10 Ways To Improve Your Snowboarding When There Is No Snow
The dreaded no snow
Snow doesn’t last all year. Unfortunately. But you don’t need snow to improve your Snowboarding, I’m going to show you how.
One way is by keeping fit and active, but you already know that. Right?
There are also clever ways to program your body for Snowboarding that you might not have already thought of. I’m going to show you ten.
1. Skateboarding
The main reason that people don’t skateboard is because it’s really hard, and also because you fall on concrete instead of snow. Well toughen up Shirley.
To improve your balance, co-ordination and timing for Snowboarding, you don’t have to do anything crazy on a skateboard. Just pushing around and turning is enough.
It’s much harder to balance on a skateboard than it is on a Snowboard, which means that you will hone your fine balance muscles.
A bit of skateboarding goes a long way in Snowboarding.
Danny Davis and Eero Ettala are both sick skaters.
2. Trampoline
Jumping around on a trampoline is not only loads of fun, but it’s also a great way to improve your balance, co-ordination, timing, and spacial awareness for Snowboarding.
You can learn flips relatively safely and you can also practice the timing of spins.
Composure in the air is a key ingredient when grabbing. You can practice by grabbing your feet, or doing stupid poses in the air.
I wish I had access to a trampoline.
3. Balance board
Balance boards are great for improving your, you’ve guessed it, balance.
You have a couple of options for balance boards: you can either buy one or you can make one.
You can buy cheap balance trainers, or you can spend a lot.
5 simple steps to make your own ghetto balance board:
- Take the trucks off a skateboard deck (or buy a cheap blank one)
- Buy a large bottle of coke
- Fill the bottle to the top with water (make sure it has no air in it)
- Tape the lid on with strong tape
- Balance the skateboard deck on the bottle laying on its side
4. Mountain board
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one of these . It’s like a Snowboard with wheels.
It will help improve your turning, steering, balance, and toughness. You have to incline into your turns like carving on a Snowboard.
5. Gym ball
This is a relatively simple one, it’s cheap too. You can do this easily at home.
Gym balls are great for improving your core strength, which is what helps you balance.
Stronger core = better balance
6. Gymnastics
Guys will probably sigh at this one. But have you ever seen how good gymnasts get at flipping? It’s pretty ridiculous.
I have a friend who did gymnastics for 10 years before starting Snowboarding. The guy got good stupidly quickly. Everything he did had amazing style to it, damn him.
But seriously, people who do gymnastics pick up Snowboarding easily. Girls I’ve taught who do gymnastics have amazing balance and co-ordination.
Go to some open gym sessions and play around on the spring boards, or in the foam pits. It all helps to develop your co-ordination and spacial awareness.
7. Wakeboarding
This is like Snowboarding on water . I stood up first try on a wakeboard. It’s so much fun.
You get to practice all the moves like on a Snowboard. It’s a little different, and will destroy your arms, but it’s very very good training.
The surface tricks you do are almost identical to riding a Snowboard in powder. A little bit more weight on the tail and less margin for error.
8. Surfing
I taught Snowboarding in Australia, and so a lot of younger people I taught surfed (although not as many as you’d think). I also got the chance to try it.
It’s bloody hard!
Snowboarding is all lower body. To surf, you need lots of upper body strength to paddle and push yourself up. But again, it’s very good balance and fitness training.
9. Dryslope/Indoor
I spent a lot of time in England riding dryslopes and indoor .
The best thing about indoor slopes is that they often have a good park setup. It’s great for lapping the same feature and dialling tricks in. I’ve actually had some of the best rail sessions of my life on dryslope.
Don’t underestimate how fun it can be.
10. Yoga and Pilates
Yoga is great for flexibility, think grabs and spins.
Pilates is great for core strength, which helps you balance.
If you did loads of both of these, you would get a lot out of your Snowboarding holiday, or season, or whatever.
There is general training, then there is focused training
There are loads of ways that you can keep your body active and fit for Snowboarding e.g., swimming, cycling, running, jumping, and jiving.
If you try hard enough – and you’re as addicted as me – you can see focused training for Snowboarding everywhere. Even when I’m walking down the street I’ll sometimes feel the urge to spin a 360, or jump onto a ledge, or jump down some stairs. It’s all fun and games.
About the author: David Raybould is a Snowboard Instructor and Writer. You can connect with him on Twitter, or make friends with him on Facebook.
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These are really killer tips to go around when there is not snow available, which is almost all the time in the Netherlands
. I wish I had access to a trampoline like a mate of mine, which seems like a super way to improve airtime awareness. I’ll drop by my m8’s house for some of these sessions for sure.
Rest of the the tips I’ll have to give a go again. I already threw my skateboard in my cars trunk about 2 weeks ago.