Daniel Bailey: Training like an Olympic Athlete

Shaun White is a name we all know. The 31 year old olympic gold medalist, who was a prodigy snowboarder and skateboarder, still is competing and pulling ahead of his competitors. A lot of us have seen what he does when he competes, but he wouldn’t get there if it wasn’t for the things he’s done before competing. Here is how Shaun stays in shape before competing, and what you can do too!

Since Shaun’s competes in snowboarding, which doesn’t require a lot of upper body strength, he doesn’t focus so much on that. Instead he focuses on his balance. But what kinds of exercises should you do to improve balance? As he said in an interview on Ask Men, “The stuff that I do when I get to go to the gym is more like a maintenance thing. I’m not trying to build up muscle or bulk, or anything like that. In a lot of traditional sports you need to be big — you need to knock over someone who’s bigger than you. But it’s a different strength you’re looking for in snowboarding. It’s more like tennis. You gotta be quick and you’ve gotta be really mentally prepared. You gotta predict where you’re gonna go, where you’re going to land, what you’re going to see.

When I do go to the gym, everything’s combined with balance. I’ll do a lot with those big, weighted medicine balls and those half moons. I’ll balance with one leg or squat on a half moon while getting the medicine ball thrown at me... You’re trying to strengthen all those little muscles that help the big muscles, and build overall strength — not size.”

Even though Shaun White does spend some time in the gym, the majority of his training is just actively skateboarding when it’s warm, and snowboarding when he’s cold. He has a bit of variety in his training, that keeps him active year round. It’s no wonder he’s done so well when he’s been constantly improving his balance and actively performing these two similar sports.

So if you want to be in the kind of shape that Shaun White is in ( having a six pack when your 31 ), you might want to consider picking up a sport that requires balance, agility and core strength. Snowboarding and Skating are great, but just about any sport will require these kind of competencies.

Next when you go to the gym think about what your body needs to enhance the performance of the sport you play.

By being playing a sport actively, and going to the gym regularly, you can be in as good a shape as an olympic athlete.

Now here’s a video of Shaun White at the gym:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjy4eGeCFlo