Use Yoga To Jumpstart Your Winter Weather Sport

Specific postures can strengthen the legs for skiing, open the hips for skating, and improve balance and alignment for snowboarding and snowshoe. "If you're a regular outdoor exerciser in the coldest months of the year, then you already know that your muscles and body grow tighter in cooler climates," said fitness expert and yoga instructor Beth Shaw, founder of YogaFit.com, "and your joint connections grow stiffer in the cold, especially as you get older."

Most fitness experts recommend that you not only warm up prior to starting your sport but also finish off your activity with a few minutes of sports-specific stretching. The brief posture series below designed by Shaw, an avid cross-trainer, targets overused and overworked muscles involved in cold-weather sports, especially activities where your body is folded in forward flexion (during skiing or biking, for instance). These poses relieve stress and tension in the lower back, hips, hamstrings and hip flexors, and each series is sports-specific to help boost athletic performance and prevent cold-weather injuries, said Shaw.

Feel free to use these postures either before your sport, during the week to cross-train for your sport, or even afterward to utilize as a stretching aid. Try to hold each posture for five to 10 deep breaths, or one full minute -- whichever comes first!

Ski and Snowboard
Building lower-body strength and muscular endurance is key for traditional skiers and shredders. In addition to building strength, these athletes should spend five minutes before their sport opening their hips and doing moves that protect their lower back and sacrum areas.

• Upside-Down Pigeon. (pictured above) To open the hips and soothe the lower back, lie back and cross right ankle over left knee and flex right toes as you lengthen the lower back on the floor, breathing deeply for 30 seconds. Switch sides.


• Seated Butterfly. To open the hips, stretch the thighs and soothe the low-back: Sit tall with soles of both feet touching. Try to get your knees closer to the floor and curl your torso slowly over your feet for a minute or so, breathing deeply through the nose.

Snowshoe and Skating
Performing postures that hone your sense of balance are a must, including a yoga Tree pose and Dancer pose. It's also helpful to zero in on core strength to boost involvement in your sport, so make the time to do a variety of ab crunches and yoga-inspired core strengtheners at least three times a week, said Shaw.

• Bridge. To relax the back, stretch the abdominals and strengthen the pelvis, lie back with knees bent and walk your shoulders under your body. Clasp hands and lift hip bones up to hip height and hold with knees in line for 30 to 60 seconds.


• Tree. Improve your balance and postural muscles: Stand gazing at a fixed point and manually bring right foot up high into left inner thighs. Place hands in prayer and hold here to balance for 30 to 60 seconds, then switch.

There are many more athletic-inspired, winterized workouts on That's Fit!

Fitness expert Nicole Dorsey Straff is a Los Angeles-based exercise physiologist and author, and frequently writes about diet, health and wellness.