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"  The X Games took place this past weekend and Seventeen chatted with the youngest female snowboarder in the competition, Maddy Schaffrick, 17. Maddy started snowboarding when she was just 7 years old and was competing by 13. Now, she&amp;#039;s traveling all around the world while balancing her senior year of high school. Last year, Maddy had a serious injury and wasn&amp;#039;t able to compete for 11 months. We talked to her about how she bounced back, tips for beginning snowboarders and her thoughts on this year&amp;#039;s X Games. Seventeen: How did you mentally prepare for the X Games? Maddy Schaffrick: I&amp;#039;m just trying to have fun and not focus too much on doing well. I&amp;#039;m trying to be in the moment and do whatever I can during my placement time. I&amp;#039;m not looking too much into placement. 17: Is there anything you always do right before a competition to put yourself in the right mindset? MS: I always try to stretch before I compete and I&amp;#039;m always listening to Eminem on my iPod when I snowboard. 17: What do you like about competing? MS: I really like the whole crew of girls that compete. We all get along pretty well and I like being able to travel to different competitions. 17: Is it intimidating being the youngest person in the X Games? MS: No, I think it takes the intimidation off. I know I&amp;#039;m young and hopefully this isn&amp;#039;t my last X Games so I don&amp;#039;t need to focus on absolutely winning because I have time. 17: You just bounced back from a serious injury. Can you tell me about what that was like mentally and physically? How did you get back in the game? MS: I was out of snowboarding for 11 months and 15 months out of competing, so it was hard to jump back into competing again. It was really hard to not be snowboarding for that long. I had to find a new passion. I joined a creative writing class at my school and started writing to get my emotions out that way. Snowboarding gives you that edge every day where you&amp;#039;re so scared and having so much fun. I had to look beyond my injury and see what else I could do in the moment. I was living in the moment and couldn&amp;#039;t think about what I was going to do in a few months when I could snowboard again or what I should have done to not be injured. 17: Now that you&amp;#039;ve fully recovered, what athletic training do you to to prepare for snowboarding competitions? MS: I work out in the gym at least five times a week and I really like bike riding, either on a stationary bike at the gym or mountain biking. I&amp;#039;ve also gotten really into yoga. 17: That&amp;#039;s interesting because it kind of has the opposite effect of the adrenaline rush snowboarding has. MS: It totally is! 17: What do you eat to give you the energy you need to be so active? MS: I usually just try to eat a balanced diet where I&amp;#039;m not just eating fruits and vegetables, but I&amp;#039;m also getting protein and a little bit of carbs. 17: Do you have any advice for girls who haven&amp;#039;t tried snowboarding before, but want to? MS: Just find a way! While we&amp;#039;re young, we should try all the sports that are offered to us because you&amp;#039;ll never know what you&amp;#039;re going to like! Just know that the first day you snowboard, it&amp;#039;s going to hurt. You&amp;#039;re going to have so many bruises on your butt and on your wrists. You&amp;#039;ll feel it the next day, but if you keep working at it, it becomes so worth it. Want more snowboarding tips? Check out Team 17 Captain Geraldine&amp;#039;s exclusive convo with pro snowboarder and Olympic Gold Medalist Torah Bright! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/health/fitness/a17396/maddy-schaffrick-exclusive-interview/>