Ski and Snowboard Instructor Training Courses - Winter Sports Company

Basic Snowboard Turns
In a basic snowboard turns we don't use a lot of movements of our joints, we don't flex or extend our knees or ankles much and we often use too much rotation in our upper body to start the turn.

Dynamic Snowboard Turn
In a Dynamic snowboard turn we use a lot of flex and extend movement in our ankles and knees (hinge joint), also we use rotation of our hip joint (ball and socket) to help the snowboard turn easier with less effort. Just to clarify that the hip bone is part of the upper body and from the ball and socket joint down is the lower body. The upper body contains the Center of Mass. So when we use rotation of our hips we are actually rotating our legs in the hip socket. We also will start separating our upper and lower body as we get more dynamic, were the upper body will follow a different path than our snowboard. The Center of Mass should always continue to move down the hill to keep all the forces working together while we snowboard.

Intermediate Snowboard Tasks
First we need to explore what our own personal range of movement is.

Range of movement in the ankles
This will be affected by the stiffness of our snowboard boots. These movements of the foot up and down make quick and subtle changes of our snowboard to help keep us stable. Movement of the ankles is the most efficient movements we can make while snowboarding. They happen right at the board and transfer the energy quickly.

• Try traversing across the hill while flexing and extending the front ankle and see what the reaction of the board is.
• Try traversing across the hill while flexing and extending the back ankle and see what the reaction of the board is.
• Try traversing across the hill while flex and extending both ankles together and see what the reaction of the board is.
• Try traversing across the hill while flexing the front foot up and extending the back foot down and see what the reaction of the board is.

We should always traverse both heel and toe edge of the snowboard to make sure we have an even development of both edges.

Range of movement in our knees
The range of movement in our knees can be affected by may factors including (but not limited to) physical condition, stiffness of our snowboard boots, and athletic ability. Movement of the knees consists of flex and extend of the joint. The flex and extend of the knees is very important in the transition of the turn (between the finish and start of the turn or the edge change). The range of movement in our knees helps with balance and are longer levers so they can make more powerful movements than our ankles.

• Flex the front knee (action), Center of Mass moves over the front foot (reaction) or Tip of the snowboard.
• Flex the back knee (action), Center of Mass moves over the back foot (reaction) or Tail of the snowboard.

We use these movements to move over the tip and tail of the snowboard to help with different parts of the turn. In the start of the turn it helps to have more pressure at the tip of the snowboard. In the middle of the turn it helps to maintain equal pressure on both feet. While in the finish or end of the turn it can help to have slightly more pressure at the tail of the snowboard to help build forces that can then be released to help start the next turn.

Once we figure out our own personal range of movement we can start to put these movements to use in turns.

Lets first define the different types of turns we can make with a snowboard.

Skidded turn
This is the first turn that a beginning snowboarder will learn. The snowboard will generally have less of an edge angle and will slide through the whole turn. The tail of the snowboard will follow a different path than the tip of the snowboard will follow while turning.

Pivot turns
This type of turn is generally adopted as skidded turns. A pivot turn is exactly that; a turn where you pivot around a point of your snowboard (typically the front foot). Usually if we are consistently using pivot turns it means that we are using our upper body to initiate the turn and our stance is not the most efficient.