5 Ways to Get Better at Snowboarding in the Offseason

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How to Get Better at Snowboarding in the Off Season

5 Ways to Get Better at Snowboarding in the Off Season

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What up shredder?

It’s Christian from shred school

How do people from places where there’s not very much snow get SOOO good at snowboarding?

If you look at a pro lineup, oftentimes pros didn’t come from Colorado, or Utah, or Whistler, they ended up there.

That’s because, and I know it’s hard to believe, being forced into off-season snowboard training can actually be an advantage if you want to get really good at snowboarding.

Today we’re going to break down the 5 ways to get better at snowboarding in the offseason, to practice snowboarding without snow, and to learn to snowboard from home with off-season snowboard training. Here we go…

If you want to learn ALL the pre-requisites, this week we've got 50% Off Shred School: https://www.edshreds.com/school

Practice Snowboarding Without Snow With "Jib" Training

I’ve tried it all when it comes to off-season training. Backflipping into leaves.

Diving boards, Soap boarding – covering wooden ramps in dish soap and snowboarding down them.

Buying astro turf, homemade balance boards, surfing, wave riding.

The list goes on and on.

Over the years I’ve learned there are five important off-season training areas to address if you want to get really good at snowboarding this season.

And don’t be fooled, even if you don’t get to ride that much, you can significantly improve your skill set if you obsess over the offseason training.

Number one is jib training. “Jibbing” or hitting boxes and rails is probably the easiest thing to train in the offseason, meaning the training methods feel very similar to snow training. It’s directly applicable to your ability to do tricks on snow.

In order to train in Jibbing, we use some sort of balance bar. This could be a 4×4, a two liter of water, a pvc pipe, a bench, or a snowboard specific jib block from Snowboard addiction. Any of them will work, some better than others.

We can use a snowboard, a skateboard with shoes taped on, or an off season training board to practice. Focus on the fundamentals, and practice everyday, and you’ll notice a HUGE difference in your ability to jib during the season. I recommend you start with 50-50s and boardslides and work your way up. For more specific training, come check out our off-season training section inside Shred School for specific trick breakdowns.

How to Tramp Train for Air Awareness

The second style of training is “air awareness”

This could be training on a trampoline with or without a snowboard on your feet, hitting the town pool for some diving board action, or honestly just jumping off anything and everything as kids tend to do. The more you get comfortable flying through the air, spinning, and being upside down, the easier it’s going to be on snow.

It’s an amazing time we live in, you can even practice your tricks in a foam pit.

Snowboarding Workouts (Strength Training for Snowboarders)

The third style of training in the off-season is strength training. This is shoring up any structural weaknesses, building strength, explosive power, and stability by training in the gym.

I know the snowboard community isn’t always ‘gym friendly” but it makes a huge difference in your ability to do tricks, gives you “stomping legs” and reduces your chance of injury. If you’ve been afraid of “being a jock” in the past, just know that training in the gym will make everything about your life and your shredding better. Checkout “strength training for snowboarders” inside shred school for snowboard specific training schedules.

Snowboard Mobility Training (Yoga for Snowboarders)

Next we have mobility. This refers to our flexibility, adaptability Like strength training, the more mobility we have, the less we’ll get hurt, plus we'll make twisty tricks like method grabs, pretzels and spins much easier. Once I started doing Yoga, my riding got so much better… and smoother and I felt better the next day. At the very least, learn to stretch before riding. Come check out Yoga for snowboarders inside Shred School.

How to Skateboard For Off-Season Snowboard Training

Lastly we have the ultimate hack. It’s the hardest to get into because of it’s difficulty level but will have the biggest impact on your snowboarding.

We have… skateboarding. Skating is like snowboarding but 10x harder, which means, mastering the fundamentals on a skateboard will explode our riding.

We can look to pro skateboarders of the 90’s going pro in snowboarding in less than a year to see evidence.

If you look at a lot of pro snowboarders, you’ll see a skating background, and if you look to snowboarders who ride for years but can’t master the fundamentals like the ollie or dealing with transition, we can often point to a lack of skateboarding.

The infamous inability to pick up your back foot on an ollie is directly related to the inability to ollie on a skateboard.

If you want to have more style, more ability and more fun, get into skateboarding and you’ll be amazed at how much better your riding becomes.

Check out beginner skateboarding for snowboarders in shred school and we’ll show you exactly what to focus on to get better at snowboarding, without needing to attempt to master tricks that won’t actually make you better at shredding.

Snowboard Instructional Videos Online

You wouldn't take the final to an exam without opening a text book first, yet some of you will try to ride your first double black diamond or attempt your first backflip without hearing a pro talk about how to do it first.

The most important part? They can tell you what mistakes they made when learning how to snowboard so you don't have to learn the hard way.

Just imagine learning everything about a trick BEFORE you try it – how to practice snowboarding at home, try the trick and correct your mistakes before you get out to the mountain.

That's what snowboard instructional videos can do for you if you use them for off-season snowboard training to learn how to snowboard from home.

How to Improve Your Snowboarding for Beginners and Learn To Snowboard From Home

So that’s it. If you’re stuck inside, just know that you can more than double your riding abilities next time you're at the mountain by focusing on off-season training. We've got

Jib training
Air awareness – tramp training
Foundational strength
Mobility
Skateboarding – the one most people won’t do but that makes the biggest difference.
Snowboard Instructional Videos – Snowboarding is 50% mental, and 50% practice. If you start to learn the techniques, tricks and language before you get to the mountain, you'll learn twice as fast.

You don’t need to backflip into leaves, but it will help if you can focus on the basics in each of these five areas. GO out there, give it a shot. If you need help, check out Shred School, and let us know what you want to learn about.

That’s all for today, peace out shredder.

Want to train from home and don't know where to start? Check out Shred School today and get 50% off.