Shoulder And Fitness, Again

Well it's exactly a month before we head out to Morzine and the Portes Du Soleil. A few weeks ago I started to ride into work in an effort to build some fitness before I start shredding. Remember, hard day on the hill + no hot-tub can = sore muscles. I don't like to waste any time out there.

Alas, I've stopped riding into work; for now at least. Mainly because my setup sucks. I'm not knocking the loan of a bike from a mate, but no breaks starts to become an issue on steep hills. It was ok for the first 5 or so journeys, but then I travelled out in the rain, and found the break-performance to be less than safe.

I started to resort to the foot-wedged-between-tyre-and-bike approach to slowing down. Not great, and my skate sneaks didn't like it either. The more I did this the more I knocked the break system out of place, so they stopped working on flat areas too, with the added annoyance of constantly being resisted by one of the pads always pushing against the rim.

It got worse after we had snow. With the ice hanging around on the pavements for a day or two I was forced to use the roads. Not too bad on the way in, when it's light, but after wrongly assuming the ice would melt during the day, I had to use the roads in the dark. No lights, no breaks, busy roundabout. Dumb.

So I've swapped that for 20 minutes on a cross-trainer style machine that we've got at home. It's ok - but especially good on the legs.

What's going better is the shoulder rehab. It's responding well to all the excercises and stretches that I give it. After my "warm-up cardio", I do something like this:

• 2 sets of lateral raises
• 2 sets of shoulder presses
• 2 sets of wide press-ups
• 2 sets of shrugs
• 2 sets of curls
• Some shoulder stretches
• 2 sets of squats on a balance board - that's fun
• Some 'core' excersises

A lot of that is aimed at strengthening the shoulder, but the core stuff and squats will help on the board.

The shoulder's getting stronger. I'm pleased. It can still be a little sore in the morning when I wake up, and I haven't tried any pull-ups for about a week now, and last time it was a no-go. But the progress is good.

I suppose I'll only know how good it is for snowboarding after taking a few slams...