hey mate, i find body core work to be the best, and heaps of cardio & stretching, etc, just use your own body weight, its free, easy and it works, ie chin ups, push ups, sit ups, dips, swimming etc (good for the odd self rescue!!)

NEILL....bring it on dude,would love to know your regime for kiteing exercise's

hey rooey, have you tried taking glucosamine for your aching joints? it worked a treat for my old bones.
and make sure your footpads are the most comfortable ones you can fit to your board, it makes a world of difference to the feet and knees.

I've been Battling a cold for the last little bit so I've been absent from the gym for a couple of weeks. I try to get in 2 weight sessions and 2 cardio a week plus surfing or kiting on the weekend (both days) which gives the body a day off (usually monday). I try to fit in a swiss ball core session on one of the cardio days as well.

As for the Glocosomine I swear by it and i hit up the multi vitamin.

Body weight exercises are good to.

from a point of view of a qualified Dr, we get asked a bit about glucosamine- studies are not that optomistic so far- anecdotally results vary according to the person.

originally it was for osteoarthritis- and this is usually not a problem untill much later in life e.g 50's/ 60's

what is important earlier in life, is ligament strength---deterioration with periods of inactivity and worsened by inflexability/ poor joint range of motion.

a good routine promotes overall flexability , core strength, and good overall muscle tone- reflecting decent ligament strength. most important muscle groups are shoulder , including rotator cuff (behind the back handle passes, and for hand above shoulder moves like anything unhooked), core/abdominals (protecting facet jts, and lumbar discs), quads (to lessen knee impact).

Physio's are very well versed with all this, and a specific program would be valuable to the forum-- maybe a sticky item Laurie?

as far as supplements vit c is good for collagen strength (=ligaments), glucosamine is worthwhile for old injuries to articular cartilage (usu knees), mulitivits ok for general stuff.

I think pilates/yoga are perfect for kite-ing with maybe some high rep, low weight gym work for extra shoulder , and quad strength. Bike riding twice a week for quads, core, shoulder, and cardio, and then maybe few sessions of pool laps for the swimming fitness, which is very hard to get from anything other than swimming training.

I reckon for optimal kite fitness (competitive level!!);

1. 1 hr bike 3x/week
2. yoga or pilates 1 hr 2x/week
3. 1 hr gym 2x/week
4. 1/2 hr swimming 2x/week

this seems alot and the overall time is 8 hrs per week- maybe too much to fit into a week, and then to kite, and recover, and work.... maybe in a perfect world.....

apologies for the long winded post....

Ashtanga Yoga....and lots of kiting

I'll try and organise it guys, i should be able to take a screen shot of the program and paste it into a word doc. There are seven upper body strength exercises, and four or five lower body. The routine is purely resistance training with a focus on eccentric strengthening. I put it together because i was getting the odd small muscle tear through my scapular stabilisers, so it's a bit biased towards my own experiences. I'll throw some extra stuff in there if i think you may benefit from it. In particular, I will incorporate some endurance work for glutes and quads because these are the major muscle groups which get statically used for long periods while kiting, and often results in 2-3 days of delayed onset muscle soreness. Not serious, but something we can largely avoid. Rotator cuff is another biggie for all you handlepass guys, I'll throw some of that stuff in as well.

Glucosamine use is about the best supplement we know of so far to prevent (and sometimes reverse.... slightly) cartilage loss. Interestingly, the best thing for degenerative cartilage loss (Osteo-arthritis) is continuous passive motion, which means sticking your knee/hip/elbow/shoulder/whatever in a machine for 3 hours a day which passively moves the joint through range of motion.

Rabbit studies confirm an almost 100% healthy knee joint after a regime of CPM lasting 3 months, from a knee which was previously totally stuffed with OA! Not much of an option for most humans unfortunately.

There are a very few studies supporting Glucosamine. I recommend it however, as it's relatively cheap, there are no known side-effects, and it appears to work in a reasonable number of cases. Better than not using it, if you know what i mean?



p.s. If anyone knows any organisers of PKRA competitions or similar National Competitions, I'm trying to line up some volunteer work at some of the comps (being on-site for first aid and physiotherapy for the competitors, as well as presenting injury prevention material at the comps). so far i've had no reply from emailing AKSA but they may not have recieved my request, or haven't got around to replying. I'm not even sure what channel I should go through for this, so i'll stick it in here and see what comes up.

cheers

Neill

The trick is to alternate drinking arm after every beer....

awesome posts by joespencer and Neill

hey mate im a personal trainer over here this is the program i do designed with the strength and endurance required for kiting. NOTHING TO DO WITH REHAB .. cant say that enough .. infact if you are injured see a physio b4 training .. legal disclaimer but yeh i wrote this a while a go for people interested if you need pics and stuff or further explanation let me know and i can proberly post when im bored and at work. actually im curious to see what neil thinks of this?

Day 1

500-meter row

Deep squat 10 reps then 12-15 short bottom rep 5-10 cm`s x 3

45-degree leg press 3 x 15

Wall sit holding weights till failure at least 45 secs
Superset weight lunged 10 each leg then 20 polymeric lunges x 2

Slow 4 sec count leg extension superset leg curl. 3 x 12

Abs x 2 or 3

Med ball foot pass 3-5kg ball x 15

Med ball side pass same weight x 20 each side

Prone hold 1 min side hold left 30 sec side hold right 30 sec

50 bicycle kicks.









Day 2

Warm up 5 min ride

stretch

Chin up 1 set max out

D/b press 3 x 10 90 sec break

Pronated close grip lat pull down 3 x 10

(Clean x 10 then, with no break press x 10 then 45sec break clean and press x 10) x 3


(Assist chin or unassisted chin supernated grip x 10 superset cable pullovers 12) x 3


Incline db press 10 superset Incline d/b fly 12 x 3


(Squat and press 10 x 3 superset Standing alternating d/b press x 60) x 3

(Triceps extensions 3 x 10 Super set 21’s bicep curl) x 3

Abs

(Hanging leg hold till fatigue x 5 leg lifts x 20 weighed sit up x 20 v snaps 1 min prone hold) x 2 or

basic rules.

All weights should b picked so that in the last 3 reps its hard and you should not be able to do more than 3 more reps over the recommended repetitions given, if you can increase the load

Unless otherwise stated have at least 90 sec break between weight sets.

Everything should b done controlled 2 sec count up and 2 sec (excluding explosive training) count down, do not compromise form to increase your weights

hi

a few ppl have posted about yoga. i used to do some and it was fantastic for a few injuries i had. ive since stopped but want to start again. does anyone know of a decent place for it? im very not interested in the meditation side of it, i really just want physical stretching and strength stuff. location and convenient times are important, maybe in town or something?

Hey Rooey - winter can be tough staying fit for kiting - you need good cardio and endurance for kiting in the surf - good old running and swimming are excellent...

...and giving up the durries wouldn't hurt either

hope to have some good sessions with you this summer

Go Roo
I like to bike ride for cardio cause its easy on the foot,well it was till my son wrecked the gear mechanism!
Stuff it,I am taken it to the bike shop right now so I can get riding again.See how good this post is Roo,you are making me get off my butt an do something other than dribble on here waiting for wind

us WA boys want a part of that island!!!! damn your a smart man roo.

count me in rooey,
i need to cleans my body of unwanted grogg.
I will start the ball rolling and sacrafice $500 to your new religeion.
I hope that we need to worship the wind gods by flying brightly coloured kites in the air when ever it is over 15kn to please them.
Hell,I will give you all my posetions(except kite gear)to move to your island of fun..um..er..worship.
Bring it on