How to Improve Your Snowboarding Technique

You’ve learned the basic skills and have a solid snowboard technique, enough so that you blend in with the other knuckle draggers on the hill. But don’t stop there. Snowboarding coaches often say that you should stick with a plan that will help you push yourself further. So instead of settling, use these tips to improve your snowboard technique. You’ll be hitting jumps and riding the gnar in no time:

Take your snowboarding skills to the next level with these tips and tricks.

Gear Up

Buy and wear the proper gear for the snowboard technique you’re working on. For instance, for smoother, stabler rides and hitting big jumps, buy a stiffer, longer, and wider board. The opposite is also true in that for improving jibbing you need a softer, more park-focused board.

Get Stronger

Increasing your core and leg strength while remaining flexible will make a huge difference in your performance. It also helps in preventing muscle and ligament injuries. Look for snowboard specific exercise programs for this. Using a trampoline is beneficial. You can do many of the same tricks you do on your snowboard on a trampoline instead.

Switch It Up

Learn switch riding to improve both your trick portfolio and overall riding ability. Since this typically feels hard and unnatural, you’re forced to analyze your tricks more, which leads to a better snowboard technique.

Make a Video

Record yourself snowboarding, especially if you’ve never done so before. While watching the video footage, compare yourself to your favorite, professional snowboarder and see how you differ from them. Then visualize yourself riding like them and performing new tricks.

Ride Differently

There are seven different ways you can ride. And with a multitude of snowboard bindings to choose from, you’re guaranteed to find the perfect pair to accommodate your riding style snowboard technique. Here are the riding styles that made our list:

Cruising

If you take the lift to the top, and snowboard back down without riding the terrain, you’re cruising.

Urban

If you’re riding features that exist outside the ski resort, like handrails, ledges, parking structures, walls, etc., that’s urban style. Younger riders dominate this type of snowboard technique.

How you ride says a lot about your personality. Here, we highlight seven of the more popular styles.

Powder Riding

If you’re riding in a thick layer of freshly fallen, untouched snow — not the hard-packed snow that you’re used to — and you feel like you are floating, then you are definitely powder riding. Powder riding is all about the speed. It requires a different set of techniques than when riding on hard-packed snow. And, it does not hurt as much when you crash.

Alpine

If your board, boot, and binding equipment visually resembles skiing equipment, and you purchased them for the purpose of improving your “carving” performance, then you are alpine snowboarding. Narrower, longer, stiffer boards; boots made of hard plastic shells; and bindings that have a bail or step-in design, is what differentiates this type of snowboarding from the rest.

Backcountry

If you’re skiing outside maintained and controlled ski area boundaries, such as, avalanche terrain, slopes and trails, then you are backcountry snowboarding. This type of snowboard technique can be very dangerous, so do yourself a favor and seek training from the experts before engaging.

Freeride

If you are riding at your leisure in a terrain park, you are freeride snowboarding. Snowboarders that prefer this type of riding usually are — but not solely — in pursuit of massive peaks. Limited access to the mountains, and existing dangers (avalanche, crevasses), restrict how far freeriders can ride into distant areas.

Freestyle

If you are in an environment where riders perform features (acrobatics) and tricks (height, spinning) that closely resemble those seen in skateboarding, then you are most likely in a freestyle riding zone. This type of snowboarding can happen in terrain parks, backcountry, or urban environments, and is bound only by the snowboarder’s creativity.

Be a Park Rat

Perhaps the most effective way to increase your skills is to become a park rat for a while and practice all that you’ve learned in a terrain park. Lots of resorts offer progressive parks that cater to all ability levels so that you can continue building your skills.

The Rockies. The Sierras. Two of the best regions for snowboarding and skiing in the world, they are definitely the best places to ski in the United States or Canada. The Rockies stretch from north to south in the western US, while the Sierras make up the coastal range of western North America.

snowboard technique
Check out these North American ski resorts when you’re ready to push the envelope on your snowboard.

While everyone has a reason to choose the best place to go snowboarding, here are five resorts of distinction which have historical significance in snowboarding:

Whistler-Blackcomb

Compared to the others, Whistler-Blackcomb is a recent development. Its place in history was solidified in 2010 as it was the location of many of the ski (Whistler) and snowboard (Blackcomb) competitions in the Vancouver winter Olympics. One of the longest slopes from peak to bottom, there are actually two mountains and two resorts located a short drive north of Vancouver International Airport.

Park City

Park City hosted the snowboard and skiing competitions during the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. Just a short drive from Salt Lake City, Park City’s resorts have the feeling of a small town. The Wasatch Range separates them from the city. You can breathe in the crystal-clear air while you enjoy Olympic-standard snowboarding.

Palisades Tahoe

Palisades Tahoe (formerly Palisades Tahoe) is the third site on this list to have hosted the Olympics. While the other two locations were a nearby city, Palisades holds the honor of being the only resort to have hosted an entire Olympics.

Sun Valley

Sun Valley, Idaho gets on this list, not because of the Olympic skiing potential, but because of the fact that the first alpine ski chair lifts went into operation in Sun Valley in 1936 and 1937. This historic resort has been dropping snowboarders and skiers on the slopes for 80 years! Although there are other, older sites for skiing, this invention definitely changed the sport. Today, iconic Dollar Mountain caters nearly exclusively to snowboarders who prefer parks and pipes.

Buttermilk Mountain

The Winter X Games has been held at Buttermilk in Aspen for many years. One of the reasons that it found a home here is that the Winter X Games can literally take over the entire base area to allow the huge crowds that it gets. Many snowboarding “firsts” have happened on the slopes and halfpipe at Buttermilk.

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