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Exercises, stretches and warm-down exercises for downhill skateboarding

stretches for downhill skateboarding

The one thing outside skateboarding that has made a significant impact on my skills and ability to skate has been exercise (and stretching). It’s been a long time coming, but here is a guide to skate workouts, exercising and stretching for downhill skateboarding.

I teamed up with my good friend Arthur Briant (a license personal trainer) to bring this guide to you.

Table of Contents

Why it’s important ..

Like with any other physical sport or activity, you’ll get a lot of pain and strain in skateboarding. And whilst to some degree that’s normal and expected, we should be doing what we can to minimize it.

And I’m not saying that everybody should start hitting the gym, working out, stretching before and after sessions etc. No … At the end of the day, people consume and enjoy skateboarding differently and you’ll need to approach it in the way you’ll enjoy it most – we do this for fun after all. So no, this isn’t for everyone …

However, if you do want to be able to skate sustainably – in a way that you can skate again and again and again, without waking up the next day feeling like you’ve been run over, then consider implementing a workout and or a stretch routine. You’ll be able to skate for longer, will be able physically feel good after sessions, and will be able to reduce the strain on your body considerably ..

Finally, DH skateboarding should NOT cause you pain. If you have pain (too much pain) in your hips, your knees, lower back, ankles etc. when you skate, you’re likely doing something wrong and dangerous. You can seriously hurt yourself and cause damage to your body. 

If you feel any of those above things, then you NEED a stretch routine to help loosen up your body. This will allow you to skate pain free and so that no muscles are compensating and working where another muscle should be doing its job.

Still not convinced? Below are some common downhill skate injuries, and how working out and stretching can help prevent them.

Common DH skateboarding Injuries/How working out can prevent them

Dislocated shoulders

How it happens: Pucks getting caught in cracks, over extending your shoulders, a bad slam.

Probably about 80% of dh skaters have dislocated their shoulders. I dislocated mine in 2018 and shit has never been the same since lol. Fortunately, I happened to have a lot of information from other DH skaters who highlighted the importance of physiotherapy and not skating until I was fully recovered. I was also wise enough to follow said advice.

How can working out prevent it? Simply beefing up your chest and shoulder area will give your muscles enough strength to keep your shoulders in place. More information on specific work-outs and exercises below.

Knee Pain/Ligament damage

You don’t need to be an old man to feel this one. I’m mean, how many people complain about their knees after a session? 

How it happens: Squats, knee overuse, normal use, bending your back knee the wrong way…

Sprains and tendonitis can happen in the knees. We overuse the bent knee position and put considerable pressure on our knees and feet while skating. We can suffer from localised pain, stiffness and swelling.
Sprains can happen as well, and tendonitis usually develops over time …

Finally, a BIG issue that very few people talk about is back-knee pain. This is the pain you get from forcing your back knee into that slanted position you put your leg into for the heelside slides

If you have poor flexibility and do this, it will cause a strain on your hips and in particular, your knee ligaments. This is because your body is trying to compensate for the lack of flexibility by making these parts of your body do the work, when they shouldn’t be engaged much. 

I’m sure a lot of you have stretched/damaged MCLs, ACLs etc. from doing this. This feeling might be even more apparent if you do squat slides and have a lot of your weight on that back leg …

longboard squat slide

Well how can we fix it? Improving your lower body flexibility, and strengthening the lower body can help make these problems (especially the knee one) go away. Again, specific workouts below.

***I suffered this when I started downhill, but after putting some effort into improving my squat the knee issue went away … but it was kind of scary. My right knee felt weak and would sometimes wobble when walking because the ligaments were damaged lol. I used to try so hard to have that “perfect” triangle form that I was damaging my body to make it happen. A silly thing to do looking back.

Back strain

How it happens: Tucking, heelside squats, squats, poor posture

OK, maybe cheating a bit with this one cause we all have back pain. However, the back is involved in maintaining balance, twisting motions and when we tuck. We usually don’t engage it in the best way when tucking and most of us round it.

longboard tuck

Strengthening your back will improve your posture, increase your tuck stamina, and decrease most pain you might have from it.

Other body parts that usually get hurt

  • Hips -You can get hip flexor pain or pull your hip muscles
  • Calfs – Calves are massively involved in longboarding. By working and stretching them out, you will make them less tight, stronger, more resistant to injuries and will allow you to handle the pump/burning feeling you get better.
  • Neck – If you’ve had to hold a tuck for while, you’ll know that holding up your head + helmet in the same position can sometimes be hard. Some extra strength will help with endurance.

We will try and sort all these issues out below.

What else will working out help improve?

Working out will help you be a better skateboarder

Not only will this help you recover better but you will also gain an improvement in performance. You don’t need big muscles to push harder, but some exercises will allow you to gain a lot of strength and explosivity so you can kick harder.

The flexibility I gained from stretching has DEFINITELY made me a better skater. I have better “form” now and I can apply pressure on board and “manipulate” it more effectively. Meaning I have more control and the ability to skate my board, without it skating me … if that makes sense 

And if you haven’t realised at this point, all the best freeriders have insane lower body flexibility. Coincidence? I think not ….

But yeah, we are talking about slight improvements in strength and flexibility which can make big improvements in your skate abilities. 

And yeah, most of these workouts have been made with skateboarding in mind, so you will quickly see results if you stick to them.

Finally, working out will just be beneficial to your everyday life too – it will simply feel good to be in a bit better shape. People will also not only see a good skater, but they’ll also see a wonderful man/woman going 50mph on their longboarding. You’ll become one hell of a sexy mf.

longboarder abs

An actual pic of me ^^^^. Yes, that’s actually me.

Working out/Stretching helps with recovery …

Working out will make you feel sore at first but in the long run you will become tougher and this will help you with your recovery. We will also be talking about the importance of stretching and warming-up – with help from our PT expert Arthur (Actually, Arthur will be doing most of the heavily lifting hehe … get it?) …

Downhill skating can be quite hard on the joints and can stiffen up the body quite a bit. Stretching can lessen this impact on the joints and muscles. It will help keep the pain away as well. It’s always good to loosen up the body before and after doing anything physical. It will help reduce inflammation of the muscles and help reduce soreness.

Helps fix muscle imbalances

The most obvious muscle imbalance in skateboarding is that your pushing leg is often much stronger and bigger than your other one. I’m not gonna lie, I (Abuga), have a monstrous looking right leg, and a rather less intimidating left leg.

It’s like playing tennis (or that other thing boys do), you usually have one arm stronger than the other. It’s obvious that you are using one a lot more than the other. 

So yeah in this guide, Arthur and I will highlight to you how to sort this problem out in your workouts. Skip the workout sections if you’re ready to learn!

How to workout to improve your skateboarding experience?

When can you expect to see results?

In a matter of a few weeks, you will start to feel the difference in your performance and your physical shape. The first days might make you feel sore, but it’s all a question of habit and getting used to it. 

Optimising your time between skateboarding and exercising/gymming …

We’re all busy human beings with jobs, responsibilities, hobbies and loads of other shit on our plates too … how the hell are we going to find time to work-out as well?

Well, there are many ways of doing so. You can start small for one – you can start out with some bodyweight stuff, and then move on to include weights in your workout and maybe even eventually join a gym. 

Arthur says that joining a gym is super important and is the most effective way to go about this – it’s the fastest way to build strength. But for now work with what you have.

The workouts will be about an hour to an hour and a half long.

What muscles will we focus on?

What’s important is specialising – having the right exercise selection and focusing on what matters. Just like with skateboarding, you have to start with the basics so you can have a good “foundation”. The principle will be the same here – why go to more advanced stuff if you can’t get the basics right?

Even at an advanced level, what matters is a lot of practice on the (you guessed it!) basics. Then you can tweak a few things according to you and your body-morphology and your own experience.

The most important parts to work on will be:

  • Core strength
  • Legs
  • Lower back

These muscles are the ones which are working the most during skate sessions.

Then we’ll focus on the up keep of certain other upper body areas (some less important than others):

  • Neck, 
  • Shoulders, 
  • Arms,
  • Chest, 
  • Upper back.

Who is Arthur Briant and why is he qualified to give workout advice?

From this point on, my friend Arthur will take the main control of the reigns.

I’ve known Arthur for a few years now. He is a licensed  personal trainer with the body to prove it. He writes for his blog natural-flex where he promotes natural bodybuilding and creates programs/guides (much like DH254) for people getting into bodybuilding and working out. We’ve teamed up to create the ULTIMATE DH SKATE WORKOUT GUIDE

arthur briant

If you want to find out more about him, or get a program to suit your specific needs, hit him up here.

Longboard warm up workouts/stretches

Because our muscles are rather stiff and cold, we want to focus on dynamic movements and stretches that will allow our body to slowly warm up and open up. The first is body-weight squats.

Piece of advice, for all of the following, don’t try to go 100% the first time. Be gentle, slowly moving in and out of the positions and allowing your muscles to warm up. If you’re too quick, or go in too deep, you can stress your muscles and they will stiffen up as a reaction. Be gentle, and slowly move into the position.

If you feel like you’re fighting the muscle to make it do what you want to, you should reduce how much you’re stretching orpushing it.

Body-weight squats and lunges

You can simply go and do a couple of body-weight squat sets, and a couple of sets of lunges for your lower body.

skate workouts warm-up lunge stretch
  • 2 sets of 15-20
  • 2 sets of 15-20

Push ups and shoulder stuff

Go for a couple of sets of push-ups for your upper body.

skate workouts warm-up push ups
skate work
  • 2 sets of 10-15

How does Abuga warm up?

I like to do some supported squats. I stand before a wall/chair/my bed and support myself as I go into the squat. I repeat this a few times, trying to go deeper with each repetition. When I feel a bit of resistance, I don’t push my muscles beyond that point. I sort of bounce at the point for a bit, moving in and out of the position so my body warms up and that tension gets released. 

I do maybe 3 sets of 10-15 (even 20 on really stiff days) and try to work on gently opening up my lower body.

For my upper body, I like to take a big book (that weighs like 1kg) and I do a couple of lateral raises to the front and the side. Usually high-repetition (like1-15) just so I can feel my shoulders worked a little bit.

Longboarding warm-down stretches and how to warm down after a skate session

Alright, so you’ve come home from skateboarding. After having a shower you should spend some minutes stretching.

GMB fitness has an excellent hip-mobility routine that I like to follow. Check it out below.

Naturally over time, I’ve added and taken away things that weren’t effective for me. So whilst my routine is similar to GMBs, I have my own routine which covers more of the body and does have one or two different things. Check it out:

Done! How often should you do this?

At minimum, at least two times a week. It can work well as an after session warm down, or simply as a stretching session to ensure you’re limber and won’t stiffen up over time.

But have realistic expectations. Whilst this will help you deal with most of the pain and should aid in recovery, you likely will still be a bit stiff after some sessions.

Not gonna lie, stretching can be painful too! But don’t push it too hard. Over stretching can cause injuries and it will limit your progress.

The skate workouts

What type of workouts will we do?

Let’s do a quick recap. When lifting weights, there is usually a goal of either improving strength, speed, or muscle mass (or all together). In longboarding, we will try and work on these three aspects at the same time – strength and speed because you want to be stronger and faster to have a real impact when propelling yourself. Then muscle mass (ok, we are not talking about getting massive) because you want to get defined and learn to go through a more resistant and muscle burning type of workout for when it comes to holding positions like when tucking.

Let’s understand the process behind these 3 categories.

Strength

If you want to build strenght you usually stay at a low rep range in their workouts. It’s a lot about the technique and the nervous system and the capacity to be very consistent and frequent with your training.

People who build strength are not making their muscles as sore as people who want to build muscle, therefore, they can train their movements much more frequently on that low rep range scheme and become stronger quicker.

Muscle mass

People trying to build muscle also have to get stronger just like people who do strength. The only difference is that they are getting stronger following a higher rep range orientated type of workout. Thanks to higher repetitions, they are leaving enough stress with the negative/positive phase of the movements with enough time under tension which leads to muscle hypertrophy. If they want to build muscle, they have to get stronger and lift heavier overtime. Only difference is that they might not be able to train the same movements as many times as strength people do. Their muscles need more rest in between two sessions. Bodybuilders also add some strength training to their workout (just not as much) so they can get stronger on their higher repetitions ranges and therefore build muscle quicker.

Speed and explosivity

This one is basically practicing movements which are built with momentum. It is not rare to see people do jump squats, cleans, jerks, sprints (pushing a load) to work on their explosivity. They try to get stronger overtime while keeping a great speed in their movements.

Because all these three categories are in our interest here, the workouts will be adapted to improve on these 3 skills at the same time. Though, explosive exercises like clean or jerks are very technical, what we will do here is keep it simple with exercises like squats or bench-press. Just keep in mind to be explosive in your sets for these types of exercises once you get comfortable with the technique. On the bench, for example, you will take a breath and push the bar up like you want to push it to the roof!

How often should you work out?

This one really depends on the level of activity your life implies. Because we consider this to be a beginner plan, we will take it slowly. We are starting small, as we first want to see a few results before doing more.

How long will the workouts take and how often will they be?

The workouts will be set to be 1 hour to 1 hour and a half, twice a week.

This way, it really doesn’t get in the way of your regular stuff.

For these two workouts a week, we will have a day-1 and day-2. Because if you are a busy person and exercising is your third priority – after your main activity (job for example) and longboarding (which might be your second activity) – you might not be able to maintain an exact routine for specific days.

Just try to give enough space between your day 1 and day 2 workouts to allow recovery.

Finding it too hard? Feel free to reduce the amount of sets per exercises.

Day 1: Legs, core strength, lower back

We want to be efficient so we will focus on exercises which can work on both two muscles at the same time. For example, romanian deadlifts can work both your hamstrings and lower back.

We will also try to do more sets on a few exercises. We want to focus on effective exercises. No point wasting time doing 4 or 5 exercises when you can focus on 2 or 3 targeting all needed areas simply with more sets instead.

Warm up exercises

Workouts start with a good warm-up. A lot of people do cardio to warm-up but that can be a mistake if your goal is to work on your muscles. You have got to focus on the muscles you are going to work on, which means you simply go light enough to warm-up the area you will be working heavily. Naturally, we will warm-up your legs first. Legs are the most demanding muscles to work on. We will start with them.

Do 2-3 warm-up sets of the first exercise you will perform, squats. Then you can do one warm-up set at the start of each specific exercise. If it came to the regular gym-goer, I would advise warming up for at least 6-8 sets. 2-3 sets might make more sense if you lack time and working out isn’t your main activity, but do not hesitate to always warm up more even if this sometimes stepping over your working sets session. In the long run, you’re winning, which is what matters.

Start with an empty bar, then gradually increase towards your working set.

If you are a complete beginner in your workouts, start very low, just with the bar.

A good idea is to ask people around your gym to help you get the right movement. (You can also film yourself to see if you’re doing the right thing).

If you see any powerlifters around, ask one of them. You are almost sure they always know good form.

We will take 3 minutes rest between exercises, not sets, EXERCISES.

The workout

Squats 

With squats, we are working on legs as a whole. Everything is involved: glutes, hamstrings, quads. We keep it relatively in a short rep-range. Make it explosive. You go for 8 to 10 reps.

Some squat training tips …

Now, ideally, once you get stronger and your technique is good, you can start going for a lower rep range like 5×5 or even go for a strength routine like this one:

  • Session 1 : 5x5x102.2% of your 10RM
  • Session 2 : 5x4x107.7% of your 10RM
  • Session 3 : 5x3x113.3% of your 10RM
  • Session 4 : 5x5x107.7% of your 10RM
  • Session 5 : 5x4x113.3% of your 10RM
  • Session 6 : 5x3x118.8% of your 10RM
  • Session 7 (maximum of repetitions at x 107.7%)

You test out your current 10 maximum repetitions on the movement you wish to use for this program and then multiply it by the percentages written above. For examples, if you can perform 10x60kg on the squats, you will then proceed that way:

  • Session 1 : 5×5 at 61.3kg(62,5) 
  • Session 2 : 5×4 at 64.7kg (65)
  • Session 3 : 5×3 at 68 (67.5)kg 
  • Session 4 : 5×5 at 64.7kg (65)
  • Session 5 : 5×4 at 68kg (67.5)
  • Session 6 : 5×3 at 71,3kg (72,5kg)
  • Session 7 (maximum repetitions at 65kg)

As you can see, your 5×4 on session 1 becomes your 5×5 on session 4. You then hope on session 7 to see yourself get 10 repetitions or close to it and add a 5kg to your 10 maximum repetitions.

The calculator will usually give you numbers which are not super accurate. In this case,  round it to the next 2.5. Your local gym will usually allow you to scale things every 2.5kg. I (Arthur) used this strength program for a long time and it worked well. Although, it might be more effective for those who will eat at a calorie surplus, which might not be your case for longboarding. I still do believe you can gain some reasonable strength with this program, it will just take more time and more trial. If you fail to improve, intentionally lower your 10 RM by 5kg and restart the strength program. That can apply to other compound movements like deadlifts or bench-press if you wish to add those to your routine. 

The goal of this kind of program is to get stronger and explosive. You can then do higher rep ranges like we will see now, where you will be able to build some muscle but also learn how to handle better “pain” or “burning stages” just like when you hit a certain position for a long period of time on your longboard. Right, back to the work-out.

squats
  • 2 minute 30 seconds in between the sets
  • 4 working sets of 8-10

(~12 minutes)

Bulgarian Split squats

The split squats work on everything but it focuses even more on the glutes. Glutes are very important when it comes to pushing. You can do one warm-up set with lower weights than your working set.

  • 4 working sets of 12-15
  • 2 minute rest between the sets

(~10 minutes)

Romanian deadlift

Here we are focusing on your hamstrings. They are also very important when it comes to pushing. You will also benefit from working on your lower back which is a good transition before the next exercise.

  • 3 sets of 12-15
  • 2 minute rest between the sets

(~8-10 minutes)

Hyper extensions

These make your lower back stronger. You’ll be able to hold a tuck for longer and sit more comfortably during heelsides.

  • 3 sets of 15-20
  • 2 minute rest between the sets

(~8-10 minutes)

Calf raises

Calf raises both sides at the same time. You can do them on the smith machine or at bodyweight with a countertop for balance if needed.

  • 3 sets of 30-40
  • 2 minute rest between the sets

(~8-10 minutes)

Crunches
  • 4 sets of 25-30
  • 1 minute rest between the sets

(8~minutes)

Side planks

Side plank is a static exercise. Static exercises definitely are not the best to build muscle as they do not offer stretch and do not involve range of motion with weights. But here we really just want to work on your stability and core strength for when you will have to keep good balance.

  • 2 sets of 1 minute left side
  • 2 sets of 1 minute right side
  • 1 minute rest between the sets

(~8-10 minutes)

Day 2: Neck, shoulders, arms, chest, upper back

For your day 2, we will focus on one good exercise per muscle group. Indeed, we just want to reinforce all parts without spending 5 hours in the gym. 

The workout

Lateral raises

One great exercise for shoulders are lateral raises. We will practice them with pretty long repetitions. We want to grow them a little bit sure, but we also want to have them go through a high rep range to learn how to handle the burning stages. 

lateral raises
  • 4 sets of 20-30 reps
  • 1 minute 30 seconds rest between the sets

(~10 minutes)

Neck raises

After shoulders, we can focus on the neck, because it’s good transition as your shoulders will have warmed up the neck area quite well.

We will do some laying face down plate neck, go up and down:

neck raises with weights
  • 3 sets of 15-20
  • 1 minute 30 seconds rest between the sets

(~8-10 minutes)

Supinated grip for pull-ups

We then go onto your upper back. Because we want to be efficient, we will focus on one exercise which is perfect to work both on your back and biceps: pull ups

close grip pull ups
  • 3 sets of 6-8
  • 2 minutes rest between the sets

(~8 minutes)

Alternatively, if you cannot do any pull ups, you can perform this on a lat pull-down machine.

pull downs

If you do not like any of these exercises or your gym does not have a lat-pulldown machine, you can perform rows. Eg. below.

rows
  • 3 sets 10-12
  • 2 minutes rest between the sets\

(~ 8 minutes)

Close grip bench
close grip bench

This is not the most optimal workout for the chest as it is mostly an exercise for triceps. But let’s take a look at it this way, your chest is still working and your triceps are too. You are being efficient. 

  • 4 sets of 10-15
  • 2 minutes rest between the sets

(~10-12 minutes)

Alternatively, if you have more time, you can simply do some sets of wide grip bench and then close grip bench.

bench press
  • 3 sets of 10-15
  • 3 sets of 15-20
  • 2 minutes rest between the sets.

Feel like stepping up? Feel free to use the strength program described above for a movement like bench-press. If such is the case, feel free to move your bench-press at the first place of this work-out so you are full of energy.

(~10-12 minutes)

These workouts might seem like a lot, or they might not seem like much to do. People who regularly go to the gym might find it quite easy. But if you are not a regular gym-goer they can seem like a lot.

Again, we are not trying to build muscle. Our goal is just to see improvements in your skateboarding abilities, then your physical shape will follow.

Finding it too hard? Feel free to reduce the amount of sets per exercise.

What if I can’t sign up to a gym?

If you can’t go to a gym, you can practice those sessions with dumbbells – naturally you’ll have to find some alternatives for the exercises which cannot be done with the dumbells.

As an example, if you cannot do pull-ups, you can do rows with dumbbells.

If you can’t do bench-press, you can do push-ups for your chest and close grip push-ups.

Because there is an infinity of specific cases for each individual, we invite you to comment and ask questions down below! We will answer on what you can do in your specific case.

Home workouts

God damn! If you’re simply broke as hell (like Abuga) and want to pass on a pair of dumbbells or a gym membership, this is for you. Exercising at home will work well and if you’re consistent, it will be enough to see some improvements.

Are home workouts better or worse?

Home workouts might be the way forward, not only will it save you time as you do not have to go to the gym, you can simply get it done in your bedroom at any time of the day…after waking up, before dinner/going to bed etc.

Also given the whole COVID situation, it might be the only option for some people …

How are the home workouts going to be different?

As seen above, we will also try and focus on the same muscles – but at home. Instead of having a day 1 and day 2, we will do twice a week the same full body workout.

We will do the same full body workout twice a week .

Why?

Well, taking it from the fact you simply have no weights, the only way to scale things and see improvement at home is to bring higher intensity in your workouts. Having two similar days will bring more consistency to these muscles which don’t have the usual load required like with weights. 

The fact you are insisting on the same muscles twice a week then makes it more relevant. See, even if you are a beginner, the truth is you can probably do 50 bodyweight squats in a row pretty easily. So what’s the point in doing this?

We can upgrade our intensity by doing some pre-fatigue exercises before our working sets so our working sets feel hard just like heavier sets.

When working out it’s always very important to write things down and know where you stand. 

By writing things down, you have landmarks and can look back on things and see how you’re outperforming from weeks ago.You’ve got to know where you stand so you know when you have improved. Please, do so! .. (you could also keep a mental note, but you might forget and be inconsistent).

Since we are working at home and can’t go heavy, this makes it so that we have to follow the principles of exercise selection and focusing on what really matters even more strictly.

See, if we were to do 5 exercises, we would have to shift our focus each time by changing exercises and taking rest in between them. But if we keep it with less, we are just blasting the 2-3 exercises for more sets. 

You then really have a full commitment to these sets and make it much more efficient, productive and intense.

Legs, core strength & lower back, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, upper back

We also have to warm-up to get physically and mentally ready. Don’t just use your warm-up to think about the physical aspect. Use these easy sets to think: “I am about to workout the best I can”, and visualise yourself doing so.

The Home workouts (skate workouts you can do at home)

Legs

Warm-up

Bodyweight squats 3×15

Workout
  • 1×20-25 bodyweight squats and directly 1 set of bulgarian split squats until failure (left and right side). 
  • 1×20-25 bodyweight squats and directly 1 set of bulgarian split squats until failure (left and right side). 
  • 1×20-25 bodyweight squats and directly 1 set of bulgarian split squats until failure (left and right side). 

Because it is hard to scale and go ”heavy”, we use the bodyweight squats to make our bulgarian split squats “heavier” and as our working sets.

Write down the number of bulgarian split squats repetitions you can do and try to beat it overtime. If it becomes too easy, increase your bodyweight squats repetitions so you can then re-scale your progression for your bulgarian split squats. If this becomes too easy, then you can think about buying a pair of dumbells!

  • Calf raises on a stair step or with a countertop: 4×50

Core strength & Lower back

Circuit
  • 1×15-20 crunches + 30 seconds plank + 1×15-20 Bridge exercise
  • 1 minute rest
  • 1×15-20 crunches + 30 seconds plank + 1×15-20 Bridge exercise
  • 1 minute rest
  • 1×15-20 crunches + 30 seconds plank + 1×15-20 Bridge exercise

Too easy? Load your torso with a few books for your crunches or think about buying a plate or two!

Arms, chest, shoulders, neck and upper back

Circuit 

Repeat 3 times.

  • Diamond push-ups (narrow distance)
  • 30 seconds rest
  • Reversed pull-ups
  • 30 seconds rest
arm pull ups
  • Pronated rows with a towel
  • 30 seconds rest

We are working our triceps and chest on the diamond push-ups. Then, we are working on our biceps and back with reversed pull-ups. Finally, we are also working on our upper back with the towel rows but this time you will feel your shoulders, rear shoulders and neck much more as this position requires a lot of stability work.

Alternatively and if you prefer, you can replace the diamond push-ups with dips.

Note that if you have any questions, we will gladly answer you and help you with your program if it needs to be modified for yourself!

Conclusion & Minimum viable action …

I can see it being difficult to integrate the workout into your life fully, so I suggest you integrate the warm downs and warm-ups as minimum and then start to add the other things slowly and as you get used to it.

Progress desensitization is the way to go with these things and is the best way to build a lasting habit.

And finally, you could also take it easy with the warm down. I do a ton of stretching and repetition which you don’t have to reflect in your own warm down.

Thanks for reading. If you like this article and want to read more, let me know on social media! Getting feedback from people is how I know these articles are helping people. Alternatively, you can also support me through Patreon. Whichever works for you 

Thanks to Patrons Jed, Mowgii, Kasajja, and SuperBadJuJu, Andrew, Jay, and Jan for the support so far.

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One comment on “Exercises, stretches and warm-down exercises for downhill skateboarding

[…] for anyone who just wants to get fitter in general! This means it can contribute to your sport. This article which was made by myself and Abuga, owner of downhill254 (skateboarding website) is a good example […]

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Use the code – “Downhill254” for 5% off on cometskateboards.com

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