Best Winter Sports

Winter sports can be fun to do especially when you get to do it only once a year… unless of course if you live in Aspen or other places where there are snow all year round. If you live in a place where snow is not as constant, it is good to invest in sports apparel that will last you a lifetime and those that you can keep for a long time.
Below are some tips on how to take care of your winter sports apparel so that you can use them again for the next winter season.
Store it properly
Winter sports apparel can be bulky. In addition to the paddings, which are fairly common in sports apparel, winter sports gears should also be thick and padded to protect the person from the extremely cold temperature. This makes winter sports apparel hard to store. Where can you put such bulky items? If they still have space in their closets, they often put these items folded up there in hibernation.
If the space is not enough, some people just put them in a box and store them in an attic or bodega. One thing that you can do is to buy vacuum bags. With the use of vacuum cleaners, you can suck the air up and lessen their sizes, even the padding. That way, you can stack them up even in a smaller space.
Clean them up.
Before putting them to sleep for the next year, make sure that you have cleaned them. Never put them in storage without first washing them. Dirt and grime, even in little quantities, can ruin the cloth. Stains will also be harder to wash away if it has been there for a year. Besides, insects are more attracted to clothes that are not clean. They might also ruin your sports gears.
Cool and dry
Make sure that the place where you are storing your winter sports apparel is cool and dry. Too much heat can ruin the fabric and affect the padding of the sports gears. Moisture can also seep through and damage the apparel. If they get wet somehow, they will surely smell bad.
Fold them right
Another important thing to remember in storing your winter sports equipment is to fold them correctly. Make sure that the paddings are not crushed. Storing it for a year in this way can completely ruin the shape of the winter apparel.
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Low Jeremy maintains http://Sports-Apparel.ArticlesForReprint.com. This content is provided by Low Jeremy. It may be used only in its entirety with all links included.
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Article Tags: sports, winter, year Read more articles by: Low Jeremy Article published on April 15, 2008 at Isnare.com

In the winter there so many things that you can do instead of just sitting around at home doing nothing. You can go snowboarding go skiing and do many other winter sports.
As you are getting your body ready for winter sports you will want to take an honest test to yourself and ask yourself how good of shape are you really in. then you just need to start running and getting ready for the winter sports because in the end when time comes for you to start your winter sport you may not even be in good enough shape to compete.
Before your winter sport even starts you will want to be able to at least walk or run for 30 minutes out in the cold winter. If you cannot do just that then you will never be ready for your winter sport. Many people can go sit in their houses all winter without doing one exercise and still be able to go do their winter sport and that is just because they are used to that routine. They probably do some type of exercise in the house where its warm instead of getting out in the cold and working out.
After you have gotten yourself into some what of good shape for your winter sports you will need to start getting your heart rate up so you can burn fat and gain muscle. You will want to be able to do at least 15 minutes of some aerobic before you start your winter sports.
You do want to take the time to congratulate yourself but you do not want to overdue it by going out drinking and getting those calories back in your body. You want to just have a nice good dinner and get good nights sleep so that you can start your routine over again the following day. If you don’t do this then you will be stuck in the body your in now and you won’t do so good in your winter sport.
You might have a specific winter sport that you compete in every winter. If you don’t have the body for it then you’re not going to be competing in anything but competing against yourself to get off the couch.
Basically for all winter sports you are going to need to get up and do something to get your heart rate up so that you can get your legs ready for the sport you are doing since in winter sports you use your legs a lot. If your legs are not in the shape in which they should be then you shouldn’t even be thinking about competing until next year when you are in good shape and so you can compete. If you think and feel that you are good shape then that is good and you should be able to compete but many people feel the same way and often struggle so be sure to get out and exercise before your sports starts.

If you participate in winter sports, your body can benefit from sports massage therapy. Interestingly, the average skier or snowboarder, or other winter sports "athlete" is not an athlete. If you are the typical "weekend warrior", enjoying your winter sport for fun and recreation, then your massage needs will differ from a competitive athlete’s needs.
Snow is settling on high Colorado peaks. Folks are getting anxious to play their favorite winter sports. These include skiing, snowboarding, snowshoe hiking, cross-country and telemark skiing, and others.
Your muscles on slopes.
As you start to play, your muscles react to the new challenge. New workloads can leave you sore. Sometimes you "feel the burn" as you cruise down a long trail. Sometimes the soreness is not felt for up to 3 days after strenuous activity. This type is called delayed-onset muscle soreness.
Unlike competitive athletes, soreness can have a much greater impact on the adventures of recreational athletes. If you enjoy your sports while on vacation or on random weekends, your muscles may be in different stages of conditioning throughout the winter.
Sports massage styles and your needs.
Sports massage is often misunderstood as a massage style just for competitive athletes. It is also commonly mistaken for Deep Tissue and massage of intense pressure. However, sports massage depends on the conditioning of the muscles that experience it!
Sports massage will involve firmer pressure when athletes are in training for an event, but not when the event date is approaching soon.
However, since deep bodywork is not advised when a recreational athlete has recently finished their activity, firm sports massage will be applied less often during typical winter sports!
A trained, certified sports massage therapist learns your muscles’ needs and applies techniques accordingly. If you just ripped down a half-pipe on your snowboard, and your quads and arms ache with "over-endorphinating", then your skilled sports massage therapist will use relaxing strokes and loosening stretches. They may use gentle pressure and a slower pace.
Other styles of massage that relax muscles and loosen joints after activity include:
* Thai, also known as Thai-Yoga
* Hot stone, or "Contrast" with both hot and cold stones
* Relaxing Swedish
As you ascend to your favorite endorphin highs this winter, enjoy sports massage. The right style of sports massage can prepare your body for greater adventures!

As the days grow shorter and summer becomes a memory, many of us will be turning our thoughts towards planning a winter vacation, especially one involving winter sports such as skiing. Travel insurance is an often overlooked part of holiday planning, but if you plan on taking part in sporting activites then it really is essential.
A normal travel insurance policy will probably not be up to the standard you need for winter sports, and if things go wrong you could be left facing a huge bill. So what features should you be looking for in a policy?
- Injury Cover
No matter how accomplished a skiier you are, hurtling down a mountain is always going to be more risky than simply lying on a beach working on a tan. And if you do have an accident, a mountainside isn’t the easiest place for medical services to reach. If you’re unlucky enough to need a mountain rescue or airlift to hospital, you’ll be facing a bill running into the thousands even before you get medical attention. This sort of expense is likely to be specifically excluded on a standard insurance policy, but will be an integral part of almost any winter sports cover.
- Equipment
Most winter sports require expensive equipment, and where there are valuables there’s always the chance of theft. Your insurance should provide enough cover to fully replace your equipment with brand new items if necessary, right there at the resort. Even if you plan to hire your equipment, the hire company will probably require insurance - and your own policy is likely to be cheaper than the standard one they’ll try to sell you.
- Liability
Even the best skiiers or snowboarders can be involved in an accident in which someone else gets injured. Whether or not an accident is your fault, you could end up being taken to court and this is usually a long and expensive process. A decent insurance policy will cover costs from any legal proceedings and / or compensation payments.
- Closure of Piste
If bad weather (or warm weather!) means that the pistes are closed and you can’t ski, your policy should pay you compensation to cover the costs of any pre-booked lessons or lift fees, and many will even include a payment simply to cover the inconvenience of not being able to ski.
- Off Piste
A final point to note is that a standard winter sports policy will probably only cover you for accidents that occur when skiing on designated pistes. If you plan to go off-piste, then make sure your insurance will cover this - you’ll probably have to pay a supplement.
As with most kinds of insurance, paying out for travel insurance can seem like a waste of money. However, if you find yourself caught up in an accident on the mountainside then the costs involved can be truly frightening and you’ll be glad you took the time to arrange adequate cover in advance!

Often the focus of winter sports winners are men, but there are plenty of woman that have excelled in the various sporting events as well. The top speed skater is Bonnie Blair who has amazed crowds for years with her unbelievable speed and agility. When she was only 18 years old she competed in the World Cup event. However, this was just the tip of the iceberg for what was to come.
At the age of 19, Blair competed in the Winter Olympic Games and finished in 8th place. For the next twelve years which covered three more Winter Olympic Games Blair walked away with a total of five gold medals and one bronze. She holds the record for the woman with the most gold medals from the Winter Olympic Games.
Sonja Henie became the youngest woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympic Games in 1928. She earned the gold medal in the figure skating competition This was a title she held until 1998 when Tara Lipinski won a gold medal. She was two months younger than Henie at that time. Henie also holds the record for being the only female figure skater to win three gold medals in three consecutive Winter Olympic Games.
It is believed she could have continued winning them but after her gold medal win in 1936 she announced she was leaving the Olympics to become a professional skater. She enjoyed performing in various movies and touring shows that involved ice skating until she died in the late 1960’s due to Leukemia.
In 1960 skier Penny Pitou became the first USA winner of a gold medal in the downhill ski event. This was quite a success in 1960 because very few women were competing in the ski events at the Olympic Games at that time. The fact that she was able to walk away with a gold medal in an event that no male had earned one was an even greater accomplishment for women in the USA. She quickly became a role model for girls that wanted to one day win an Olympic gold medal.
Dorothy Hamill is well known for her performances at the Winter Olympics in the area of figure skating. She went on to be a professional figure skater and paved the way for others. She created amazing moves that quickly became very popular in the various figure skating events. One of them is called the Hamill Camel which is a very daring combination of spins that she incorporated into her early routines… more:http://www.sport.healthbloger.com/Top-Women-in-Winter-Sports.html

Let’s start with some definitions:

• Winter sport is a sport commonly played during the winter season on snow or ice.
• The temperature of the winter sports performed outdoors ranges from - 25 to + 10° C, while the temperature of those performed indoors averages 5° to 10° C.

Snow and ice are better as you get higher. This means training and competition for many winter sport athletes commonly requires some degree of exposure to higher altitude often 2,600 - 3,500m. The most important nutritional factors to consider for winter sport are the cumulative effect of cold and altitude - leading to increased energy expenditure, greater reliance on blood glucose and muscle glycogen, and exacerbated fluid loss.
Any form of exertion in the cold may increase energy requirements. Living and/or training at altitude increases your need for adequate iron stores in order for your blood to adapt. In addition, fluid requirements are higher in the cold compared to temperate environments. Why? Because cold air contains less water than warmer air, so cold exposure leads to a small but significant increase in respiratory water loss – each time you breath out, you become a little more dehydrated. In addition, cold temperatures can result in an impaired thirst response, which means you don’t realise you need to drink as often as you should.
It’s worth bearing in mind that for international cross country events longer than 15 kilometres, sport drinks are provided for all athletes – so if you plan to ski or board more than 15 k in a day, you should be making sure you have a similar level of provision that is not just fluid but also glucose and protein based.

For many, travel insurance is a valuable commodity: it offers protection against eventualities that could prove costly, such as personal injury, baggage loss or theft and cancellation cover.
Of course, as with most things in life, there are some who won’t commit to something without seeing clear proof of the benefit it will give them. Unfortunately, to experience the benefit you will need to encounter an eventuality for which your insurance policy covers you. Without a policy you will learn that benefit the hard way - by being left out of pocket.
As you increase the risk factor on your holiday, the need for some kind of protection becomes ever more apparent. One holiday for which cover should definitely be seen as a necessity is a winter sports or skiing trip.
According to statistics released by the insurer esure, one in four Brits takes to the slopes without any form of cover. A large proportion of those people wrongly believe that their European Health Card will provide full cover should they have an accident. This is not the case and an accident whilst skiing could cost you dearly in the long term.
The health card system aims to provide cover for the initial emergency treatment required but beyond this you are left to foot the bill.
If you are airlifted in a helicopter to hospital, a service that could easily cost you £1,500, this could be classed as an extra. Add to this any daily charges for your hospital bed or room and you could easily be looking at tens of thousands of pounds in total costs. This type of event can easily bankrupt the average person and it is clearly worth purchasing a travel insurance policy to cover against this eventuality.
It is essential you check a prospective or existing policy before you travel to ensure you have winter sports cover. You will find with some policies that this is excluded, although it can sometimes be added as a bolt-on to the policy, whereby you pay an optional charge for this cover.
There are many companies who offer a winter sports holiday insurance policy as a standalone package. Other companies will provide this cover within their standard policies. It is important to compare features during the quoting process to see exactly what you are getting for your money.
A winter sports insurance package will usually cover areas such as ski equipment, ski hire and lack of services due to closure or avalanches. Quite often basic cover will be improved to offer higher levels of protection in terms of monetary value.
It is important to remember when searching for that all-important cheap travel insurance policy to not base your decision on price alone. Saving £10 or 20 is fantastic but is it worth it if it costs you hundreds in the long run, due to lack of the right cover?