THE TRUTH ABOUT SKIING AND SNOWBOARDING

Danko Puskaric

www.TheTruthAboutSkiingAndSnowboarding.com

FREE EDITION - Feel free to email this e-book to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that you think would enjoy topics about skiing and snowboarding. They will surely be thrilled that you shared all of

this information with them!

Congratulations on taking a step in a direction that will improve your health and fit-ness as well as your competence, ability, and safety.

Publisher and graphic preparation: Infostudio ltd., EU Croatia

Copyright ©All rights reserved. It is strictly prohibited to copy or transfer any part of this book by any means, either electronically, mechanically, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder.

Author: Prof. Danko Puskaric

Reviews: Dijego Beraja (The Skier’s Diet; Preparation for Skiing)Prof. Bruno Hrvatin (Preparation for Skiing)Jadranka Sekulic, MD; (Injuries and First Aid)Lovro Vudrag (Safety Guidelines)Prof. Radovan Saks (Skiing Equipment and Maintenance)Prof. Edi Radeticchio (Freeride)

Proofreading: Amber Schuecker

ISBN:

978-953-56483-1-4

Important legal note:

All advice and instruction contained in this publication conforms to generally accepted principles based on research, on the basis that any particular piece of advice or instruction contained herein has the best pos-sibility of success and is intended to be of a solely informative nature. The same is written for a benevolent purpose with a view to assisting all skiers, and should you require particular advice on an individual basis, you are referred to the guidance of an appropriately qualified and competent professional. Any use of the advice or instructions contained in this book is entirely at the liability of each individual. Neither the author, the distributor, nor any third party assumes any liability, whether financial, legal or otherwise, for the accuracy of the aforementioned material, or for any ensuing damages arising from the application thereof.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to all who have been lost whilst skiing or snowboarding, or whilst doing what they love most.

The Author

CON

TEN

TSThe truth about skiing and snowboarding

CONTENTS 6PREFACE 810 FIS RULES 16THE SKIER’S DIET 20

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PREPARING FOR SKIING AND SNOWBOARDING 44not visible in free edition 46not visible in free edition 47not visible in free edition 52not visible in free edition 53not visible in free edition 55Independent Preparation for Recreational Skiing 58not visible in free edition 59not visible in free edition 68not visible in free edition 70not visible in free edition 72not visible in free edition 75not visible in free edition 77not visible in free edition 78not visible in free edition 80not visible in free edition 85Yearlong Exercise Programme 86not visible in free edition 88not visible in free edition 89not visible in free edition 90not visible in free edition 106

INJURIES AND FIRST AID 108Specific Skiing and Snowboarding Injuries and Their Prevention 112not visible in free edition 112not visible in free edition 119not visible in free edition 124not visible in free edition 125not visible in free edition 127not visible in free edition 130not visible in free edition 133not visible in free edition 134Injuries up on the Mountains 136not visible in free edition 136not visible in free edition 140not visible in free edition 142not visible in free edition 143What to do in the event of an accident 145not visible in free edition 147not visible in free edition 150not visible in free edition 151not visible in free edition 161

SAFETY GU IDELINES 162not visible in free edition 162not visible in free edition 163not visible in free edition 165not visible in free edition 167

CON

TENTS

Danko Puskaric

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SKIING EQUIPMENT & MAINTENANCE 174Skiing and Snowboarding Equipment 175not visible in free edition 175not visible in free edition 178not visible in free edition 180not visible in free edition 181not visible in free edition 182not visible in free edition 183not visible in free edition 184not visible in free edition 189not visible in free edition 194not visible in free edition 196not visible in free edition 197not visible in free edition 200not visible in free edition 203not visible in free edition 206Additional Equipment 208not visible in free edition 208not visible in free edition 209not visible in free edition 209Maintenance of Ski Equipment 211not visible in free edition 211not visible in free edition 213not visible in free edition 213not visible in free edition 214not visible in free edition 215not visible in free edition 217not visible in free edition 219

FREERIDING 222not visible in free edition 226not visible in free edition 227not visible in free edition 228not visible in free edition 230not visible in free edition 231not visible in free edition 232not visible in free edition 234not visible in free edition 235not visible in free edition 236The dangers of freeriding 239not visible in free edition 239not visible in free edition 242not visible in free edition 244not visible in free edition 245not visible in free edition 247not visible in free edition 248not visible in free edition 250Avalanches 252not visible in free edition 254not visible in free edition 257not visible in free edition 262not visible in free edition 263not visible in free edition 265not visible in free edition 267not visible in free edition 269not visible in free edition 270not visible in free edition 271not visible in free edition 273

CONCLUSION 283THANKS 284LITERATURE 285GLOSSARY 288ABOUT THE AUTHOR 291

8 PREFACE

PREFACE

Greetings,

This is Danko. As a preface, while reading this book I do not want you to think that I do not like skiing and snowboarding. I don’t want you to think I am badmouthing them by calling them dangerous and unsafe or suggesting that is some dark hidden truth.

Not in the slightest.

Skiing and snowboarding are great ways to enjoy winter. Whether by yourself or with the family, there’s nothing like the crisp mountain air and beautiful white snow glowing in front of you to make all your troubles melt away. But let’s not forget how dangerous it can be up there too.

That’s why this book has been written; to dispense this information far and wide.

Everyday people venture into the mountains, unaware of the dangers that lurk just around the corner. Bad weather, faulty equipment, overconfidence, or being unaware of these risks can be a recipe for disaster.

Here, take a look at a skier being caught off guard, completely unaware of what danger he is really in, as he narrowly escapes.

* Click to PLAY video, or watch video in HD resolution on YouTube by clicking here.

9The truth about skiing and snowboarding

Last year professionals, amateurs, recreational rid-ers, moms, dads, and kids were killed, crippled, para-lyzed and hurt while skiing or snowboarding. Some of these were accidents that couldn’t be controlled.

Most, however, were preventable, and that makes them truly tragic.

It’s important that you prepare yourself before you venture up to go ski or snowboarding. Just like any other activity, to become better and to feel better your body needs to be in top physical shape. Your mind does too. Being in that condition will help keep you safer. There are numerous things that you can do to help reduce your chance of being hurt or killed.

For instance, increasing your reaction speed is a great way to avoid getting hurt. You can work on that with just a few simple exercises that we include in the fitness section.

This book has been written with the goal of preparing you for a safe time on your next visit to the mountain. I made this book to give you helpful information on all kinds of topics. Some of these topics include: helping to prevent knee injuries, choosing a safe instructor for your child, or just enjoying a day in the pristine outdoors without having to worry about anything.

If this is your first time thinking about going skiing or snowboarding you might not know what to expect for your first time up. And if you’re already involved in winter sports, then you know what I’m talking about.

And like me, when you’re wrapped up in the moment, forgetting that you are in a world held together by laws of physics, it’s easy to get hurt.

I imagine you’ve probably found yourself in scary situations where you were fright-ened and clueless. I have numerous times.

I’m a competition freerider. This means I find the most dangerous way down the mountain and ride down it. I jump off rocks, cliffs, and navigate my way through all kinds of gnarly terrain.

When I go up and ride, I know that it might not be just another day. That’s why I’m constantly training and preparing to make sure that I come home safe and injury free.

This book keeps in mind that it could be just a regular Tuesday when things take a turn for the worse. This book’s aim is to keep Tuesday and every day just a “regular” day.

It’s not just people who are new to these sports. Everything in here is not only good for professionals; the things you will learn in here have even saved some of their lives.

For instance, look at Kevin Pearce. If you’re unfamiliar with him, he’s the big time pro snowboarder who almost died trying to get to the Olympics. Truth is, Kevin Pearce is lucky to be alive.

10 PREFACE

Kevin was trained by the best of the best. As a part of the US Olympic team, as well as being one of Burton Snowboard’s top riders, he had access to all the top perks that being a professional offers. Things like Physical therapy, classroom coaching, video analysis, pri-vate planes, private coaches, and private pipes were readily available for Kevin at all times.

However, since he was an athlete he had an intense training regimen that helped him to compete at the level he did. People often forget that these sports are athletically de-manding. So it always pays dividends to invest in fitness.

In the winter of 2009 things changed forever for Kevin. Fresh off a series of wins in a slew of major competitions, he was a hopeful to win Gold at the Olympics in Vancouver. Just a few weeks before the games Kevin was training for the pipe in Park City, Utah. Dur-ing the training, which was like any other training, he was seriously injured attempting a double mctwist in the pipe. Hitting his face and head on the icy hard edge of the pipe wall, he was sent into a coma and was sidelined for months.

Kevin narrowly missed death.

More than a year and a half since the accident he is slowly becoming his old self. He knows that if things would have been different, if he wasn’t so tough physically and men-tally he might not have made it.

Because of his training and preparation, he survived. He credits his success in rehab, and his survival with being prepared for what he never saw coming. Thankfully he was wearing a helmet, which saved his life. Kevin ad-mits that if he hadn’t been wearing it he would defi-nitely be a goner.

He has this to say about what happened:

“One of the main ones is to be careful. Be smart and, straight up, do everything you can to avoid hitting your head in the first place.”

With that in mind, you can see the goal of the book is to deepen your knowledge and raise your level of understanding and familiarity with the more important aspects of skiing and snowboarding.

Most people are unaware of what they can do to prepare for what could come. Just because professional athletes have access to it doesn’t mean you can’t.

Changing the way you eat, your fitness program, as well as your knowledge of the mountain and your sport is the best way to not only enjoy your next day riding, but also to living a happier and fuller life.

Until now there wasn’t a concise publication that takes all of this stuff into account. No one talks about this stuff. Where can you find professional explanations for almost every conceivable aspect of safer and better skiing in one useful resource? You can’t.

11The truth about skiing and snowboarding

My goal is that this information will be beneficial for anyone and everyone - parents, skiing instructors, future pros, and anyone and everyone who loves the winter. I’m hop-ing to help reduce the number of accidents, and raise health and safety awareness so that everyone can enjoy the winter for as long as possible.

If you’re just starting out in the beautiful world of skiing and snowboarding, you’ll find almost everything you need right here.

All of the information and knowledge the best and most experienced instructors and coaches have access to. The book will also help you get a good idea of what equipment to use, the best ski classes to attend, and how to recognize a variety of dangerous situations, and survive them!

Here’s how I got some of this information.

I’ve been an instructor for 7 years. I’m not just an instructor, I’m also given the task of selecting other instructors as well. This means that I have to have knowledge and skill above others. To become an instructor on my level you have to earn your position. That means that not only do I have to know a lot I have to participate in the sports regularly and perform on command.

I got to this level through a lot of research and hard work. I have an extensive library of books on the subject of skiing and snowboarding, but all of these books are either highly specialized or are unclear to the majority of readers. I really just want to make all that I know available to everyone for much less than it would cost you otherwise.

The book is a compilation of all my experience as well as the experiences of others. I didn’t dumb anything down writing this. I’ve just adapted what more complicated and lengthy books have said and made it more appealing to the public. In this book, I won’t be discussing how to ski, or how to perfect the “pizza technique”. This isn’t a book about per-fecting technique. The thing is, who ever learnt how to ski or board by reading a book? To master those techniques, you’ll need a good instructor and plenty of practice. That’s the only real way to learn how to ski or board proficiently and perfect your technique.

Instead I’ll be giving you specific and useful information that you would have to spend a lot of time and money on elsewhere. Venturing out on the snow and up mountains is much more than mere theory, and we’ll discuss those things here in depth.

This book won’t teach you how to ski; it might not even save you from danger (life is unpredictable), but it will surely reduce the risk of injuries, prevent you from doing some-thing careless, and ready for the freak accident should it occur.

After researching and adopting many of the practices I talk about here in my book I have been healthier, more agile, more energetic and alert. I don’t get hurt when I go up, I don’t come home sore and stiff. And those few times I’ve been in life threatening situations I managed to escape

Changing how I approached the sports considerably changed my life.

It can change yours as well!

12 PREFACE

Here is just a sample of what you can expect to find in the book:

Fitness finely tuned with your sport in mind.

As far as preparing for a day of riding, most people don’t know where to start. And too many people have been given information that is wrong, so they end up doing more damage than good.

A problem is that a lot of us approach our activities with a one size fits all approach. You might stick to preformed workouts, or stretches you think are right. While it’s always a good idea to limber up before you do anything, you need to make sure that you are warm-ing up quickly.

You might be doing more damage than good if you aren’t. Studies show that you are 9 times more likely to be injured if you don’t warm up properly.

One problem is that most people don’t know how to warm up properly. Sometimes that can be dangerous to your sensitive ligaments and tendons. Warming up isn’t some new age science. It’s an extremely important way of getting your core body temperature up so that your body runs at its best. This helps minimize your chance of being injured.

We go over proper exercises that are meant for skiing and snowboarding. Keep in mind that you aren’t getting access to just any old exercises, but ones custom tailored to skiing and snowboarding.

The book discusses the correct order in which to do both warm ups, and stretching (doing one before the other can increase the risk of injury. It also gives you key insights and examples for increasing your balance which is absolutely crucial for skiing and snow-boarding. The book even goes into detail about proper breathing techniques, which you really need to learn since skiing and snowboarding take place above normal altitude.

Here’s one for parents...

NUTRITION

You think that the lunch that you pack for you and the kids is healthy?

Maybe you have a sandwhich, some fruit, some fruit snacks made with real “fruit juice”. As well as the normal food like po-tato chips etc. You don’t really pay attention to the fact that even though you have all this food your kids will be hungry and cranky sooner than later.

Truthfully, eating in that fashion makes you hungrier than you truly are. As a matter of fact, you’re almost worse off doing that, then not eating at all. Your body doesn’t react well when it is improperly fueled. That is why so many of us are overweight, constantly fatigued, or prone to not feeling well.

13The truth about skiing and snowboarding

You’ll have cranky, tired children screaming in your ear on the extra long car ride home. And you’ll be feeling pretty bad yourself. Nothing makes a day of skiing more mis-erable than being shaky and tired because you didn’t eat right that day (or whiny children who haven’t). That’s what a day at the hill can do to you if you’re not ready for it.

Additionally this basic principle applies to everyday well being. What you eat and when you eat it matter greatly when it comes to performance. Skiing and snowboarding present specific problems for energy use. The cold, altitude and constant movement means your body needs more energy, and the right kind, in order to function smoothly.

You need to know what nutrients to eat and when you should eat them.

Most people think that a banana or some fruit for the day ahead is enough. While it’s a noble attempt it’s not one of the best things you can do to curb hunger. Fruit sugar stores in the liver, not in the muscles where you need them. You would have been better off eating something with protein or fat because it will provide smooth sustained energy, where as fruit gives you the kind of energy that causes you to crash.

Fruit sugar causes blood sugar to spike. When blood sugar spikes it gives you that instant energy. But, if it isn’t supplemented with other more sustaining energy then it will come crashing down. Making you feel tired and listless.

The book talks about the right kind of nutrition that will keep your blood sugar levels even. Most people don’t realize that improper blood sugar levels are a leading cause for things like fatigue, weight gain and loss, sleeplessness and many more. Even better, prop-erly adjusting your diet alone can increase your life expectancy as well as help you lose weight and help you sleep better.

We give you the correct things to eat, and how to properly select food that provide the most energy for those long, hard days spent ripping it up.

SAFETY

Perhaps one of the most important things you will learn are the skills necessary to help save someone’s life.

Life threatening situations are anything but predictable. You might be battling the ele-ments, or trying to avoid a run away ski when you encounter one.

One of the most dangerous aspects of riding, and perhaps the deadliest, are avalanch-es.

Avalanches can happen anywhere. On any continent and anywhere were the condi-tions are ideal. Last year hundreds of people died in avalanches across the world. Ava-lanches are one of the biggest killers. Sadly most deaths by avalanche are preventable.

So what would you do if you saw someone caught in avalanche?

The book will discuss avalanche avoidance techniques include assessing slope condi-tions so you can avoid avalanches altogether. Determining safe snow conditions so that you can make sure the backcountry is safe as well what the proper response tools are and

14 PREFACE

procedures to using them and much more.

Do you know how long the average persons lasts buried under snow (20-30minutes)? Or did you know that most people die from asphyxiation (suffocating) when they are caught in an avalanche; and it’s important to clear an airway when you get to them? We discuss how to search for the buried victim (using a collapsible pole) and what kind of equipment you will need to un-bury them.

You’ll also find out the proper way to comb an avalanche (from the bottom up, moving across the path of the avalanche).

Try not to be this guy.

* Click to PLAY video, or watch video in HD resolution on YouTube by clicking here.

What’s tragic is that even though avalanches are a major concern, there are plenty of other dangers out there as well:

− Tree wells; − Other skiers or snowboarders; − Lift towers and chairs; − Wind; − Rock slides; − Hypothermia; − Frostbite...

This is just a sampling of how you can be prepared and safe while at the mountains.

15The truth about skiing and snowboarding

This book will discuss subjects like avalanches and more. We are just providing a small preview of what this book will look like.

Also, I need to remember to mention that if you get the complete version you are enti-tled to unlimited updates.

And I’ll be doing a lot of updates. My commitment to skiing and snowboarding are sincere. I think everyone should have access to this information.

I don’t think that it should cost a kings ransom to get it and I’m continuing to make sure that this is the most valuable resource you could possible have to prevent injury and combat the negative effects of winter sports.

So please check out www.TheTruthAboutSkiingAndSnowboarding.com and order the complete version. You will receive step by step instructions on how to dramatically alter your life. You will develop a level of fitness most can’t match, you will gain knowledge that won’t just change your life - it might save it.

And you’ll be taught how to safely enjoy some of the funniest activities ever invented.

So don’t wait a minute to purchase the complete book edition. Order the complete col-lection risk free.

This book is all about what you need to know. Skiing and snowboarding are incredible activities, and it’s extremely important to treat them with respect and to learn as much as you can about them.

Please remember, you’re safety and health as well the safety and health of others de-pend on your level of preparedness.

To your better, and safest riding,

Danko

PS - Also for the sake of brevity, the book will call both skiers and snowboarders, un-less otherwise noted.

The Author

Click now: www.TheTruthAboutSkiingAndSnowboarding.com to order and get your private copy of the whole book where will you uncover all secrets that will

make you a better skier and snowboarder!