When you get into board sports as a midlife woman, the one thing you realise pretty quickly: you need to keep fit. And I don’t mean just the ‘go for a quick run’ kind of fitness. I mean fitness that supports your joints and bones as you embrace sports that can take their toll on the body.
I LOVE fitness, so apologies for being a total geek in this area. I am that annoying person who crawls out of bed daily at 6 and does some type of movement, from weights to running, to barre, to yoga, to swimming. Unless I’m getting to surf regularly, I don’t regard my board sports activities as my main fitness, I embrace fitness to keep me doing these sports, to feel great, and to prevent getting injured.
I recognise this kind of enthusiasm isn’t for everyone (my family think I’m a bit insane), but I do think training to be able to do the sports you love, for as long as you want, injury free, is a pretty strong incentive to focus on your fitness.
However, the advice you’re given is often conflicting, and it’s hard to know what really works to support your body for these sports. We got 3 experts together to help you do just that (and apologies to our experts, as we filmed this a little while ago at one of our live online sessions, but we haven’t put it out to the world before now). All of them are board sports enthusiasts themselves, and they tailored their advice to the worlds of skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing for you.
Meet Our Experts
Emily from @moceanfit
Emily wants to get more women moving, adventuring, playing and learning, and giving new sports a go. A surfer, skateboarder and snowboarder, at 40 Emily understands what it means to embrace these sports later in life. She’s a trained fitness instructor, mobility coach and breathing practitioner, and it’s all tailored to the sports we love. She also has some seriously enviable mountain views from her new home in switzerland, where she moved to be nearer to the mountains.
Lizzie from @lizziebirdmoves
Lizzie is an Osteopath, Movement Specialist and author of the book ‘Move’. A keen water woman, after breaking her knee in 7 places during Covid, and being unable to access the operation she needed, she learned how to self rehabilitate her injury and learnt a huge amount in the process.
Louise from @louise_beyondthemat
Louise is a fantastically calming and energising yoga teacher (helped by the french accent), and she used to run the yoga at our Board Women events. She’s also a qualified surf instructor, and more recent convert to skating and snowboarding. She tailors her yoga practice to the needs of all three sports, setting you up to be strong, flexible and recover well. Since this session she’s moved her life to the beautiful coast of New Zealand, surfing and teaching yoga and pilates (yes we hate her sometimes).
The format: an interactive session
The session was a 90 minute interactive session, with movement demonstrations and Q&A with each of the experts. So, grab your kit, and a yoga mat and get ready to find the secrets of staying fit and injury fee for the board sports you love!
P.S This isn’t a high production film as it was a live online event, and we were all in our lounges taking part, but the advice is still brilliant! If you like this kind of content, let us know and we’ll bring you more and think about hiring a studio.
