Over Age 30, Afraid to Shred

S

Sngl2th

Member
What do you over 30 skiers think about keeping up your park/big air moves? I find that I am much more scared than I used to be, and I would like to see if you guys are experiencing the same thing. Here's my experience:

When I was younger, I used to do cork 7's off everything. I would literally test jumps by doing a cork 3, and I never thought too much about it. I would occasionally try new tricks and would always be messing around doing stupid shit, and I never got hurt.

I took a couple years off of skiing and came back to it at 28, and I started feeling a little shaky. I was mostly telemarking. I crashed doing a sw cork 5 (on alpine gear) and my shoulder and wrist hurt for a year. After that I wasn't jumping much, and I started feeling shaky even on 360s.

I took another couple years off while living in Florida, and then I came back to it this year. At first, I couldn't even do 360s on pretty small (25-30 ft) jumps, and I kept landing way backseat. Weird shit would happen to me that never used to happen. I would try a cork 7 and catch an edge, and totally loose track of where I was in the air.

While I was just skiing one day I, I miscalculated a jump on a powdery mogul run, caught pretty big air into a patch of moguls, and wound up diving into a mogul and having compression fractures on 4 veterbrae!!! 10 days later I am doing great and walking around with no pain, but it was seriously a traumatizing experience. The pain was unreal, and I thought I was hurt a lot worse.

Basically, I don't feel invincible anymore, I'm freaked out about ever doing tricks again, even though I didn't get hurt in the park.

Before I got hurt, I felt like being a pansy and second guessing everything was making me way more likely to crash. You have to believe you are going to land before you do a trick, or else you are already in trouble.

What do you people think? Are any of you guys thinking about hanging it up and sticking to cruising/powder like an old dude? Is anyone fearing the injuries more now that they are older? I feel like most pros start to kind of fade out as they get close to 30. Let me know.

Your Fellow Dual-Boarder,

Sngl2th
 
Dude, I'm 23 and having the same psychological stuff going on. In the park, I'm a headcase. I get on a rail and tell myself "front four out" and end up just sliding to forward. I spend the entire in run to a jump arguing with myself whether or not I'm going to spin. I took a few years during college off from skiing super aggressively in the park and it really hurt my self confidence. I'm trying to get more involved this year, but it's been hard. I used to ski 3-5 nights a week, now I'm lucky to get a day every two weeks. I progressed pretty linearly for a while, and now my progression is at a stand still. This weekend, I had a breakthrough and started spinning again. I basically just had to tell myself to quit being a fucking pussy, sack up, and do it. I'm not going to die.
 
The older you get...the longer it takes to recover. I'm still in my prime, but I know there will come a day when my back starts to hurt, my knees will start to ache, and my body will never really be the same. But 30 seems too damn young to stop park in my opinion.
 
drink water, do yoga, and send it...

go shred the mountain, learn to enjoy it for more than just the cork 7, in no time you will be back in your groove.
 
sounds like you just pushed it too hard coming off the hiatus, ski every day for a week and I bet you'll be feelin' it again
 
Do you do any dry land training? If you want to shred hard for as long as possible you're going to need to be strong and agile. Which means training all year round.

I am 25 and feel more resilient than I was at 17. I train and play sports all year round.

Everyone is different as well, but you can prolong your ability by being strong and healthy.
 
Your time off hurt you more than your age. As said above... drink water, get in shape, stretch, yoga, and work yourself back into it more gradually.
 
I know how you feel. The worst problem I have is motivation and ambition in my thirties...... well that and my core strength is quickly loosing the battle with sustained beer consumption haha. I find I'm less scared then ever but the confidence level is slipping. It's fucking tough letting go of something that I enjoy so much and have put so much work into.
 
I just turned 40 this year and get how you are feeling. I never will keep up with the younger skiers and that bummed me out big time. I still slide rails and do 3's but I just set small goals for myself. I'm stoked to see my kids progress now. Skiing is all about fun so I would never give up park because sliding a rail straight or just doing a big shifty is still fun. Being older and showing the younger kids that you still have wicked stoke for skiing keeps a good vibe out there. Hope you heal up good and keep on pushing your limits to where you don't wreck yourself. Most guys my age just drink beer and watch hockey. Hopefully soon they will build us senior parks lol. Cheers
 
I am 31, and my park skills have diminished a ton over the last 10 years. What I have been doing which seems to work for me, is to straight air every jump you can, until you a really comfortable in the air. Really focus on keeping forward pressure on your shins, keeping your arms/hands out in front of you and popping. I have been doing this pretty much all season, and just the other day I finally started to feel confident in the air.

As far as the injuries go. I get banged up at least once a week skiing. Not much I can do about it. I am in great shape but physics take over at some point.
 
Age is just a number my friend! It's all about your state of mind and how good of care you're taking of yourself. I'm 28 and going harder then ever. Think young= feel young.
 
I now charge all over the mtn. I don't crash much, but when I do its usually a big one.

I only go in the park these days to straight air jumps and slide ride on boxes haha. I'll never get tired of floating through the air off jumps, and being compfy in the air is super useful on pow days when your going big.

Just do what feels good. These days getting injured has very serious consequences outside of just fucking up my body. Its a logistical nightmare to get injured.
 
Thanks for the responses, keep them coming. Yeah, it's harder to get hurt when you have a "real job." Fortunately I work from home as an editor. As an east coast guy, I don't get to do too much powder skiing, although as expected it started snowing like crazy the moment I got hurt.

I agree. I feel like the time off is the real killer.
 
13328569:roach1324 said:
Park is a young mans game just get your backflips of natural airs dialed and you'll be set till you're 50.
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I just wanna be able to keep backies on lock as I get older, maybe a switch trick as well
 
13328260:Flyingnugget said:
Do you do any dry land training? If you want to shred hard for as long as possible you're going to need to be strong and agile. Which means training all year round.

I am 25 and feel more resilient than I was at 17. I train and play sports all year round.

Everyone is different as well, but you can prolong your ability by being strong and healthy.
Click to expand...

I do work out and stretch. This back injury was a big shock, as I never thought I could get hurt like that just skiing. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I have taken so many worse falls, but I fell in the stupidest way possible. Moral of the story: You can get hurt bad when you least expect it, so always check your landing.
 
Shit .. I'm turning 30 in about a week and I guess it's time to think about this! Working in skiing, sitting in an office and on planes more than actually skiing and then going out with skiers that are on snow more and trying to keep up and not get hurt so you can get your job done.

My solution is to stick to the exact tricks that you can do in your sleep and just enjoy being out there on the hill. Try not to fall victim to on hill peer pressure (it's hard) and the thoughts in your head that you're still 20 years old. Turning, powder and throwing those tricks you have on lock will help with your longevity and keep you in the right state of mind. injuries are easier as we get fatter and more out of shape so keep up in the gym more.
 
I'm not trying to kill your dream, and probably contradicting everyone that tells you to keep shredding park. Maybe it's time to start skiing all mountain, or pow mainly. Park can be tough on people past twenty, and one injury could end your skiing career. The lamer but safer option would be to stop risking yourself and realize that there are safer things to be doing. Again, I'm not saying to quit park forever if you love it, do what you love.
 
pound anywhere from 4-6 beers when you first show up at the hill, put 2 in your pockets, and be sure to pound 3-4 during lunch.

the confidence begins flowing and you have no problem sending shit, but you may have an issue with your balance. just remember, stop being a pussy, and you be aight.
 
Turned 30 last year and I still enjoy the park, I find myself trying new stuff on rails nowadays (I suck still) and stick to smaller jumps due to a knee injury last season. I comfort myself thinking that medium sized jumps now were considered huge 5-6 years ago.

I don't really feel the pressure to learn too many more tricks now, and I'll never learn to dub, but I can try to spin an extra 180 or try something I'm already comfortable with a different grab. There are many ways to improve your park game without having to size up the jumps. The feeling of landing something new is still amazing. So I'm not checking out of the park just yet.

On a plus side I feel I'm way better at skiing in general than I have ever been.

That guy at the end of days of my youth summed it up pretty well I think, you don't stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing.
 
To the OP:

I was never as good as you are in the park, so the skill-set that I'm trying to preserve way more limited, but I've managed to hang on to what I had and get a bit better every year despite being over 40 and having a family, job, mortgage, etc so maybe I'll share something that you can use.

1)Fear isn't necessarily a bad thing. Learning to overcome fear is part of progressing, but learning when to back-off is part of staying in the game over 30. Dial things back until you are 100% confident that you'll nail whatever you are attempting and b) you are actually having fun. This normally will build enough confidence and enthusiasm to start trying harder stuff in the right frame of mind.

2)Focus on style rather than difficulty. Sounds lame - but doing the best version of a trick you've ever done is pretty damned satisfying, even if it's a trick that wasn't anywhere near the top-end of what you could do at your prime, and you can easily fixate on perfecting whatever tricks that you can do without wrecking yourself for years.

3)Work out. Accept that as the years go by you'll probably have to work out harder to maintain the same level of fitness and injury prevention. Incorporating at least some barbell exercises that get some solid musculoskeletal loading going (squats, dead lifts, cleans, presses, etc) into the routine is a good idea for lots of reasons. I can't promise it will make you less injury prone on the hill, but at the very least you'll be less likely to total your back helping your mother in law move a new freezer into her basement.

4)Cover your risks. Your experience may vary, but doing things like getting a solid individual disability insurance policy, health insurance, life insurance, having several months of cash set aside in savings, debts minimized, etc took away a small but real part of the anxiety that came along with riding park as grown-up with all of the normal grown-up financial responsibilities.
 
Beer is your friend, and will inspire confidence. In all seriousness, I'm 30, I guess I never had quite the bag of tricks you did on jumps, but I'm probably more comfortable hitting real jumps now than I've ever been. It usually takes me one or two runs through a jump line to get comfy with speed and straight airing everything til I'm ready to start doing tricks. I haven't even done a 7 yet this season, but I've been focusing more on just having fun floating 3s and 5s and learning to do new grabs with the tricks I feel I can do in my sleep. Never thought I'd learn octo 5s this year, but they're super fun to do, and when you're one of the few people at your local ski area who's manning up and hitting the big boy jump line, let alone throwing cleanly grabbed tricks on it, it feels pretty good knowing you've still got it, whatever it is.
 
13328721:c.castro said:
I'm not trying to kill your dream, and probably contradicting everyone that tells you to keep shredding park. Maybe it's time to start skiing all mountain, or pow mainly. Park can be tough on people past twenty, and one injury could end your skiing career. The lamer but safer option would be to stop risking yourself and realize that there are safer things to be doing. Again, I'm not saying to quit park forever if you love it, do what you love.
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c.castro has some wisdom here. Not too hard to figure out that as you get older, park takes more of a toll on your body, so yes, it would (probably) be safer and easier to dial it back a bit in the sending it huge department. That being said, if you're like me and have contemplated doing this (i'm 25 and have broken my collarbone as well as torn all 4 muscles of my rotator cuff) and then come to the conclusion that it would kill you to give up park, then just be safer about it. Work out and stretch regularly to keep your body in a bit of a groove, when you shred start with the small stuff until you're comfortable and work your way up. Eventually, your confidence will come back, but you have to put in the time to get it there.
 
29. Stopped hitting big jumps around 27. Not only do I have the same mental things going on but I have to many bills to pay now, if I get injured I could seriously fuck my life up, bounce a mortgage payment etc. I live on the east coast, if im out west on a trip with soft landings its a different story all together. I no longer hit kinked rails or close outs or any urban. Feeling pretty old these days in the park.
 
I don't ski as park as I used to but I know how you feel. It burns me inside that I know that some tricks that I have done in the past I will never do again. There is just more at stake now than when I was at my best at park riding. I try to just maintain tricks that I know I have on lock and focus more on challenging myself riding terrain.
 
Im 27 and love to ride. Over 24 years (the last 10 year), my body has taken a beating. There are good days, hot days, bad days and down days and you have to chose these days carefully. Hot days is the time to learn new tricks and go a little bigger. You feel good, land perfectly all your warm up tricks, so its time to shred.

getting older take the Huck on Demand gift away. I had to pull back from contests just because of a bad day. There is nothing wrong with riding for another day, but try to ride 80% every day.
 
I'll be 30 in a couple of months and hit a rail for the first time in like 3 years on Wednesday. It was pretty nifty. I also hit a few of the bigger jumps, but only straight airs. I couldn't ever do anything bigger than a 3, but it was fun to just be up in the air again. Rolled the windows down a few times and felt very gaper-isn, but it was still a good time.
 
13328690:Malczyk said:
Shit .. I'm turning 30 in about a week and I guess it's time to think about this! Working in skiing, sitting in an office and on planes more than actually skiing and then going out with skiers that are on snow more and trying to keep up and not get hurt so you can get your job done.

My solution is to stick to the exact tricks that you can do in your sleep and just enjoy being out there on the hill. Try not to fall victim to on hill peer pressure (it's hard) and the thoughts in your head that you're still 20 years old. Turning, powder and throwing those tricks you have on lock will help with your longevity and keep you in the right state of mind. injuries are easier as we get fatter and more out of shape so keep up in the gym more.
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This is good advice. Hill peer pressure is definitely a hard one, and it's a bummer to not be able to ski four/five days a week like when I was a ski instructor
 
13336002:Sngl2th said:
let's see video
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I'd like to see this as well.

Op-I posted a thread about this a couple of months ago. Check my threads, some solid advice is in there.

As for me, 36 just blew out a knee in the park. I was coming off a rail blind and I didn't pop early enough. Right ski tip dipped and hit the rail hard. My body went 2sev, all of it except my right leg that only went 180. That Knee pop is loud as fuck and hurts bad. I will still ski in the park after surgery but I may dial it back a little to no spins on or off rails...aside from the ol lip to nollie switch out. That never gets old
 
After the Big Bertha crash, Thovex didn't hit a lip jump for what like 6 years?

Just don't jump until all the fear has gone.
 
I just love reading this thread and seeing how the older generation of park skiers are still at it. I'm 21 so it's cool to think how all you OG's inspired me in the park back in my younger days.
 
I just love reading this thread and seeing how the older generation of park skiers are still at it. I'm 21 so it's cool to think how all you OG's inspired me in the park back in my younger days.
 
invest in some virtual reality goggles (oculus rift makes some pretty good ones) and rip the park from the safety of your nest. I've been hucking triple corks like it's my job and just won gold in my fake VR Olympics. yah you could say things are going pretty well
 
I'm 25, soon to be 26, and I feel ya. Messed myself up a few years ago at Winter Park, overshot their biggest jump straight to my face, was not fun. That put the fear of God in me for sure (injuries suck, kiddos, and the worst damage is probably psychological).

Lots of good points in this thread. Leg strength, particularly hamstrings and quads, really does help prevent injury to your knees / Achilles. I've found a combination of squats, deadlifts, box jumps, and lunges at moderate weight with high frequency is a great way to keep your knee game on point. Soccer and yoga help too. Core strength helps a ton as well.

As far as on hill behavior goes, I'd say repetition and "easy-styling it" (i.e., ramping up your tricks) is a good way to get back at it. The part that sucks about that is that can mean a lot of solo shred time. I'm finding my friends are less willing to learn park these days, even with me as a coach!

That said, it really is cool to take coworkers / young kids / friends who have never seen top notch ish park skiing and show it to them in person by hitting the bigger lines at Breck / Key etc.

Cheers man, keep shredding
 
getting hurt will take the wind out of anyones sails man.

wait till you feel comfortable, then send it. and if you dont ever get that confidence rip it up somewhere else. there is so much more than just park.

and if worse comes to worst, play some johnny moseley madd trix.
 
Life is something we only get to experience once... Yeah, the older you get the more pain and longer recoveries. But this is essentially a personal question. Is the risk worth it? Just remember live life to the fullest and have no regrets. I want to ski for the rest of my life, because it brings me happiness and I want to live a happy life.
 
I just hit the big 30 not to long ago, as far as my park riding I tend to only go super hard on soft days. My knees were so messed up after a whole day lapping the park during the early season and landing on hard pack all day. For new tricks I still learn them here and there mostly on rails and half pipe, I started drifting away from jumps when I was like 25. One thing I have noticed about my riding as I have gotten older I do a lot more butters mostly because they are kind of a low key thing to do.

I think the main thing is to stay in good shape and you can keep skiing park, know what tricks you can get and try new stuff when you feel really dialed in.
 
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