Strength and Conditioning Components for Elite Snowboarders

Snowboarding has become an exceedingly popular sport in the last 20 years. For many snowboarders, training in the off season and working out in a gym isn’t a common practice.

With the popularity of elite snowboarding and the Winter Olympics, top snowboarders are now training as professional athletes. The need for specialized, off-hill strength and conditioning is essential for extreme sports including snowboarding.

What Are The Physical Demands of Half-pipe?

Research in the Open Sports Medicine Journal outlined objectives for strength and conditioning programming for these diverse and dynamic athletes. The research examined the specific areas that snowboarding athletes need to develop. Researchers focused specifically on the half pipe event.

Half pipe is the most well-known snowboarding styles, and elite snowboarding half pipe is a highly technical sport that requires a complex set of physical skills. Half pipe athletes snowboard in a giant pipe and perform a series of technical jumps and tricks. These skills are judged by their degree of difficulty and technical execution. Researchers point out the importance of strength training for these athletes due to the risks associated with tricks and jumps.

What Does It Takes To Program Training For Snowboard Half-pipe?

One of the critical element of this sport in is the landing. Strength and conditioning coaches should be encouraged to program training that engages the muscle groups and skill areas required for snowboard landings. Coaches and athletes must have an understanding of the stress imposed on the bodies from the various mechanics of snowboarding. Coaches can play an important role in an injury prevention, athlete development, and performance. Coaches should have an understanding of volume, intensity, and energy systems required to facilitate training phases and competition during on and off seasons.

1. Joint mobility and range of motion work in all of the major joints.
2. High intensity muscular endurance training.
3. Core strength and smooth coordinated body movement.
4. Maximal strength training including high load eccentric power work.
5. Gymnastics skills including flexibility, stability, balance, trunk rotation and extension, and hip and trunk flexibility.
6. Off-season dry land training including plyometric exercises, springboard diving, large and mini-trampoline training, and foam-pit work.