If you’ve been looking for ways to get better at snowboarding, then you’ve likely already identified your balance and coordination as key areas for improvement.
You don’t have to hit the slopes to do some training to improve your snowboarding.
All you need is a balance board, which you can use anywhere, to work on your snowboarding balance and coordination.
You don’t need good weather. You just need a surface to put the balance board down on.
Lot of snowboarders swear by balance boards, especially for off-season training.
So, let’s look at the benefits of balance boards for snowboarders.
1. Improve Your Balance And Coordination
By design, you need good balance and strong core muscles to balance perfectly on a balance board.
And if you don’t have those two things, then just regularly using a balance board for training helps to boost your coordination and balance by strengthening your core muscles.
Training on a balance board forces the rider to engage their core and, when ridden correctly, exhibit the stability and posture that is critical to becoming an advanced skier or snowboarder.
You can do a variety of different stances and exercises on a balance board to simulate riding a snowboard more effectively.
2. Practice And Train For Tricks
If you’re a more experienced snowboarder, then you might want to work on perfecting some tricks or even adding some new ones to your arsenal.
A balance board gives you a safe way to practice snowboarding tricks in the comfort of your home.
Advanced riders can use balance boards to train and practice tricks like Ollies, spins, shuv-its, grabs, air drops, and more.
Some balance boards, like the Snowboard Addiction Tramp Board (at Amazon), are designed specifically for practicing snowboarding tricks.
3. Easy Off-Season Training
When there’s powder, you probably want to be on the slopes doing your training. But what about during the off-season?
If you’re not rich and can travel to a part of the world with snow, how can you train for snowboarding during the hotter months?
Easy. With a balance board.
You don’t need the snow to practice movements, tricks, and balance when you have a good balance board at home.
Plus, balance boards are so small that you can take them with you anywhere to do you training.
4. Focus On Muscle Memory Training
When you are regularly using your balance board for snowboarding training, you get into a regular rhythm with the movements.
These repetitive motions do one very important thing – they activate your muscle memory.
That means that the movements become like second nature and you can do them without even needing to think about it.
The end result is that when you’re on the slopes, your movements end up being more precise, faster, and smoother.
5. Reduce Injuries
One the best things about training for snowboarding with a balance board is that you’re reducing the instance of injury by strengthening the joints in the legs and improving balance.
Studies have shown that regular balance training like this reduces injuries as helps you recover from injuries, like a broken ankle.
By focusing on exercises that target balance, proprioception and improving your range of motion, a balance board can help you make a full recovery from any lower body injury.
And it’s not just your knees and ankles either.
Maintaining balance on a balance board requires a lot of arm and shoulder movement.
By forcing someone to position their arms and shoulders just right to stand on a balance board, they can help strengthen weakened or injured muscles and joints in the arms and shoulders.
6. Improve Stamina And Strength
Though balance gets all the attention, training with a balance board also improves your strength and stamina.
Your lower body, specifically your legs, see a nice boost in strength.
And if you’re doing an actual workout on one of these instead of just messing around, then you’re going to work up a sweat because it is wicked challenging to do a full workout session on a balance board.
Your core muscles and your legs muscles will get the most noticeable improvement, but your stamina also increases after regular workouts on your balance board.
Final Word
As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to doing some snowboard training on a balance board.
In addition to perfecting your movements and nailing some tricks that you once thought impossible, the balance board is a great workout for your body.
You get stronger, you get better at snowboarding, and you reduce your overall chance of injury when you’ve carving through that powder.
So, what are you waiting for?
Check out our recommendations on the best balance boards for snowboarders.