiovascular fitness and conditioning, and mobility, I would say those three are kind of the the base of the pyramid, if you will. ⁓ but then beyond that, as a as an athlete, there's other capacities that you need to perform. so you need power, the ability to pro produce high force in short amounts of time, ⁓ ability to have some speed, move quickly, ⁓ and reaction time, all that. and then you also need a little bit of some physical literacy skills. So agility, balance, coordination. ⁓ and that those are kind of the main categories that general physical preparedness falls into. I'm sure other people may throw in additional things here and there, but for the most part, ⁓ that's all encompassing what you need to say be training as an athlete. And that's a lot. That is a lot of different capacities to try and improve and work towards, especially for a lot of people with limited time. so that's where I think as a foundation, probably strength, conditioning, and mobility, ⁓ because those are the things that are going to allow you to pursue the more kind of sports-specific ⁓ capacities, ⁓ like speed, power, agility, balance coordination.
speaker-0: I feel like you were kind of getting to this, John, but can you talk to this in terms of like training specificity as it pertains to our audience, smith orders?
speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, so I think snowboarding definitely has some specificity. but I don't know that it's that different to lots of other sports. You know, it's not the same as say football or hockey, a contact sport where you need to have mass and huge amounts of power. ⁓ it's predominantly a lower body sport. You need reasonable cardiovascular fitness, so you can survive riding long mogul runs, top to bottom runs, get lots of training in for people who are working at higher levels. ⁓ you need some upper body strength to be resilient and resistant to injury when you have some inevitable falls. and then you're also gonna want a little bit of that speed, power, agility, balance, because landing off jumps ⁓ is difficult. Popping up and onto rails, ⁓ all sorts of things like that. are going to kind of vary the demands that you need to put your body through. ⁓ so I guess all that to say as well, and some of it depends on the type of snowboarding that you want to do. You know, if you want to do heavy freestyle, that might be a little bit more specific than say someone who's going to be doing more carving-based riding or ⁓ just free riding all the time. Or someone that's ski touring up a mountain to access their free riding. Those are all gonna be different types of fitness and capacities that you're gonna sort of prioritize. ⁓ but I think when it comes down to it, ⁓ if you're training as a snowboarder, you gotta think of yourself as an athlete. So eventually you're gonna have to do some of that ⁓ speed work, speed and power, jumping, and then working on agility, balance and coordination one way or another. And I think a lot of times though, you can sometimes gain those skills through crossover sports, be it mountain biking or skateboarding, or even playing tennis or paddle or some kind of sport that just gets you out moving and changing direction. and then I guess one thing I didn't mention is the rotation rotational component as well. That's also something that, you know, we think is very specific to snowboarding. But if you actually watch a lot of athletes doing their training programs, there will be some kind of rotational component.
speaker-1: Lots of lots of those things that can be touched through cross training. Like you name lots of sport, but that that's really what is cross training really is like transfer skills from one sport to the other.
speaker-2: Yeah, and actually like with college athletes now, the scouts are s looking more for athletes that have played multiple sport because they believe they'll be more resilient against injury. They have a wider diversity of sporting experience to pull from. ⁓ so a a wider sampling of sports is good for you. Plus it's it's just good for your brain. and it's a lot more Yeah, it's a lot more of a practical way to develop some of those skills and capacities other than being in the gym. 'Cause if you had to be in the gym all the time to a hundred percent develop each of those, y you don't have much time for anything else if you got family or relationships to maintain unless those are all built around the gym. So
speaker-0: It kind of comes back to your few points you made about training philosophy, right? Like the fun one, you know, doing lots of different sports is just fun. And you're going to get cross benefit. Like that's a, that's pretty sweet. Moving into like maybe goal setting isn't the right word, but so we're in the North American off season right now. How are our goals going to change from like
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: right now into the fall and then into the winter? Like the way we train or just things to think about through those different seasons? Like is it crazy to think about training for snowboarding right now?
speaker-2: No, definitely not. The best time to start is right now and the next best time is tomorrow. so yeah, summertime and I think the word you're looking for is probably periodization, how to schedule your training w into different phases ⁓ to match the different demands and goals of that time of year. ⁓ it happens with all sorts of different athletes. and they'll even vary it throughout the week to give them, say, the best outcome come game day. but I think the summer is probably your best time to rebuild. Think of yourself a little bit as a clean slate. You gotta go back down to the fi foundations. If you have any injuries, now's time to ⁓ recover, put in the work on rehab, rest, and recovery. ⁓ and then I think it's good to just build some strong foundations when it comes to strength and resistance training. ⁓ as well as getting some of your cardiovascular fitness in and then running mobility in parallel with all that. so I like I said previously, generally I think most people, if you do two to three days a week of resistance training, full body sessions, kind of alternating exercises, then the sequence a little bit, you don't always have to do the same workout every day. it's good to have a little bit of variety. ⁓ that's probably a good start. And then, you know, on non resistance training days, ⁓ or at least typically six hours apart from your resistance training, doing some cardio, ⁓ getting your heart rate up a little bit. classic the the buzzwords now are like zone two fitness, working on your that's basically where you can you're exercising. you can have a conversation but you're still you're challenged a little bit to have that conversation. And then as you push higher, higher intensities, you say you the higher is on three, four, five. ⁓ it gets more and more challenging to talk. ⁓ so it's good to get when it comes to cardiovascular fitness and conditioning, good to have a mix of those throughout your week as well. but when it comes to goal setting and it like anything, ⁓ and periodization, it kind of depends where what your starting point is. so just It's hard to answer very specifically on what each person should be doing ⁓ for their training, but generally I think good time to think about improving strength, get in the weight room again or learn how to lift some weights if you've never done it before. Make sure you're work doing some cardio and get that mobility in. ⁓ you know, like ten, fifteen minutes of mobility a day goes a really
speaker-0: Yeah, that's sweet. And it's not about, you know, like answering the question for everybody right now. It's more like any answer that is, you know, let's give some parameters for people to even think about all of what you're talking about. And it sounds like, OK, well, figure out what your baseline is and figure out where you want to go with it. And then kind of it gives you a starting point. And then you can build on that through the offseason.
speaker-1: Yeah, and I think it's an important one. Like I was hearing you mention a few times, like to to vary things up, ⁓ and and have a little bit of variation in your training because it it does avoid some of the plateaus that some people could could get into in times like when you're constantly repeating the same movement and the same training for a certain period of time. I know when I got coached for different ⁓ different sport, especially for ⁓ trail running like this this was a big thing like there was periodization of okay in the off season you're gonna do that and while you're gonna be doing snowboarding you'll be doing more like run a zone two runs recovery runs and things like that it's it's ⁓ what was I gonna say with that? I was going somewhere. ⁓ yeah so avoiding the plateaus and that's where a good coach can can come and help you to to build those training but also yeah considering the your previous experience. ⁓ and it's it's built through the years, right? Your first year of training towards something new, well your second is pro is gonna build on that. ⁓ and you're gonna revisit some of the movement, but you might add some of the variation. Is that yeah, the variation I think something that you
speaker-2: Variation is just a great way to keep things fresh for yourself. ⁓ but if your program has too much variation, then it's hard to kind of track your progress. So it's good to have a certain amount of consistency as well. ⁓ you know, if you run completely different routes for your five K, ⁓ you shouldn't expect yourself to get the exact same time. Maybe they have different hills or wind, heat, time of day, those things can all make a difference. and when it comes to resistance training, Just s ⁓ switching the order of your exercise is a a good idea as well, because if you always do your exercises in the exact same order, ⁓ your body will kind of learn to prioritize whatever comes first, and then those exercises later in the session, ⁓ you'll be less able to kind of push yourself through the session. So variety is important, but also so is consistency. So constant variation, but not too much variation.
speaker-0: So I've started to mess around with kettlebells a bunch this offseason. ⁓ Really enjoying it, but naturally because of that, that's like I open up Instagram and that's all I see. It's like all these different things you can do with kettlebells. ⁓ Well, this is my question, right? So how do you vet?
speaker-1: You've been training them all, right?
speaker-0: Or should you just completely ignore this? what's your take on these fitness influencers that are finding their way into our reels if we just think about the word kettlebell?
speaker-2: Yeah, that's a big question. cannibals are great and generally speaking, a lot of what's out there, just use it for inspiration. If you find something useful, take it on. And if you don't like it, then just ignore it. But ⁓ just beware of your own bias and you know, that's also partly what feeds your your your algorithm ⁓ from what you hover over just a moment and you think, ooh. So good to try and balance the feed, maybe go out of your way to find some different perspective from time to time. there's a lot of people producing great content out there. ⁓ I think the important thing to maybe weed out the not so good ones is just beware of anyone that's selling a program that claims to solve a problem and fix everything in a short time frame ⁓ with subscription fees and all sorts of money and something else that comes along with it. ⁓ but yeah, there's there's tons of great content creators out there. And ultimately when it comes to fitness, if you're moving your body and you're challenging yourself, you're going to be making improvements. ⁓ so if you like doing it and it keeps you moving, then enjoy.
speaker-0: Good answer, I like that. Sweet, well we've come to the palette cleanser. I know John, is the moment you were looking forward to and we're gonna start things off here with a hot take, our Vans, the new dad shoe. ⁓
speaker-2: That's a great question. I just bought myself a pair of bands for holiday. ⁓ but I also have my toddler wearing them sometimes. ⁓ they're not great. I know the toe box is not very wide, ⁓ so that pinches your feet and leads to an unnatural gait. Although they are very flexible, ⁓ and so they do require your foot muscles to be in use. maybe only just
speaker-0: So maybe people should cool that. Okay, that's good. I like that answer.
speaker-2: But there are some great new films sneak sneakers I've been buying as well.
speaker-0: This is what I knew was going to go to New Balance.
speaker-2: They have a huge skateboard team. and yeah, no, they're the classic dad shoes. I worked in Sport Check briefly and a lot of the shoes I sold, the majority of what I sold was New Balance sneakers to dads in cargo shorts. ⁓ but they knew they could come in and get a pair of fresh new balance in five different sizes, ⁓ five different widths, ⁓ and we had whatever they needed. So ⁓ it depends what work What fits your foot really? What makes you feel comfortable? ⁓
speaker-0: Cool dads in Vans, other dads in New Balance. Okay, got it.
speaker-2: Yeah, I'm sure other people will argue and die on that hill for whatever shoe company they want they want to rock. ⁓ but yeah.
speaker-0: That's the whole point of the question. you
speaker-1: Well, I gotta say I'm sold on the new balance. I just got myself a new pair, but yeah. I like the events for their look. ⁓ all right, next question. 'Cause we can talk about fashion for a long time. ⁓ go to your go to off season sports.
speaker-2: sports I personally love mountain biking. I feel like it's a great opportunity to work on your cardiovascular fitness and then develop a lot of skills that you use when you're snowboarding. ⁓ line selection, terrain speed management, ⁓ change of direction, jumping, pressure management, all sorts of those things are really fun. ⁓ I mean skateboarding occasionally. you know, I just have a handful of tricks that I repeat and try and stay pretty safe with. ⁓ but the other one that's tons of fun, and no, in Canada there's tons of pump tracks pumping up, no pun intended, popping up all over the place. And that is honestly one of the most fun forms of fitness that you can do. ⁓ just keep yourself moving, ⁓ working on a lot of the the same snowboard skills.
speaker-0: Last one, perhaps less serious, but what's on the grill?
speaker-2: ⁓ a variety of things. a lot of chicken really, just with different spices. ⁓ but getting into pulled pork and trying to do some smoked brisket. So yeah, that's I'm officially out there barbecuing in my vans with my cargo shorts. On full dad mode.
speaker-1: Yeah. That's awesome.
speaker-0: That's awesome. Well, cool. Let's jump onto the back end of the episode here. And I was just kind of looking over what we'd prepared. And the first part of the episode got a lot more practical than I was expecting. looking back on the questions, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. So we'll kind of ask the questions anyway. And maybe it'll inspire some extra to the previous answers. So we're coming out of the season. We've developed a lot of strength. very specific strength to snowboarding, ⁓ whatever type of snowboarding we like to do. guess, coming into the off season, ⁓ how do we keep that base or should we even focus on that base at all?
speaker-2: Yeah, I'd say it's tough because people usually fall into two camps that either are feeling great if they have time to be kind to their body at the end of the season, ⁓ or sometimes people just are trying to make the most of it and actually squeezing everything they can out of the last bit of the season. And I know oftentimes I've ended up feeling sore ⁓ and tired at the end of the season, in which case rest is really important. ⁓ but then just getting back to it and staying active and being busy. ⁓ get into your summer hobbies and activities, but realize where that maybe causes your fitness and ⁓ sports bias. ⁓ so if say you're just really into road cycling, then you might be limited on some resistance training. If you are say big into going to the gym but you never work on your cardio, then maybe that's something that you have to maintain. ⁓ So it's just a matter of just doing a little bit of a self assessment and finding out like what feels good, what activities do you like doing, and how can you balance your training to get some of the things that those activities aren't gonna
speaker-0: Yeah, that's an awesome answer. kind of, when I was thinking about this question, was more in line with, we've built up strength, I think probably more often than not the scenario that you painted there of coming out of the season somewhat injured is probably the more likely for most people. And yeah, so think that there's some good takeaways in that answer.
speaker-1: You said that ⁓ the best time to start training for snowboarding should be like tomorrow or today. But ⁓ what about like an ideal time frame that you would recommend when someone finishes their season? Where would be the ideal time frame to start training for the for the next season, considering ⁓ some resting period?
speaker-2: You know, depending on how sore, and the issues you have going on from the season, I would say a couple of weeks. You know, if you're it's taking two months off and just like ⁓ cracking beers on the boat and enjoying the sunsets, ⁓ that's probably gonna take its toll on your body. ⁓ you can recover fitness and once you have achieved a certain level of fitness, your body does tend to recover that faster than you the first time you gained it. but it's good to get right back into the swing of things, but just start easy. You don't have to start setting personal records ⁓ when you get back to training. ⁓ like you said be kind to your body. Part of that comes into anticipating ⁓ how well you're going to be able to recover. And what I've experienced myself and seen other people do as well is their work capacity in a given session will far outpace what their recovery ability is. So you might be able to go in and put a hero's effort into a session, but then you're not gonna be very useful for the rest of the week. or at least for a few days. And if that's where you think you're gonna be, then I would say just take it easy. Ease into things rather than just trying to set personal personal records and you know, as things progress as the season gets closer, you can start thinking about really ramping up that intensity and getting a little more sport specific as you are heading into the season and ⁓ progressing through the season. You can maybe taper things back down. But yeah, just be kind to yourself, start easy and work your way into it.
speaker-1: You talked about tap tapering. what would be ⁓ kind of a an idea of a time frame you would give to you would advise someone to take before the the season? Like for their tap tapering period.
speaker-2: It really depends and if you're thinking about periodization in sport, you think about your major sporting events and where those are coming up. and you also have to kind of wonder what your life has going on outside of snowboarding as well. and the other element to battle is the weather. so say as the season approaches and you start to get into the season, you probably would want to reduce your intensity a little bit, or maybe keep the intensity but reduce your volume. So do fewer sets, fewer runs, ⁓ just basically trying to maintain all the gains that you made over the summer. So if you were training, say, three or four sessions a week in resistance training, you could potentially back that down to Two, two to three. and if you were doing say four or five work sets, you could do three work sets. ⁓ and just kind of pair things back a little bit so that you have the energy going into the season. And then if you find, okay, I'm snowboarding a lot and I'm training a lot and things are both going all right, then you can maybe try and nudge them up. Or if you know, say you've got a course coming up, a really busy time when you're on snow lots, if you're teaching high-end stuff, whether that's courses, gap programs, ⁓ and probably a good time to pair back on that training before you go into something intense. You don't necessarily need to eliminate it entirely, but good to just keep things in perspective. and I was thinking about training in the Bow Valley in January. You know, it's it's cold and it's a long season. So you can afford because you know you're not snowboarding as much during the day, you can afford to maybe wrap up some training in that p time frame. ⁓ just knowing that you're not gonna be exhausted as much from being on snow for long days.
speaker-0: So I was thinking about the types of people who might be listening to this or watching this episode and put together some scenarios. ⁓ We've spoken to some of this already, so the answers can be kind of quick. ⁓ I have four different scenarios here that we can chat about. The first one is case someone who's brand new to resistance training, never set foot inside a gym. never lifted a barbell, you know, where should they be starting?
speaker-2: if you're really apprehensive and nervous, I would say a good idea to book in a session with a personal trainer. ⁓ if not if that's not feasible for you. ⁓ the internet's got tons of resources. ⁓ I would say for most people that are athletic and have no real movement issues, it's good to focus on the major compound liftment movements or lifts. ⁓ compound movements are just multi-joint exercises. ⁓ such as squats, deadlifts, ⁓ horizontal push, which would be a press up or a bench press, ⁓ a vertical push, which is like a a shoulder press up overhead, ⁓ and then vertical pull, a pull up or chin up, and and then a horizontal pull or kind of a rowing motion. ⁓ and then ⁓ to that maybe some lunges, and that those are kind of the primary waves. that the human body moves ⁓ against load and produces force. ⁓ so that will if you just focus on learning those movements and progressively doing more reps or more weight or a combination thereof, you'll be headed in the right direction for sure. ⁓ but at the same time, lots of the gym equipment ⁓ that's out there, ⁓ you know, if you just work your way through the circuits of the various different machines, figure out how to get it set up for yourself, you'll be ⁓ doing all right if you do two to three working sets. ⁓ twelve to fifteen reps is just a kind of convenient number from a time management ⁓ perspective. And the important thing when it comes to resistance training is you need to be training towards failure. You know, for a long time people used to say you have to re reach absolute failure. ⁓ But you you just have to basically push really hard past where you'd normally think you can, to the point where everything really slows down, you're straining, you're making ugly faces, and then you really can't move it again. Now it's it's much safer to do that on some exercises, machines where there's safety stops and everything, than say a a back squat where you've got the barbell on your back and that's a lot more of a dangerous scenario where you have to work up to things progressively, have spotters, stop blocks in place, different things. So there's a lot of safety education that goes around that. ⁓ but yeah, I you work on your main compound movements and work hard and you don't and you never really know where failure is until you reach it. ⁓ So you have to reach it a few times to know what that feels like. And then the general recommendation is now saving one to two, they call reps in reserve, ⁓ where you think you could have done one more, but you you cut it just short of that. And the idea is by not going all the way to failure across the week, you actually because you're slightly less fatigued, you're able to accumulate more total volume than opposed to as opposed to just running yourself into ground all the time.
speaker-0: Cool, solid answer. I almost didn't ask that question because we've spoken to it a couple different times in different ways, but you gave us another variation on that answer, which was...
speaker-1: Which was really good. Another scenario, so ⁓ time is limited. ⁓ how can we fit a work out workout in?
speaker-2: ⁓ well there's a couple different ways. One idea is called greasing the groove, ⁓ which is, you know, every time you get up to go to the bathroom, make sure you do twenty squats or twenty lunges or press ups, or you have a chin-up bar in the hallway, and when you walk by you just do two reps or three reps, something that's manageable and you just try and incorporate the fitness somewhere into your life, ⁓ where it's not totally derailing your day. or The other method that works really well is just by using supersets or circuits where you essentially perform one exercise and then another exercise and then another exercise, taking minimal rest in between. ⁓ you know, you re recover as much as you need to. it in and because you are doing one exercise after another, it manages to keep your heart rate up just a little bit, but hopefully not, you know. super high, ⁓ it still should feel somewhat manageable. And the best way to do that as well is make sure you're alternating which muscle groups that you're using. Say doing an upper body exercise and then a lower body exercise or a press up and then a pull up and then a squat or something along those lines. ⁓ Kettlebells, a great way to do that. There's tons of ways you can incorporate different kettlebell exercises into a little circuit. ⁓ say doing ten reps of each exercise and rotating through five rounds. That might take you twelve minutes. Then you've got eight minutes to split between a warm up, some mobility, and cooldown. So and then there you are. You you're in and out, you got your exercise done in twenty minutes. So ⁓ there's lots of ways to do kind of small things like that and adding in tons of variety. Those exercises I think are a lot of fun to plan. And to just set yourself a goal and see what you can make it through. And then you can adjust here and there that, ⁓ that was too hard. I'm gonna adjust that. Maybe do a few less reps, do more reps, ⁓ more reps, and just kind of play with the the different parameters in it as you go. ⁓ another fun one kind of from CrossFit is in every minute on the minute. Set yourself a certain number of reps that you think ⁓ is going to you'll be able to accomplish in say thirty to 40 seconds ⁓ and just kind of go for that. So whether it intervals or every minute on the minute or just doing rounds as quick as you can or do a round, rest as much as you want to and get back to it. So yeah, there's lots that can be done. I think there's lots of ⁓ productive sessions you can do sometimes when you're time constrained, forces you to ⁓ cut out all the other BS. That you might otherwise do if you were trying to sit in the gym for an hour.
speaker-1: And that comes with ⁓ with a bit of planning, of course, and ⁓ maybe using some tools from for different people. I know there's a lot of people that I know, including myself, using I've been trying some different apps at time just while on the road, just to switch things up a little bit and not necessarily having access to the gym all the time. I would be doing some body weight exercise and as much as I have like my kind of library of movement, it's good to learn some new new stuff. So is there any do you have any specific apps or things that you would recommend? Or we I I like there's tons out there, but is there like anything, huh?
speaker-2: No, more of the ones that I I've got on my feed are more heavily kind of sports influence, power athletes, some bodybuilders. ⁓ and I I don't have any experience using them, so I couldn't say. But the if it if it's challenging you and it keeps you moving, then great. Go for it. ⁓ but yeah, you can you can accomplish a lot at home with next to no equipment if ⁓ that is a big hurdle for you. So you can always always find some way to get. Kevin State.
speaker-1: What are some age consideration in training, John?
speaker-2: Well, when it comes to training, as we age, one of the biggest factors is recovery time. ⁓ we just don't bounce back like we used to. and in order to accommodate that, it's important to adjust your training volume. So the amount that you're training, say the how far your run is, ⁓ and maybe your frequency, how often you're doing it. and then also maybe just tone you you Can turn down the intensity, but the other thing is maybe keeping that intensity up but doing it for shorter durations. ⁓ I think that will just allow you to kind of recover and get back to it and maintain a reasonable quality of life. If you feel like your training is poor, ⁓ and you're just not quite getting the results than you want, then maybe doing a slightly a more low volume. ⁓ and high intensity program is potentially beneficial for you. ⁓ and then the other thing to consider is, you know, as we're talking about variation and trying new things, just be aware that as we age, new training stimulus or new training methods, ⁓ you just want to maybe go about them with a little bit more caution. just in case they cause an old injury to flare up. but yeah, generally stay busy and ⁓ stay active as we age, especially with the clientele I've been working with. ⁓ you know, motion is the lotion. So you gotta keep yourself moving and make sure that mobil you are getting that mobility and strength training in as well.
speaker-1: You've been giving some good ⁓ expressions here. Motions is the lotion greasing the grooves. Like I've been writing them.
speaker-0: Greasing the groove is a sweet one. I like that one. So I usually come out of the season feeling pretty asymmetrical. I kind of struggle to get out of that. My front leg feels stronger than my back leg or my mobility is better in one direction than the other. Maybe this is not something that other people... So this is selfish question. What's the approach there?
speaker-2: ⁓ I think part of it is maybe trying to do some more maintenance as the season goes on. So try and just be aware of the conditions that are causing that. ⁓ and then what are kind of the symptoms, treat the symptoms and maybe try and counteract the causes a little bit. so maybe Rob that means riding with your camera a little bit less. ⁓ riding switch. I'm joking. ⁓ but yeah, some s riding switch I think is a big one throughout the season to help. ⁓ and at the as the season ends and you want to continue training, ⁓ doing more kind of one-legged or single arm stuff, things that involve a little bit of rotation, ⁓ potentially like some side lunges that force you to go back and forth or cossack squats, I think some people call them, ⁓ with some assistance. some single leg squats, but those are pretty heavy loading and if you're not used to doing them, it can be quite a challenge. great exercise for some rotation in posterior chain or your your glutes and your hamstrings would be ⁓ kickstand Romanian deadlift. That's kind of where you're standing on one foot primarily, the back foot's behind you just for a little bit of support. And then you hinge at the hip, you fold forward and you kind of reach down with the weight. Try and set it down on your front foot and stand up again. ⁓ single arm rows and probably lunges. I've I've just taken a wild stab at it. Where where are you tight? Where do you feel the is asymmetry is coming?
speaker-0: Well, I think a of it was like one of those asking for a friend situations. I do definitely come out of the season feeling that way. What I like is that you didn't automatically go to what to do now. You went to what to do before it happens. I think that's that's the key takeaway, at least for me anyway.
speaker-2: Are we talking hypothetical? Mm-hmm. And that's something where say the, you know, those core compound movements, the squat and deadlift and pushing and pulling, they're all kind of in the same plane of movement. They don't necessarily have rotation component to them. There's no balance. so they have they have their limitations. They form a good foundation, but they're not necessarily gonna help with all the corrections. ⁓ so that's where ⁓ doing exercises where your feet, your stance is offset. a single arm cable row where you say you're pulling with your right arm but your left hand your left foot is forward and vice versa. Things like that where you're just kind of mixing it up and you're incorporating different planes of movement and motion ⁓ with an offset stance and can just help your body encourage some some rebalancing.
speaker-0: Yeah, sweet. I love that answer. Nice. So moving on, you know, we've talked a lot about types of equipment and, if we're using it in the gym or otherwise, what are some considerations for people who want to build out like a bit of a home gym? Obviously, there's like a budgetary factor, but just like a simple setup, what are are some things that people should be thinking about?
speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, certainly resistance patterns go a long way. Those are good for ⁓ all sorts of corrective exercises, rehab, and if you do enough of them and holding them and you know, going for long times, isometrics, they they can develop and build strength. They won't build strength in the same way putting a big stack of weights on your back will. ⁓ but you can get a lot done at home with ⁓ some kettlebells, ⁓ some dumbbells, so just weights in either hand, a pull up bar and some kind of a T R X system or a ⁓ suspension training system, zaps z you know, tie down straps and some Olympic rings or something that you can fashion handles out of. Because with those you can do ⁓ tons of different exercises. You know, you can do kind of a a pull or a rowing movement ⁓ on them. You hook your feet into them and do crazy mountain climbers and press up variations. ⁓ you can do kind of ring dips and all sorts of different calisthenic based things with those. ⁓ so I think yeah, you you don't need much at a home gym. ⁓ just some kettlebells, ⁓ resistance bands, pull up bar and that suspension system. And then everything else is kind of gravy on on top of that. know, the more options you have for weights that you can use is beneficial. but how much do you want to spend really? 'Cause
speaker-0: Yeah, totally. Well, that's good. That's a good answer. Too easy. No excuses.
speaker-1: what are some good resources you would recommend apart from getting access to a a personal trainer or hire a personal trainer?
speaker-2: well mostly, you know, on Instagram, that's where all the influencers live. And I don't love the name influencer for them because I think a lot of these people are actually experts in their field that have resorted to social media as a means of like growing their brand, ⁓ helping them develop their businesses, ⁓ or they honestly they just want to help people. ⁓ so I the Some of these people that I have in mind are far more than I think than just influencers. ⁓ and I'd say probably one of the first ones ⁓ is Kelly Starrett from the Ready State. ⁓ he was he's got a ⁓ PhD in physiotherapy, he was one of the first 50 CrossFit gyms ever open worldwide. ⁓ and his big thing is just mobility. you should be able to use a comprehensive resistance training program almost as a screening tool. And when you get to an exercise that you can't do or an exercise that causes pain, you need to kind of reverse engineer that and figure out why that happens. And you can treat a lot of those things yourself if you have some of the know how. So he talks about foam rolling and stretching and basically giving athletes and people different tools to help heal themselves, which I think is really cool concept. ⁓ And he does some great work. another person, maybe a little bit more tutorial based for resistance training stuff, would be ⁓ Squat Universities' Instagram handle. ⁓ I think he's also a physiotherapist, but very much based in the strength world. and does some good corrective exercises, but also just instructional videos on fitness and sports and that sort of thing. I'm sure some of you have seen Steve Magnus. He's actually a little bit more of a cross country track and field coach. ⁓ but he's essentially just talks about how consistency is king when it comes to performance, ⁓ and how you know a lot of cross country athletes actually don't need to put in the crazy sessions that they do. It's just about showing up time after time and managing more realistic volumes. so He's good just as far as giving you something from that more cardio base, not necessarily specific, but just sports philosophy as well. ⁓ then there's another guy that does really cool work with kids developing athleticism. ⁓ his name's Jeremy Frisch. ⁓ F R I S C H. ⁓ and he basically talks about, you know, training kids to sprint. run and change direction and be athletes. But he just makes it a game of everything and the sessions that he runs with these kids look like nothing but fun. ⁓ and so that's something as much as nice you know, training can be really serious business. Like I said, I think having an element of play even as we age ⁓ in our sport is really important. ⁓ and especially in a sport like snowboarding where it's not necessarily all about symmetrical left and rights. all the time. You need to be able to kind of put your own spin on things. so yeah, he's a pretty inspirational person. And then another two, it's a couple that are actually a little more snowboard specific. ⁓ seems to do some pretty cool work is ⁓ the mobility duo. ⁓ I think yeah they they do a a good mix of content and have some snowboarding impractical things and injuries and things to look out for. ⁓ so yeah there's a big list and there's tons that I follow and ⁓ yeah, there's no shortage out there on the internet. But ⁓ I think that's probably
speaker-0: Good list for now. That's a solid list. just to add to that list, I mentioned it earlier in the show, but back in, I think it was 2022, we did an online member session, which I'll link with yourself, Jen and James, which was a really good one. And then last season, I think it was in the fall. Hey, Jen, you and Melissa De Silva from the National Tech Team, or maybe it was in the summer.
speaker-1: Yeah, in July.
speaker-0: July ⁓ did a cross-training online member session as well, which was really awesome. So both of them would be worth checking out. They're on our YouTube, easy to find, but I'll also link them in the show notes so people can check those out on top of the ones that John mentioned. ⁓ I think that's a good place to end it. We touched on a lot of really ⁓ helpful topics there. I thought that was really... Insightful episode. I'm just going to help our membership come into next season a little more bulletproof, which is awesome. Thanks a lot, John. Thanks for joining us today. That was rad. And to the guests, thanks for tuning in once again. If you've made it this far into the episode, thanks so much. ⁓ Please be sure to pop on and give us a review. Hit the five star, whatever it takes to help us continue to build this. That would be awesome. And if there's anything specific that you want to talk about. please feel free to email us at podcast at cassie-acms.com. And that's it for today and we'll see you in two weeks with our next episode. Thanks again, guys. Thanks, John. Thanks, Jen.
speaker-1: Thanks, John.
speaker-2: Thanks for having me.
speaker-0: and we cue the cool music that ends the show.
speaker-1: Hi everyone, I Rob. I John. John, welcome to the show. Super stoked to have you here with us today. ⁓ John currently lives in the UK. He's a Cassie colleague, ⁓ level four evaluator, former regional coordinator of Valverland BC, ⁓ technical committee man member for a number of years, and he is also a bachelor's of sport performance and physical activity and a certified personal trainer. Am I missing anything, John?
speaker-2: No, that's most of it. I'm sure there's a few other names people might use, but ⁓ yeah, that's most of it.
speaker-1: Ha ha.
speaker-0: Nice. So jumping into this episode here, just kind of want to introduce how we're going to go about it. This isn't really intended to be like a how to train or how to work out like tutorial. It's going to be more kind of things to think about ⁓ processes, groundwork, goal setting, all around the theme of training just to kind of either strengthen ⁓ the program you're already on. or to help you develop from the ground up. As usual, we have two sections of the podcast. First section is gonna be a little bit more global, and then we'll hit the palette cleanser, and then on the backside of the episode, we'll dive into some more practical things to apply into your training. So jumping into it, I guess Jen talked about it a little bit, but Snowboard Podcast, Cassie Podcast, tell us a little bit about your journey with Cassie and how you got to where you're at now, a little bit of the journey.
speaker-2: Well, thanks to be here for having me. It's great to be here. ⁓ I started teaching snowboarding back in two thousand two, two thousand three at Rabbit Hill in Edmonton. ⁓ I did a number of years ⁓ teaching there, part time. and then as I was going to university, I decided I needed a little break to go to the mountains. ⁓ so I took a year off, ⁓ worked for a year at Sunshine Village, ⁓ and then went back to finish my degree over the Following four years, kind of stretching those last two years out. I go to university in the fall while ⁓ teaching snowboarding in the winter. ⁓ after working at Sunshine, I moved to Lake Louise, worked there for a number of years. worked my way up through the ranks, got to level four, and continuing to improve my evaluator level. ⁓ and then one of the last jobs I held before being a regional coordinator, I was working with freestyle programs ⁓ at at COP ⁓ in Calgary. So that was a really fun job being out there working with athletes and kids that just wanted to go fast and not listen so much. yeah, so that that was the long and short of it really. ⁓ I started being an evaluator pretty early in my stint, ⁓ teaching snowboarding. I think it was my third year I got into evaluating, because at that time ⁓ you could be a level two and become an evaluator for level one courses. so yeah, I was really fortunate the way that all worked out. I was able to get lots of experience ⁓ early and just kind of maintained momentum as much as I could throughout my entire
speaker-0: career. That's cool. I love to love the story. I don't know a lot about you, John. This is this is going to be a learning process for me too. We live on opposite sides of the country when you were in Canada and you left Cassie like the moment I came into my role that I'm in now. So we never really got to work together. So this is kind of exciting to get to know you on this level.
speaker-1: That's awesome.
speaker-2: Yeah, and you know, ⁓ the reality of that was I was raising starting a family. ⁓ it's pretty hard for us. My wife is English, my mom was in Edmonton, my dad was in Kelowna. We had some friends that moved away, ⁓ and we just needed a bit more support raising the family, so maybe had to make the tough decision to walk away and it was yeah, definitely definitely ⁓ a difficult choice to make. But we're in a good place now and ⁓ really happy with Two kids here. ⁓ yeah. Just living a family life. Awesome.
speaker-1: John, can you ⁓ also tell us a little bit more about your profession outside of snowboarding and what's your your background in terms of how it relates to sports and training?
speaker-2: ⁓ so while I was in Canada, I primarily worked, you know, as a snowboard instructor in the winter, bike mechanic, mountain bike coach in the in the summers. I did a little bit of personal training in Canada, but it was difficult to really pursue a career in that. ⁓ just because if you built up any momentum or steam and you got some clients in in the summer months, it was difficult to maintain that in the winter when I was on snow fall time. ⁓ so when we moved to the UK, I found an opportunity locally to work at a chiropractor's clinic as a personal trainer. ⁓ and that way I was actually getting pretty consistent hours ⁓ and able to kind of hone my new craft my craft in the new area. so I had already had a certification in Canada, but I recertified under a British organization and just kind of got to work here. and that was actually really interesting population to work with. ⁓ most of the clients were people that came into the gym or came into the chiropractor's office because they had some kind of issues and pain that they were dealing with and had since been cleared for exercise. So frequently ⁓ I most of the sessions were group sessions ⁓ with either one to four people in the session ⁓ and we do you know some basic mobility and then a lot of them ⁓ some strength work and a little bit of conditioning as well. So ⁓ most of my expertise in the last couple of years has been working with ⁓ older populations, kind of people fifty years old plus. ⁓ but it's great to see the progress some of them have made over the years and you know, similar it's a slower burn to teaching snowboarding. Print probably not so sweet as ⁓ watching someone make their first turns. ⁓ but it's a longer game when you see someone progress, improve in strength and their capability of movement. And really the best thing is hearing about ⁓ the improvement of their quality of life. You know, they're they're standing taller, they're walking further, they're enjoying enjoying time with their grandkids, climbing mountains, doing things that they didn't think they could accomplish without ⁓ support of a personal trainer and the other therapists at the at the clinical.
speaker-1: That's cool. That's a pretty cool mission to accompany people with their their journey and in and training.
speaker-2: Yeah. ⁓ and I guess prior to that, what initially got me into personal training, ⁓ I should say I just grew up playing lots of sports. ⁓ thought I was gonna be a phys ed teacher in Canada and then I got caught up teaching snowboarding. ⁓ so that's why I went into the Phys Ed faculty and ⁓ decided to see sports sciences as ⁓ as a degree. And it's great. I ⁓ learned lots of practical stuff, most if not you know, just for keeping myself healthy and active for a lifetime. And I think that's really paid off, helping me get more out of my own time on snow and sports and it's wonderful to be able to share that knowledge with other people.
speaker-1: And also filter that through the teach of snow teaching snowboarding. Talking about snowboarding, are you still a shredding in the UK?
speaker-2: The shredding in the UK is quite limited. There's dry slopes, ⁓ a couple snow domes and some small ski areas that are very rarely open in Scotland and Wales. ⁓ I've done one session at a snow dome, but I've been fortunate enough to make it over to Europe ⁓ for a week or two every year for the last few seasons. ⁓ so I've explored a few different resorts in France and in Austria. So that's been lots of fun ⁓ exploring. New resorts and experiencing European scheme.
speaker-1: Nice and some good food.
speaker-2: Yeah, yeah, that's the primary culture.
speaker-1: I guess that's one of the things that we miss the most from you w ⁓ in our Cassie meeting is your food review. Just gonna say it there. Rob you can keep it. I think it's ⁓ legendary.
speaker-2: Yeah, I know how to order for the table. It's ⁓ special skill available over to
speaker-0: ⁓ That's like the thing I like the least when we go out as a group. I'm like, please let somebody else order.
speaker-2: Especially sushi. I feel like I can pretty much nail that.
speaker-0: Nice. So, John, I plucked this question from a virtual member session that you did back in 2022 alongside Jen and James about training. And for those of you who haven't seen it, I'll link it in the show notes because it's a really good practical resource to help you build on what you're going to learn today. What is your training philosophy?
speaker-2: Well, that's interesting. I think I've only had to ever really define it in a setting like this on that last call. A lot of times it's just something that sits up in the air. but I think there's a couple of key phrases that I I'd like to get across and one is ⁓ train with intention and play with purpose, which it just ⁓ means to say when you're training, be present in the moment. It's time to put your phone down, focus on what you're doing, focus on the goals that you want to achieve in the session. ⁓ And work hard. Do it with purpose. If you're just going through the motions, ⁓ that's probably not going to get you the best results. And then when it comes to play, especially when it comes to training, I think that gives you an opportunity to apply these new Capacities in a in a real sport. Go out in the world and do something with your friends, whether that's a pickup game of basketball or riding a mountain bike, skateboarding, doing something that gets you outside and also challenging your fitness but in a different aspect. ⁓ but also in regards to training, I think it's important to know that we're humans and not robots, so you can't regiment everything you do in your training. You have to leave a little bit of improvisation, ⁓ where you can experiment, play around, just find different methods of moving to ⁓ to challenge yourself, whether that's swinging a kettlebell or dancing or doing yoga, trying headstands, who knows.
speaker-0: whatever. Yeah, I like that. Keep it fun, right? Like if it's fun, you're going to be more inclined to do it.
speaker-2: Yeah, definitely. Like that play factor, it just it's always something that's helped me recharge my batteries. ⁓ and then the other phrase that I especially working with the populations of the clinic, a little bit older and ⁓ getting a little wiser in my own training, is ⁓ simply put, work hard and be kind to your body. So it's important to work hard. And you know, get through progressive overload where you're challenging yourself and you're getting better and better. ⁓ but you have to realize not every session can be your best session. Sometimes it just has to be a good session. ⁓ if you're really not feeling it, it's okay to take it easy, call it off. ⁓ but in addition to working hard, you also need to rest, recover properly, so you know, hydrating, sleeping, getting good quality food into yourself. ⁓ and just relax every now and then. And it's okay to have whatever dessert you like every once in a while. ⁓ 'cause that's
speaker-0: Mm. That's really good advice. I know that Jen's really good at that. We've talked about this and I am not like, I'm good at pushing through pain and like to a stubborn level. It's like, yeah, I should be more kind to myself. Thanks for that advice.
speaker-2: ⁓ there's a certain amount of suffering that it takes to progress and improve and but you need to just do a little bit all the time. And I'm sure you've you've both experienced it where you work too hard, you run yourself into the ground, and then all of a sudden you can't train for three days because your body's sore and it aches. And it's it takes time, like you said, Jen, to experiment and find out what your recovery limit is, and try and balance those things out. Because really you want to be recovering a good amount like being a little bit sore when you start a session is good, but if you're achy and in pain all the time when you're starting a session, that's you're not setting yourself up for performance. So you've got to kind of juggle those factors of your intensity and how frequently you're doing it and how how well you're able to rest in order to get ⁓ good out positive outcomes from your training.
speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Kind of links to my next question of ⁓ how you would explain like what is a good foundation of a good training. Like if you were to sum up a little bit ⁓ the last few things you mentioned.
speaker-2: Great question. Can be potentially very complex. ⁓ and it's but it doesn't have to be. Keeping it simple, when it comes to basic health recommendations, you know, they say you should generally be doing two to three resistance training sessions a week, full body resistance training sessions a week, accumulating like two and a half hours of moderate vis vigorous activity, like cardiovascular physical activity a week, or 75% of vigorous. So take those words for what you will. ⁓ but that's just kind of a benchmark, like baseline, what they're recommending recommending ⁓ for general health. So if you are an athlete, we instead of just thinking about those kind of recommendations, you also have to think a little bit more about something called general physical preparedness. So and that includes ⁓ strength, like we just discussed. ⁓ cardiovascular fitness and conditioning, and mobility, I would say those three are kind of the the base of the pyramid, if you will. ⁓ but then beyond that, as a as an athlete, there's other capacities that you need to perform. so you need power, the ability to pro produce high force in short amounts of time, ⁓ ability to have some speed, move quickly, ⁓ and reaction time, all that. and then you also need a little bit of some physical literacy skills. So agility, balance, coordination. ⁓ and that those are kind of the main categories that general physical preparedness falls into. I'm sure other people may throw in additional things here and there, but for the most part, ⁓ that's all encompassing what you need to say be training as an athlete. And that's a lot. That is a lot of different capacities to try and improve and work towards, especially for a lot of people with limited time. so that's where I think as a foundation, probably strength, conditioning, and mobility, ⁓ because those are the things that are going to allow you to pursue the more kind of sports-specific ⁓ capacities, ⁓ like speed, power, agility, balance coordination.
speaker-0: I feel like you were kind of getting to this, John, but can you talk to this in terms of like training specificity as it pertains to our audience, smith orders?
speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, so I think snowboarding definitely has some specificity. but I don't know that it's that different to lots of other sports. You know, it's not the same as say football or hockey, a contact sport where you need to have mass and huge amounts of power. ⁓ it's predominantly a lower body sport. You need reasonable cardiovascular fitness, so you can survive riding long mogul runs, top to bottom runs, get lots of training in for people who are working at higher levels. ⁓ you need some upper body strength to be resilient and resistant to injury when you have some inevitable falls. and then you're also gonna want a little bit of that speed, power, agility, balance, because landing off jumps ⁓ is difficult. Popping up and onto rails, ⁓ all sorts of things like that. are going to kind of vary the demands that you need to put your body through. ⁓ so I guess all that to say as well, and some of it depends on the type of snowboarding that you want to do. You know, if you want to do heavy freestyle, that might be a little bit more specific than say someone who's going to be doing more carving-based riding or ⁓ just free riding all the time. Or someone that's ski touring up a mountain to access their free riding. Those are all gonna be different types of fitness and capacities that you're gonna sort of prioritize. ⁓ but I think when it comes down to it, ⁓ if you're training as a snowboarder, you gotta think of yourself as an athlete. So eventually you're gonna have to do some of that ⁓ speed work, speed and power, jumping, and then working on agility, balance and coordination one way or another. And I think a lot of times though, you can sometimes gain those skills through crossover sports, be it mountain biking or skateboarding, or even playing tennis or paddle or some kind of sport that just gets you out moving and changing direction. and then I guess one thing I didn't mention is the rotation rotational component as well. That's also something that, you know, we think is very specific to snowboarding. But if you actually watch a lot of athletes doing their training programs, there will be some kind of rotational component.
speaker-1: Lots of lots of those things that can be touched through cross training. Like you name lots of sport, but that that's really what is cross training really is like transfer skills from one sport to the other.
speaker-2: Yeah, and actually like with college athletes now, the scouts are s looking more for athletes that have played multiple sport because they believe they'll be more resilient against injury. They have a wider diversity of sporting experience to pull from. ⁓ so a a wider sampling of sports is good for you. Plus it's it's just good for your brain. and it's a lot more Yeah, it's a lot more of a practical way to develop some of those skills and capacities other than being in the gym. 'Cause if you had to be in the gym all the time to a hundred percent develop each of those, y you don't have much time for anything else if you got family or relationships to maintain unless those are all built around the gym. So
speaker-0: It kind of comes back to your few points you made about training philosophy, right? Like the fun one, you know, doing lots of different sports is just fun. And you're going to get cross benefit. Like that's a, that's pretty sweet. Moving into like maybe goal setting isn't the right word, but so we're in the North American off season right now. How are our goals going to change from like
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: right now into the fall and then into the winter? Like the way we train or just things to think about through those different seasons? Like is it crazy to think about training for snowboarding right now?
speaker-2: No, definitely not. The best time to start is right now and the next best time is tomorrow. so yeah, summertime and I think the word you're looking for is probably periodization, how to schedule your training w into different phases ⁓ to match the different demands and goals of that time of year. ⁓ it happens with all sorts of different athletes. and they'll even vary it throughout the week to give them, say, the best outcome come game day. but I think the summer is probably your best time to rebuild. Think of yourself a little bit as a clean slate. You gotta go back down to the fi foundations. If you have any injuries, now's time to ⁓ recover, put in the work on rehab, rest, and recovery. ⁓ and then I think it's good to just build some strong foundations when it comes to strength and resistance training. ⁓ as well as getting some of your cardiovascular fitness in and then running mobility in parallel with all that. so I like I said previously, generally I think most people, if you do two to three days a week of resistance training, full body sessions, kind of alternating exercises, then the sequence a little bit, you don't always have to do the same workout every day. it's good to have a little bit of variety. ⁓ that's probably a good start. And then, you know, on non resistance training days, ⁓ or at least typically six hours apart from your resistance training, doing some cardio, ⁓ getting your heart rate up a little bit. classic the the buzzwords now are like zone two fitness, working on your that's basically where you can you're exercising. you can have a conversation but you're still you're challenged a little bit to have that conversation. And then as you push higher, higher intensities, you say you the higher is on three, four, five. ⁓ it gets more and more challenging to talk. ⁓ so it's good to get when it comes to cardiovascular fitness and conditioning, good to have a mix of those throughout your week as well. but when it comes to goal setting and it like anything, ⁓ and periodization, it kind of depends where what your starting point is. so just It's hard to answer very specifically on what each person should be doing ⁓ for their training, but generally I think good time to think about improving strength, get in the weight room again or learn how to lift some weights if you've never done it before. Make sure you're work doing some cardio and get that mobility in. ⁓ you know, like ten, fifteen minutes of mobility a day goes a really
speaker-0: Yeah, that's sweet. And it's not about, you know, like answering the question for everybody right now. It's more like any answer that is, you know, let's give some parameters for people to even think about all of what you're talking about. And it sounds like, OK, well, figure out what your baseline is and figure out where you want to go with it. And then kind of it gives you a starting point. And then you can build on that through the offseason.
speaker-1: Yeah, and I think it's an important one. Like I was hearing you mention a few times, like to to vary things up, ⁓ and and have a little bit of variation in your training because it it does avoid some of the plateaus that some people could could get into in times like when you're constantly repeating the same movement and the same training for a certain period of time. I know when I got coached for different ⁓ different sport, especially for ⁓ trail running like this this was a big thing like there was periodization of okay in the off season you're gonna do that and while you're gonna be doing snowboarding you'll be doing more like run a zone two runs recovery runs and things like that it's it's ⁓ what was I gonna say with that? I was going somewhere. ⁓ yeah so avoiding the plateaus and that's where a good coach can can come and help you to to build those training but also yeah considering the your previous experience. ⁓ and it's it's built through the years, right? Your first year of training towards something new, well your second is pro is gonna build on that. ⁓ and you're gonna revisit some of the movement, but you might add some of the variation. Is that yeah, the variation I think something that you
speaker-2: Variation is just a great way to keep things fresh for yourself. ⁓ but if your program has too much variation, then it's hard to kind of track your progress. So it's good to have a certain amount of consistency as well. ⁓ you know, if you run completely different routes for your five K, ⁓ you shouldn't expect yourself to get the exact same time. Maybe they have different hills or wind, heat, time of day, those things can all make a difference. and when it comes to resistance training, Just s ⁓ switching the order of your exercise is a a good idea as well, because if you always do your exercises in the exact same order, ⁓ your body will kind of learn to prioritize whatever comes first, and then those exercises later in the session, ⁓ you'll be less able to kind of push yourself through the session. So variety is important, but also so is consistency. So constant variation, but not too much variation.
speaker-0: So I've started to mess around with kettlebells a bunch this offseason. ⁓ Really enjoying it, but naturally because of that, that's like I open up Instagram and that's all I see. It's like all these different things you can do with kettlebells. ⁓ Well, this is my question, right? So how do you vet?
speaker-1: You've been training them all, right?
speaker-0: Or should you just completely ignore this? what's your take on these fitness influencers that are finding their way into our reels if we just think about the word kettlebell?
speaker-2: Yeah, that's a big question. cannibals are great and generally speaking, a lot of what's out there, just use it for inspiration. If you find something useful, take it on. And if you don't like it, then just ignore it. But ⁓ just beware of your own bias and you know, that's also partly what feeds your your your algorithm ⁓ from what you hover over just a moment and you think, ooh. So good to try and balance the feed, maybe go out of your way to find some different perspective from time to time. there's a lot of people producing great content out there. ⁓ I think the important thing to maybe weed out the not so good ones is just beware of anyone that's selling a program that claims to solve a problem and fix everything in a short time frame ⁓ with subscription fees and all sorts of money and something else that comes along with it. ⁓ but yeah, there's there's tons of great content creators out there. And ultimately when it comes to fitness, if you're moving your body and you're challenging yourself, you're going to be making improvements. ⁓ so if you like doing it and it keeps you moving, then enjoy.
speaker-0: Good answer, I like that. Sweet, well we've come to the palette cleanser. I know John, is the moment you were looking forward to and we're gonna start things off here with a hot take, our Vans, the new dad shoe. ⁓
speaker-2: That's a great question. I just bought myself a pair of bands for holiday. ⁓ but I also have my toddler wearing them sometimes. ⁓ they're not great. I know the toe box is not very wide, ⁓ so that pinches your feet and leads to an unnatural gait. Although they are very flexible, ⁓ and so they do require your foot muscles to be in use. maybe only just
speaker-0: So maybe people should cool that. Okay, that's good. I like that answer.
speaker-2: But there are some great new films sneak sneakers I've been buying as well.
speaker-0: This is what I knew was going to go to New Balance.
speaker-2: They have a huge skateboard team. and yeah, no, they're the classic dad shoes. I worked in Sport Check briefly and a lot of the shoes I sold, the majority of what I sold was New Balance sneakers to dads in cargo shorts. ⁓ but they knew they could come in and get a pair of fresh new balance in five different sizes, ⁓ five different widths, ⁓ and we had whatever they needed. So ⁓ it depends what work What fits your foot really? What makes you feel comfortable? ⁓
speaker-0: Cool dads in Vans, other dads in New Balance. Okay, got it.
speaker-2: Yeah, I'm sure other people will argue and die on that hill for whatever shoe company they want they want to rock. ⁓ but yeah.
speaker-0: That's the whole point of the question. you
speaker-1: Well, I gotta say I'm sold on the new balance. I just got myself a new pair, but yeah. I like the events for their look. ⁓ all right, next question. 'Cause we can talk about fashion for a long time. ⁓ go to your go to off season sports.
speaker-2: sports I personally love mountain biking. I feel like it's a great opportunity to work on your cardiovascular fitness and then develop a lot of skills that you use when you're snowboarding. ⁓ line selection, terrain speed management, ⁓ change of direction, jumping, pressure management, all sorts of those things are really fun. ⁓ I mean skateboarding occasionally. you know, I just have a handful of tricks that I repeat and try and stay pretty safe with. ⁓ but the other one that's tons of fun, and no, in Canada there's tons of pump tracks pumping up, no pun intended, popping up all over the place. And that is honestly one of the most fun forms of fitness that you can do. ⁓ just keep yourself moving, ⁓ working on a lot of the the same snowboard skills.
speaker-0: Last one, perhaps less serious, but what's on the grill?
speaker-2: ⁓ a variety of things. a lot of chicken really, just with different spices. ⁓ but getting into pulled pork and trying to do some smoked brisket. So yeah, that's I'm officially out there barbecuing in my vans with my cargo shorts. On full dad mode.
speaker-1: Yeah. That's awesome.
speaker-0: That's awesome. Well, cool. Let's jump onto the back end of the episode here. And I was just kind of looking over what we'd prepared. And the first part of the episode got a lot more practical than I was expecting. looking back on the questions, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. So we'll kind of ask the questions anyway. And maybe it'll inspire some extra to the previous answers. So we're coming out of the season. We've developed a lot of strength. very specific strength to snowboarding, ⁓ whatever type of snowboarding we like to do. guess, coming into the off season, ⁓ how do we keep that base or should we even focus on that base at all?
speaker-2: Yeah, I'd say it's tough because people usually fall into two camps that either are feeling great if they have time to be kind to their body at the end of the season, ⁓ or sometimes people just are trying to make the most of it and actually squeezing everything they can out of the last bit of the season. And I know oftentimes I've ended up feeling sore ⁓ and tired at the end of the season, in which case rest is really important. ⁓ but then just getting back to it and staying active and being busy. ⁓ get into your summer hobbies and activities, but realize where that maybe causes your fitness and ⁓ sports bias. ⁓ so if say you're just really into road cycling, then you might be limited on some resistance training. If you are say big into going to the gym but you never work on your cardio, then maybe that's something that you have to maintain. ⁓ So it's just a matter of just doing a little bit of a self assessment and finding out like what feels good, what activities do you like doing, and how can you balance your training to get some of the things that those activities aren't gonna
speaker-0: Yeah, that's an awesome answer. kind of, when I was thinking about this question, was more in line with, we've built up strength, I think probably more often than not the scenario that you painted there of coming out of the season somewhat injured is probably the more likely for most people. And yeah, so think that there's some good takeaways in that answer.
speaker-1: You said that ⁓ the best time to start training for snowboarding should be like tomorrow or today. But ⁓ what about like an ideal time frame that you would recommend when someone finishes their season? Where would be the ideal time frame to start training for the for the next season, considering ⁓ some resting period?
speaker-2: You know, depending on how sore, and the issues you have going on from the season, I would say a couple of weeks. You know, if you're it's taking two months off and just like ⁓ cracking beers on the boat and enjoying the sunsets, ⁓ that's probably gonna take its toll on your body. ⁓ you can recover fitness and once you have achieved a certain level of fitness, your body does tend to recover that faster than you the first time you gained it. but it's good to get right back into the swing of things, but just start easy. You don't have to start setting personal records ⁓ when you get back to training. ⁓ like you said be kind to your body. Part of that comes into anticipating ⁓ how well you're going to be able to recover. And what I've experienced myself and seen other people do as well is their work capacity in a given session will far outpace what their recovery ability is. So you might be able to go in and put a hero's effort into a session, but then you're not gonna be very useful for the rest of the week. or at least for a few days. And if that's where you think you're gonna be, then I would say just take it easy. Ease into things rather than just trying to set personal personal records and you know, as things progress as the season gets closer, you can start thinking about really ramping up that intensity and getting a little more sport specific as you are heading into the season and ⁓ progressing through the season. You can maybe taper things back down. But yeah, just be kind to yourself, start easy and work your way into it.
speaker-1: You talked about tap tapering. what would be ⁓ kind of a an idea of a time frame you would give to you would advise someone to take before the the season? Like for their tap tapering period.
speaker-2: It really depends and if you're thinking about periodization in sport, you think about your major sporting events and where those are coming up. and you also have to kind of wonder what your life has going on outside of snowboarding as well. and the other element to battle is the weather. so say as the season approaches and you start to get into the season, you probably would want to reduce your intensity a little bit, or maybe keep the intensity but reduce your volume. So do fewer sets, fewer runs, ⁓ just basically trying to maintain all the gains that you made over the summer. So if you were training, say, three or four sessions a week in resistance training, you could potentially back that down to Two, two to three. and if you were doing say four or five work sets, you could do three work sets. ⁓ and just kind of pair things back a little bit so that you have the energy going into the season. And then if you find, okay, I'm snowboarding a lot and I'm training a lot and things are both going all right, then you can maybe try and nudge them up. Or if you know, say you've got a course coming up, a really busy time when you're on snow lots, if you're teaching high-end stuff, whether that's courses, gap programs, ⁓ and probably a good time to pair back on that training before you go into something intense. You don't necessarily need to eliminate it entirely, but good to just keep things in perspective. and I was thinking about training in the Bow Valley in January. You know, it's it's cold and it's a long season. So you can afford because you know you're not snowboarding as much during the day, you can afford to maybe wrap up some training in that p time frame. ⁓ just knowing that you're not gonna be exhausted as much from being on snow for long days.
speaker-0: So I was thinking about the types of people who might be listening to this or watching this episode and put together some scenarios. ⁓ We've spoken to some of this already, so the answers can be kind of quick. ⁓ I have four different scenarios here that we can chat about. The first one is case someone who's brand new to resistance training, never set foot inside a gym. never lifted a barbell, you know, where should they be starting?
speaker-2: if you're really apprehensive and nervous, I would say a good idea to book in a session with a personal trainer. ⁓ if not if that's not feasible for you. ⁓ the internet's got tons of resources. ⁓ I would say for most people that are athletic and have no real movement issues, it's good to focus on the major compound liftment movements or lifts. ⁓ compound movements are just multi-joint exercises. ⁓ such as squats, deadlifts, ⁓ horizontal push, which would be a press up or a bench press, ⁓ a vertical push, which is like a a shoulder press up overhead, ⁓ and then vertical pull, a pull up or chin up, and and then a horizontal pull or kind of a rowing motion. ⁓ and then ⁓ to that maybe some lunges, and that those are kind of the primary waves. that the human body moves ⁓ against load and produces force. ⁓ so that will if you just focus on learning those movements and progressively doing more reps or more weight or a combination thereof, you'll be headed in the right direction for sure. ⁓ but at the same time, lots of the gym equipment ⁓ that's out there, ⁓ you know, if you just work your way through the circuits of the various different machines, figure out how to get it set up for yourself, you'll be ⁓ doing all right if you do two to three working sets. ⁓ twelve to fifteen reps is just a kind of convenient number from a time management ⁓ perspective. And the important thing when it comes to resistance training is you need to be training towards failure. You know, for a long time people used to say you have to re reach absolute failure. ⁓ But you you just have to basically push really hard past where you'd normally think you can, to the point where everything really slows down, you're straining, you're making ugly faces, and then you really can't move it again. Now it's it's much safer to do that on some exercises, machines where there's safety stops and everything, than say a a back squat where you've got the barbell on your back and that's a lot more of a dangerous scenario where you have to work up to things progressively, have spotters, stop blocks in place, different things. So there's a lot of safety education that goes around that. ⁓ but yeah, I you work on your main compound movements and work hard and you don't and you never really know where failure is until you reach it. ⁓ So you have to reach it a few times to know what that feels like. And then the general recommendation is now saving one to two, they call reps in reserve, ⁓ where you think you could have done one more, but you you cut it just short of that. And the idea is by not going all the way to failure across the week, you actually because you're slightly less fatigued, you're able to accumulate more total volume than opposed to as opposed to just running yourself into ground all the time.
speaker-0: Cool, solid answer. I almost didn't ask that question because we've spoken to it a couple different times in different ways, but you gave us another variation on that answer, which was...
speaker-1: Which was really good. Another scenario, so ⁓ time is limited. ⁓ how can we fit a work out workout in?
speaker-2: ⁓ well there's a couple different ways. One idea is called greasing the groove, ⁓ which is, you know, every time you get up to go to the bathroom, make sure you do twenty squats or twenty lunges or press ups, or you have a chin-up bar in the hallway, and when you walk by you just do two reps or three reps, something that's manageable and you just try and incorporate the fitness somewhere into your life, ⁓ where it's not totally derailing your day. or The other method that works really well is just by using supersets or circuits where you essentially perform one exercise and then another exercise and then another exercise, taking minimal rest in between. ⁓ you know, you re recover as much as you need to. it in and because you are doing one exercise after another, it manages to keep your heart rate up just a little bit, but hopefully not, you know. super high, ⁓ it still should feel somewhat manageable. And the best way to do that as well is make sure you're alternating which muscle groups that you're using. Say doing an upper body exercise and then a lower body exercise or a press up and then a pull up and then a squat or something along those lines. ⁓ Kettlebells, a great way to do that. There's tons of ways you can incorporate different kettlebell exercises into a little circuit. ⁓ say doing ten reps of each exercise and rotating through five rounds. That might take you twelve minutes. Then you've got eight minutes to split between a warm up, some mobility, and cooldown. So and then there you are. You you're in and out, you got your exercise done in twenty minutes. So ⁓ there's lots of ways to do kind of small things like that and adding in tons of variety. Those exercises I think are a lot of fun to plan. And to just set yourself a goal and see what you can make it through. And then you can adjust here and there that, ⁓ that was too hard. I'm gonna adjust that. Maybe do a few less reps, do more reps, ⁓ more reps, and just kind of play with the the different parameters in it as you go. ⁓ another fun one kind of from CrossFit is in every minute on the minute. Set yourself a certain number of reps that you think ⁓ is going to you'll be able to accomplish in say thirty to 40 seconds ⁓ and just kind of go for that. So whether it intervals or every minute on the minute or just doing rounds as quick as you can or do a round, rest as much as you want to and get back to it. So yeah, there's lots that can be done. I think there's lots of ⁓ productive sessions you can do sometimes when you're time constrained, forces you to ⁓ cut out all the other BS. That you might otherwise do if you were trying to sit in the gym for an hour.
speaker-1: And that comes with ⁓ with a bit of planning, of course, and ⁓ maybe using some tools from for different people. I know there's a lot of people that I know, including myself, using I've been trying some different apps at time just while on the road, just to switch things up a little bit and not necessarily having access to the gym all the time. I would be doing some body weight exercise and as much as I have like my kind of library of movement, it's good to learn some new new stuff. So is there any do you have any specific apps or things that you would recommend? Or we I I like there's tons out there, but is there like anything, huh?
speaker-2: No, more of the ones that I I've got on my feed are more heavily kind of sports influence, power athletes, some bodybuilders. ⁓ and I I don't have any experience using them, so I couldn't say. But the if it if it's challenging you and it keeps you moving, then great. Go for it. ⁓ but yeah, you can you can accomplish a lot at home with next to no equipment if ⁓ that is a big hurdle for you. So you can always always find some way to get. Kevin State.
speaker-1: What are some age consideration in training, John?
speaker-2: Well, when it comes to training, as we age, one of the biggest factors is recovery time. ⁓ we just don't bounce back like we used to. and in order to accommodate that, it's important to adjust your training volume. So the amount that you're training, say the how far your run is, ⁓ and maybe your frequency, how often you're doing it. and then also maybe just tone you you Can turn down the intensity, but the other thing is maybe keeping that intensity up but doing it for shorter durations. ⁓ I think that will just allow you to kind of recover and get back to it and maintain a reasonable quality of life. If you feel like your training is poor, ⁓ and you're just not quite getting the results than you want, then maybe doing a slightly a more low volume. ⁓ and high intensity program is potentially beneficial for you. ⁓ and then the other thing to consider is, you know, as we're talking about variation and trying new things, just be aware that as we age, new training stimulus or new training methods, ⁓ you just want to maybe go about them with a little bit more caution. just in case they cause an old injury to flare up. but yeah, generally stay busy and ⁓ stay active as we age, especially with the clientele I've been working with. ⁓ you know, motion is the lotion. So you gotta keep yourself moving and make sure that mobil you are getting that mobility and strength training in as well.
speaker-1: You've been giving some good ⁓ expressions here. Motions is the lotion greasing the grooves. Like I've been writing them.
speaker-0: Greasing the groove is a sweet one. I like that one. So I usually come out of the season feeling pretty asymmetrical. I kind of struggle to get out of that. My front leg feels stronger than my back leg or my mobility is better in one direction than the other. Maybe this is not something that other people... So this is selfish question. What's the approach there?
speaker-2: ⁓ I think part of it is maybe trying to do some more maintenance as the season goes on. So try and just be aware of the conditions that are causing that. ⁓ and then what are kind of the symptoms, treat the symptoms and maybe try and counteract the causes a little bit. so maybe Rob that means riding with your camera a little bit less. ⁓ riding switch. I'm joking. ⁓ but yeah, some s riding switch I think is a big one throughout the season to help. ⁓ and at the as the season ends and you want to continue training, ⁓ doing more kind of one-legged or single arm stuff, things that involve a little bit of rotation, ⁓ potentially like some side lunges that force you to go back and forth or cossack squats, I think some people call them, ⁓ with some assistance. some single leg squats, but those are pretty heavy loading and if you're not used to doing them, it can be quite a challenge. great exercise for some rotation in posterior chain or your your glutes and your hamstrings would be ⁓ kickstand Romanian deadlift. That's kind of where you're standing on one foot primarily, the back foot's behind you just for a little bit of support. And then you hinge at the hip, you fold forward and you kind of reach down with the weight. Try and set it down on your front foot and stand up again. ⁓ single arm rows and probably lunges. I've I've just taken a wild stab at it. Where where are you tight? Where do you feel the is asymmetry is coming?
speaker-0: Well, I think a of it was like one of those asking for a friend situations. I do definitely come out of the season feeling that way. What I like is that you didn't automatically go to what to do now. You went to what to do before it happens. I think that's that's the key takeaway, at least for me anyway.
speaker-2: Are we talking hypothetical? Mm-hmm. And that's something where say the, you know, those core compound movements, the squat and deadlift and pushing and pulling, they're all kind of in the same plane of movement. They don't necessarily have rotation component to them. There's no balance. so they have they have their limitations. They form a good foundation, but they're not necessarily gonna help with all the corrections. ⁓ so that's where ⁓ doing exercises where your feet, your stance is offset. a single arm cable row where you say you're pulling with your right arm but your left hand your left foot is forward and vice versa. Things like that where you're just kind of mixing it up and you're incorporating different planes of movement and motion ⁓ with an offset stance and can just help your body encourage some some rebalancing.
speaker-0: Yeah, sweet. I love that answer. Nice. So moving on, you know, we've talked a lot about types of equipment and, if we're using it in the gym or otherwise, what are some considerations for people who want to build out like a bit of a home gym? Obviously, there's like a budgetary factor, but just like a simple setup, what are are some things that people should be thinking about?
speaker-2: ⁓ yeah, certainly resistance patterns go a long way. Those are good for ⁓ all sorts of corrective exercises, rehab, and if you do enough of them and holding them and you know, going for long times, isometrics, they they can develop and build strength. They won't build strength in the same way putting a big stack of weights on your back will. ⁓ but you can get a lot done at home with ⁓ some kettlebells, ⁓ some dumbbells, so just weights in either hand, a pull up bar and some kind of a T R X system or a ⁓ suspension training system, zaps z you know, tie down straps and some Olympic rings or something that you can fashion handles out of. Because with those you can do ⁓ tons of different exercises. You know, you can do kind of a a pull or a rowing movement ⁓ on them. You hook your feet into them and do crazy mountain climbers and press up variations. ⁓ you can do kind of ring dips and all sorts of different calisthenic based things with those. ⁓ so I think yeah, you you don't need much at a home gym. ⁓ just some kettlebells, ⁓ resistance bands, pull up bar and that suspension system. And then everything else is kind of gravy on on top of that. know, the more options you have for weights that you can use is beneficial. but how much do you want to spend really? 'Cause
speaker-0: Yeah, totally. Well, that's good. That's a good answer. Too easy. No excuses.
speaker-1: what are some good resources you would recommend apart from getting access to a a personal trainer or hire a personal trainer?
speaker-2: well mostly, you know, on Instagram, that's where all the influencers live. And I don't love the name influencer for them because I think a lot of these people are actually experts in their field that have resorted to social media as a means of like growing their brand, ⁓ helping them develop their businesses, ⁓ or they honestly they just want to help people. ⁓ so I the Some of these people that I have in mind are far more than I think than just influencers. ⁓ and I'd say probably one of the first ones ⁓ is Kelly Starrett from the Ready State. ⁓ he was he's got a ⁓ PhD in physiotherapy, he was one of the first 50 CrossFit gyms ever open worldwide. ⁓ and his big thing is just mobility. you should be able to use a comprehensive resistance training program almost as a screening tool. And when you get to an exercise that you can't do or an exercise that causes pain, you need to kind of reverse engineer that and figure out why that happens. And you can treat a lot of those things yourself if you have some of the know how. So he talks about foam rolling and stretching and basically giving athletes and people different tools to help heal themselves, which I think is really cool concept. ⁓ And he does some great work. another person, maybe a little bit more tutorial based for resistance training stuff, would be ⁓ Squat Universities' Instagram handle. ⁓ I think he's also a physiotherapist, but very much based in the strength world. and does some good corrective exercises, but also just instructional videos on fitness and sports and that sort of thing. I'm sure some of you have seen Steve Magnus. He's actually a little bit more of a cross country track and field coach. ⁓ but he's essentially just talks about how consistency is king when it comes to performance, ⁓ and how you know a lot of cross country athletes actually don't need to put in the crazy sessions that they do. It's just about showing up time after time and managing more realistic volumes. so He's good just as far as giving you something from that more cardio base, not necessarily specific, but just sports philosophy as well. ⁓ then there's another guy that does really cool work with kids developing athleticism. ⁓ his name's Jeremy Frisch. ⁓ F R I S C H. ⁓ and he basically talks about, you know, training kids to sprint. run and change direction and be athletes. But he just makes it a game of everything and the sessions that he runs with these kids look like nothing but fun. ⁓ and so that's something as much as nice you know, training can be really serious business. Like I said, I think having an element of play even as we age ⁓ in our sport is really important. ⁓ and especially in a sport like snowboarding where it's not necessarily all about symmetrical left and rights. all the time. You need to be able to kind of put your own spin on things. so yeah, he's a pretty inspirational person. And then another two, it's a couple that are actually a little more snowboard specific. ⁓ seems to do some pretty cool work is ⁓ the mobility duo. ⁓ I think yeah they they do a a good mix of content and have some snowboarding impractical things and injuries and things to look out for. ⁓ so yeah there's a big list and there's tons that I follow and ⁓ yeah, there's no shortage out there on the internet. But ⁓ I think that's probably
speaker-0: Good list for now. That's a solid list. just to add to that list, I mentioned it earlier in the show, but back in, I think it was 2022, we did an online member session, which I'll link with yourself, Jen and James, which was a really good one. And then last season, I think it was in the fall. Hey, Jen, you and Melissa De Silva from the National Tech Team, or maybe it was in the summer.
speaker-1: Yeah, in July.
speaker-0: July ⁓ did a cross-training online member session as well, which was really awesome. So both of them would be worth checking out. They're on our YouTube, easy to find, but I'll also link them in the show notes so people can check those out on top of the ones that John mentioned. ⁓ I think that's a good place to end it. We touched on a lot of really ⁓ helpful topics there. I thought that was really... Insightful episode. I'm just going to help our membership come into next season a little more bulletproof, which is awesome. Thanks a lot, John. Thanks for joining us today. That was rad. And to the guests, thanks for tuning in once again. If you've made it this far into the episode, thanks so much. ⁓ Please be sure to pop on and give us a review. Hit the five star, whatever it takes to help us continue to build this. That would be awesome. And if there's anything specific that you want to talk about. please feel free to email us at podcast at cassie-acms.com. And that's it for today and we'll see you in two weeks with our next episode. Thanks again, guys. Thanks, John. Thanks, Jen.
speaker-1: Thanks, John.
speaker-2: Thanks for having me.
speaker-0: and we cue the cool music that ends the show.
