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mattbellI went snowboarding for the 3rd time in my life over the last couple of days. I now have a total of 6 days experience.
- You have to dispose of a hell of a lot of potential energy when you go down the mountain. If I weigh 90kg (snowboard and clothes included) and the run is 300m, then I have mgh = 90*9.8*300 = 264600 joules of energy that I need to dispose of as quickly as possible. For reference, 264600 joules is enough to run one of the big 23w compact fluorescent lamps for over 3 hours. If I fell straight down the mountain, I'd impact the ground at close to terminal velocity and get turned into a pile of mush. Thus I need to impart that energy onto other things. These include pushing air molecules around, kicking up snow, pushing snow down the mountain, compacting snow, and warming up myself, the snow, the board, and the air.
- Snowboarding is such a lovely activity because it combines two very different things I like a lot. One is looking at serenely beautiful 3D terrain (natural or otherwise) from an elevated point of view. The other is zooming around and feeling the rush. The two states are nicely alternated -- ride the lift and peacefully take in the landscape, then zoom down it.
- I never feel quite in control when I'm going straight down the mountain with the board flat I feel like I'm constantly in danger of catching an unexpected edge and falling over. I've mostly worked around this by always having a slight edge to one side or the other. I know this likely slows me down, but it makes me feel more in control.
- It took a little over an hour to refresh myself back to my prior skill level after 2 years of no snowboarding. On the second day, there was still a refresh period, but it was around two minutes.
- I'm wondering how hard to push myself to maximize my rate of learning. I could go down the mountain at a comfortable pace and learn to maximize my amount of control by repeatedly practicing known movements. Or, I could try to push myself beyond my comfort zone and learn to perform acceptably well under more demanding circumstances. One potential disadvantage of the latter approach is that I'm likely to get fatigued faster from falls, and that will likely reduce my learning rate.
- Having lots of padding totally helps my rate of learning as it reduces the penalty associated with falling. I have wrist guards, knee guards, and a tailbone guard (ok, ok, I have ass pads).
- How do I reduce the amount of soreness and pain I feel after snowboarding? I imagine stretching would help, but the top few google results for snowboarding stretches were unimpressive. I imagine there are several muscles I need to build up. My neck, shoulders, inner thighs, knees, and ankles are all sore at the moment. However, I don't spend enough time snowboarding to give my muscles the encouragement they need to grow. Are there exercises I can do at home that work out similar muscles?
- A high school PE teacher told me that heavily exercised muscle groups need a day to recover after a day of heavy use -- if you don't give them a break, then they don't have a chance to build up strength. This of course makes fitting a lot of snowboarding into a short trip hard. After two consecutive days snowboarding, I'd have to take it easy the third day.
- I learned how to carve properly. It feels really good to carve well, like I'm riding a roller coaster of my own creation.
- It seems like friction is lower at higher speeds. If I'm moving slowly on a path with a very mild slope and the path itself is slanted, I seem to go farther by going down the slant to get up some speed and then heading down the path.
- I feel like my reflexes are slow. If I'm going on an edge and the snow changes from mushy to icy, I have to very quickly readjust my stance. It seems like I often can't do it fast enough... or perhaps the problem is that I don't intuitively know what stance to switch to, and that slows me down. It's hard to tell what the snow is going to be like just by looking at it, but I hear the change in sound as soon as I transition onto a new type of snow.
- I need new snow pants. My first ones are ready to self-destruct, and that's probably not pretty to watch.
- You have to dispose of a hell of a lot of potential energy when you go down the mountain. If I weigh 90kg (snowboard and clothes included) and the run is 300m, then I have mgh = 90*9.8*300 = 264600 joules of energy that I need to dispose of as quickly as possible. For reference, 264600 joules is enough to run one of the big 23w compact fluorescent lamps for over 3 hours. If I fell straight down the mountain, I'd impact the ground at close to terminal velocity and get turned into a pile of mush. Thus I need to impart that energy onto other things. These include pushing air molecules around, kicking up snow, pushing snow down the mountain, compacting snow, and warming up myself, the snow, the board, and the air.
- Snowboarding is such a lovely activity because it combines two very different things I like a lot. One is looking at serenely beautiful 3D terrain (natural or otherwise) from an elevated point of view. The other is zooming around and feeling the rush. The two states are nicely alternated -- ride the lift and peacefully take in the landscape, then zoom down it.
- I never feel quite in control when I'm going straight down the mountain with the board flat I feel like I'm constantly in danger of catching an unexpected edge and falling over. I've mostly worked around this by always having a slight edge to one side or the other. I know this likely slows me down, but it makes me feel more in control.
- It took a little over an hour to refresh myself back to my prior skill level after 2 years of no snowboarding. On the second day, there was still a refresh period, but it was around two minutes.
- I'm wondering how hard to push myself to maximize my rate of learning. I could go down the mountain at a comfortable pace and learn to maximize my amount of control by repeatedly practicing known movements. Or, I could try to push myself beyond my comfort zone and learn to perform acceptably well under more demanding circumstances. One potential disadvantage of the latter approach is that I'm likely to get fatigued faster from falls, and that will likely reduce my learning rate.
- Having lots of padding totally helps my rate of learning as it reduces the penalty associated with falling. I have wrist guards, knee guards, and a tailbone guard (ok, ok, I have ass pads).
- How do I reduce the amount of soreness and pain I feel after snowboarding? I imagine stretching would help, but the top few google results for snowboarding stretches were unimpressive. I imagine there are several muscles I need to build up. My neck, shoulders, inner thighs, knees, and ankles are all sore at the moment. However, I don't spend enough time snowboarding to give my muscles the encouragement they need to grow. Are there exercises I can do at home that work out similar muscles?
- A high school PE teacher told me that heavily exercised muscle groups need a day to recover after a day of heavy use -- if you don't give them a break, then they don't have a chance to build up strength. This of course makes fitting a lot of snowboarding into a short trip hard. After two consecutive days snowboarding, I'd have to take it easy the third day.
- I learned how to carve properly. It feels really good to carve well, like I'm riding a roller coaster of my own creation.
- It seems like friction is lower at higher speeds. If I'm moving slowly on a path with a very mild slope and the path itself is slanted, I seem to go farther by going down the slant to get up some speed and then heading down the path.
- I feel like my reflexes are slow. If I'm going on an edge and the snow changes from mushy to icy, I have to very quickly readjust my stance. It seems like I often can't do it fast enough... or perhaps the problem is that I don't intuitively know what stance to switch to, and that slows me down. It's hard to tell what the snow is going to be like just by looking at it, but I hear the change in sound as soon as I transition onto a new type of snow.
- I need new snow pants. My first ones are ready to self-destruct, and that's probably not pretty to watch.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 09:54 pm (UTC)I think the plan is usually to avoid disposing of that energy too quickly - c.f. your comment about terminal velocity ;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-06 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 05:09 am (UTC)True neutral is BAD. Really. You DON'T have control. You will get more skilled at grabbing very minimal edge and reducing the speed hit, but you should always have an edge, IMO. Going true neutral and hitting a patch of ice at speed was how I ended up in PT for my shoulder for 12 weeks. Not recommended.
I'm wondering how hard to push myself to maximize my rate of learning.
My suggestions on this would depend in part on what you want to learn. What do you want to learn?
- I learned how to carve properly. It feels really good to carve well, like I'm riding a roller coaster of my own creation.
Do you really mean carve here, or do you perhaps mean linked turns? They're different things. True carving means you've got that board over far enough that only the edge is grabbing snow. It also usually means you're arcing almost constantly, going FAST, and leaving a clear trench in the snow with little perpendicular slide.
No offense, but I'd be surprised if you were truly carving at this level of snowboard experience. The fact that you're talking about how the board sounds on the snow? Likely an indication you're not carving.
Nonetheless -- Ability to link turns consistently is an awesome thing!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 06:47 pm (UTC)Now I can't carve consistently, but I think I notice when I do get it to work.
... which brings me to what I want to learn:
I want
- A general feeling of comfort and competence on blue-level runs.
- Good enough balance and fast enough reflexes to deal with rapid changes in terrain and snow texture.
- The ability to go near-straight for a period of time while feeling stable. My attempts to always have a slight edge seem to have yielded some good results... I'm less likely to fall when going near-straight than I used to. However, I don't feel like I can perform this reliably.
- The feeling of being in control at higher speeds (probably moderate speeds to you).
- Enough precision to more tightly control my future location. I don't want to panic because there's a tree or another snowboarder nearby.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-08 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 06:49 pm (UTC)