How a Professional Snowboarder Strengthens Her Core
Professional snowboarder Spencer O’Brien is a six-time X Games medalist, Olympian, FIS World Champion, TTR World Champion, Winter Dew Tour Champion and five-year veteran of the Canadian National Team.
Whoa, that’s quite the resume, right?!
But get this. She first learned to snowboard at age 11, and then turned pro just five years later at the age of 16. Her career hasn’t been without hardship though. In 2013, O’Brien was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis — just two months before the Sochi Winter Olympics. While dealing with pain and overcoming obstacles to identify the right course of treatment, O’Brien has kept kicking butt in the sport of snowboarding.
And today, we have the workout that helps to keep her core strong and her snowboarding tricks ON POINT.
Spencer O’Brien’s Core Workout
- Diagonal plank matrix, 3 x 12: Start in forearm plank position,. Reach out with your left hand, then your right, keeping your torso square. Then push up to full plank and do two mountain climbers. That’s one rep!
- Plank arcs, 3 x 6: Spencer’s tip: “Keep your torso square and your bum down.”
- Stability ball V-ups, 3 x 12. If you don’t have a ball, you can do these on the floor.
- TRX diagonal mountain climbers, 3 x 10: Make sure to do 10 on each side!
Spencer’s Core Workout Video
Kick-ass, right?! Right now Spencer is training to represent Canada at the upcoming Pyeongchang Winter Games Olympics in 2018 in the Snowboard Slopestyle and Big Air disciplines. We wish her so much luck! —Jenn
Comments
My hairdresser surfs loads and he mentioned some of these exercises last week. I guess snowboarding and surfing is pretty similar? Great post BTW!
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