Time off can be anything from a couple of days to a couple of years or longer. Life, money, work, injuries, babies, summer: many factors can put a temporary halt on your snowboarding. I always find it amazing how rusty you can become so quickly and how hard it is to get back to snowboarding after time off. Muscles can fade (goodbye lovely snowboarding legs), and fitness can dwindle. Not only can it be a physical thing, but a mental thing. You can lose your confidence with a sport if you’re not doing it day-in day-out.
And if you DID still find yourself with all the confidence in the world, it’s still not advisable to go straight to the park first run and hurl yourself upside down off a black kicker, even if that’s what you were doing the last time you went riding.
Here are some tips to help you find your feet again quickly and safely and get you back riding like you’ve never left…
The Gym
The obvious thing to talk about first is fitness. It’s a really good idea to build this up again PRE snowboarding. The more you can do before, the better your body will cope with snowboarding. Also the stronger it will be to prevent injuries. The gym is great to rehabilitate old injuries too. Fitness can actually be in any form (not just the gym): home workouts, running, other sports, swimming, walking, just ANYTHING to get that blood pumping and muscles moving. Once you’re “back-in-the-zone”, you can start doing more specific snowboard workouts. These can target more snowboard specific areas. I always find Interval Training (alternating high-intensity exercise with low-intensity recovery periods) good as snowboarding (especially freestyle) tends to be shorter bursts of energy then a rest on the chairlift on the way up. Also, anything that makes those snowboard legs strong is good to do, ie: SQUATS SQUATS SQUATS. (I hate them too, but they work). And lastly, core is vitally important for snowboarding. A strong core = good balance, agility, coordination and general all-around awesome riding.
Put Your Snow Gear On At Home
Sounds silly but come on we’ve all done it! Try on all your snowboard gear at home, I like to call it “The Annual Snowboard Home Fashion Show”. It gets you re-used to how it all feels, how you can move it in, and won’t make it feel so alien when you get out to the mountains again. Check that you still feel good in it?! Ridiculous but, if you look good, you feel good, therefore more confident and better at snowboarding after time off. Also, try your boots on. Do they still fit? Are they still comfortable? Very important. There is NOTHING worse than ill-fitting boots/ foot cramp on the mountain. Wear them as much as you can around the house before you go and it will lessen the cramps when you wear them for real. Then strap into your board and have a go at rolling edge-to-edge/ flexing/ sliding/ pressing it around the living room. Just get you familiar with the feel of being on a board again.
Snow Dome/ Dry Slope
If you can, get yourself to a Snow Dome/ Dry Slope again. The more time you can spend doing this, the less time it will take you to find your feet again once on the mountain. You can make sure all your equipment still works or test some new things if you’re thinking about changing. Plus you can re-connect with some old snowboarding friends and get some stoke up for your snowboard trip.
Similar Board Sports
If you can’t get to a snow dome/ dry slope, there will be some sort of other board sport you can do in your area. It might be surfing, wakeboarding, kite boarding, mountain boarding, skating (you can pretty much do anywhere). Just anything you can do “going sideways” is beneficial to keep you in the right frame of mind and keep that muscle memory going. You might even find that if you do another board sport a lot, it will actually help improve your snowboarding. You could be BETTER than where you left off!
Warm-Up
So you’ve made it to the mountains. First things first, you need to do a good warm-up before you start snowboarding again. This will help prevent injury, limber you up and get you in the mental mindset for the day. You don’t have to spend hours doing this, even just 10 mins will help. You can do this in your accommodation before you leave, or on the piste before you strap in. I always find the walk to the chairlift in all your gear/ carrying your snowboard, is a good warm-up in itself! Make it fun and do a warm up with friends, you could take it in turns to copy one another to mix it up each day.
Warm- Down
Also essential. Not only will this help lessen the build-up of lactic acid/ sore muscles, but it might be necessary to get out of bed again the next morning after day one after a break! People often do a warm-up, but then totally forget about a warm down. You have exerted your body so much snowboarding, it needs some TLC to wind down. Gentle stretches and movements are best but also having a hot tub handy helps too!
Easy Start
Start off with some nice easy green/ blue runs, slowly working yourself up to the more difficult runs as the day progresses and your confidence builds again. Go at a slow pace, nice slow turns with your regular foot forward (not switch just yet). Practice longer turns, shorter turns, more edge pressure/ gentle carves – just getting used to the board on your feet again. Once you feel ok, maybe try some little ollies, some quicker turns, some switch. Then perhaps by the end of the day, you can try some little jibs (180s, presses, buttering etc) and even some little side hits/ rollers/ moguls on the piste. 100% wait until you feel confident with “flat-land-jibbing” before you go back to the park (if that’s where you want to go!). Off-piste/ powder/ backcountry/ pipe/ freestyle will come in time. Use your common sense with the specialist areas: start with the easier stuff, building yourself up to the harder stuff. Although, it is REALLY hard when you are faced with an “epic-once-in-a-life-time-powder-day” your first morning back. Sometimes you just have to go for things and hope for the best (and pray that you have done enough squats to see you through). But please do take it easy where you can.
Manage Your Time
Don’t be silly and do a full 9-5 your first day back. Even if you feel great at the time, you WILL pay for it tomorrow. Ease yourself back into snowboarding after time off slowly. Take lots of breaks, do a couple runs, rest, a couple more, rest. Maybe do a couple of “mellow” half days then work your way up to full days. Before you know it, your snowboard stamina and fitness will be back and you will be able to go for longer. Don’t put pressure on yourself if you cant keep up with the group, it really doesn’t matter. Go at your own pace and what feels comfortable for you. Or seek out riding buddies that are in a similar situation (haven’t snowboarded for a while) and want to take it easy.
Once you’ve found your mojo, reconnected with snowboarding after time off and are feeling good, you are officially BACK!! Now you can start progressing again. The world (mountain) is your oyster!