With the snow season underway, a workout with the new Vew-Do board is a pre-winter holiday essential.
What’s it all about?
For the majority of us skiing takes up a week or two in a year as a nice ski holiday break. Everyone knows the best way to prepare for something is to get out and practise. Unfortunately the majority of us do not have access to snow-capped mountains or even dry slopes, which makes training a little difficult.
Even the fit amongst us who run every day will find skiing gives some of our muscles intense work-outs, which can come as quite a shock to certain parts of our bodies. Vew-Do is here to help you tone up and build those ski/board specific muscles to make you get the most out of your holiday, whether you’re a novice skier, or an experienced winter sports fanatic.
Vew-Do is the world’s first multi-directional balance board. Each board comes with three different bases allowing it roll, teeter or wobble. Boarding provides an intense workout for the core, thighs and bum, all the major muscle groups that need building for that ski break away.
The Vew-Do Balance board was originally designed as a tool for snowboarders. American snowboard instructor Brew ‘Vew’ Moscarello used the original Bongo Board to help his students develop their balance. Noticing the limitations of this old style board he set about designing a new board that would simulate the motions and tricks associated with snowboarding.
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Getting started
Vew-do is a group class that can take the form of a cardio work-out following an instructor, or it can be set up like a circuit session where the class moves around from exercise to exercise. All exercises and moves on the Vew-Do board are specifically designed to cater for beginners, but do allow for change and variation to push the experienced too.
If it is your first time, make sure you let the instructor know and they can always keep an eye on you and make sure you are working in the right positions so you don’t get into any bad habits. They can also help you make sure you are fitting the correct base to the board for certain exercises.
If you find yourself falling in love with the board so much during the classes, you can even buy your own so you can work out at home whilst on the phone or watching TV!
What exactly do I do?
In a standard 60-minute class there was plenty of cardio work involved and you get an upper body workout too. After a nice gentle warm up, we began with learning to fit the bases into the bottom of the board and had a go with each piece to feel the difference, one roles you from side to side, another tip you backwards and forwards and the last moves you up and down.
Once you had started to find your balance, we then got into the cardio work by performing different exercises, such as squats, whilst balancing on the moving board. These specific exercises prepare you for winter sports like snowboarding or skiing as they require dynamic balance and quick reaction time. Each exercise was performed for a minute and repeated in three sets.
The Vew-Do board was especially useful in mimicking the left-to-right weight transfers of skiing and the heel-to-toe control required for snowboarding. Adding in exercises like squats helped to simulate the kind of control the legs need while carving a line through icy crud on your skis.
Whilst performing lunges and dynamic squats the instructor would encourage you to go quicker whilst making you feel like you were on the alps by warning us about bumps and difficult terrain and the importance of strong legs to counter these whilst transferring weight from one leg to the other.
Each exercise alternated between working the lower body and the upper body to allow sufficient recovery time but kept us moving to replicate the intensity of when you hit the slopes. When we weren’t lunging, doing single leg squats, or ‘board running’ we were performing planks on the board. This required you to rotate the board slowly whilst keeping the rest of your body still in the plank position. This works the back and abdominal muscles, but gave you an aim of doing so many rotations within a minute, rather than like a normal plank just holding the position.
The last few exercises focused on balancing and trying to ride the board by using the ‘role’ base. This isn’t something you can pick up quickly and involved a fair amount of wobbling. Luckily the instructor was on hand to hold us in position to help gain the feel of the board and then you start to learn to balance on your own.
This does become a very addictive feeling and once you can manage it you get a great sense of achievement! This part of the class demonstrates how Vew-Do allows you to practice tricks associated with snowboarding, skateboarding and surfing, and gives you the freedom to show a bit of your own creativity, with the instructor on hand if you need any help.
What are the benefits?
The aim is to give a cardio-vascular workout in winter sport specific areas such as the core, thighs and bum, but does hit the upper body too. The main benefit is the ability to do all this whilst balancing.
When you step onto the Balance Board your balance is immediately put to the test as the board moves freely to and fro, backwards and forwards and up and down. You move, it moves. It allows you to practice riding and gain more confidence on your snowboard or skis. Vew-Do Boards are designed to help with balance, toe-heel transition, carving, edges and switching, all to make you a more confident skier.
Who does it suit?
Obviously this class suits those wishing to get in shape for activities such as skiing, snowboarding, surfing, skateboarding, water skiing, and wakeboarding. Vew-Do classes can be used for working on specific body areas for many different sports, however this particular class focused on snow sport muscle groups so would be best for winter sports fans.
Winter sports like snowboarding or skiing require dynamic balance and quick reaction time. The Vew-Do board is especially useful in mimicking the left-to-right weight transfers of skiing and the heel-to-toe control required for snowboarding.
The class is also suitable to anyone wishing to develop and work their core area whilst also focusing on their balance. Just to stand and find a central balanced point on the board requires you to actively engage all of these muscles so imagine how hard your body has to work to perform a simple exercise like a squat or overhead press. The classes are catered for beginners through to experienced freestyle skiers.
Where can I do it?
Vew-Do classes are available at a variety of gym/leisure centres around the country. Please visit www.vew-do.co.uk/acatalgue to find your local class. If you want to purchase you own Vew-Do Balance Board, please visit www.vew-do.co.uk (£129.99 - comes with an instructional DVD).
Sportsister took part in a Vew-Do class at Hybrid Wellbeing in West London.
Clarissa Goodwin, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine
