With a few days to spare and the opportunity to visit the summer camp at Les Deux Alpes in France, we decided to drive to this snowboard summer heaven last week. With 970 kilometers to go and a stoked feeling it didn’t take that long to reach our destination. Because we left in the evening and drove the whole night, we arrived in the morning around 7:30 in L2A.

After checking in and gearing up it was time to buy our 3-day lift pass and checkout what Les Deux Alpes had in store for us. We took the long 25 minute cable lift from 1640 meters to 3200 hundred meters and wow! What a view! Where there was summer all over the city and the mountains, once we crossed the 1600 meter climb, there was snow on top of the gletsjer everywhere. Time to do some shredding!

The L2A summer camp is basically divided in two parts; the freestyle slopes and the carving slopes. Of course we were there for the freestyle park, which was divided into a beginners park, intermediate jibbing and jumping park, pro-park, one training half pipe, an Olympic sized half pipe and an airbag at the bottom. Enough to fill our three day trip with.

The beginner park consist of 3 lines; two lines of 3 kickers each and a line of boxes in different shapes. Easy stuff, but fun to warm-up.

The Intermediate jibbing park also consisted of several lines of objects. On the right the more easy line of boxes and to the left rails, wall rides and other fun features.

The intermediate jumping park was great! For us the first time that we had lines with four kickers in one go, so really a good way to get comfortable with the jumps and really stoked when we finished a good line.

The pro-line was sick to watch. I did a run where I ghosted one of the ‘pro’s’ from the side. Amazing at what speed they jump and at what steep angles they land and speed up again. For sure not ready yet for these kind of jumps. Give me a few more vacations at L2A and I will manage it as well

We never tried the half pipe, but after several runs through the smaller training half pipe it was so much fun. Really addicted now! Got a kind of skateboard feeling in the pipe which I did a lot when I was younger and just recently started again. Really great stuff! The big Olympic sized half pipe is crazy. It really places some of the stuff you see the pro’s do in perspective. Big props to them, just wow at the height they are making.

The airbag for trying out some new tricks was a little bit on the low side of the slope. Snow was too slushy over there to get any real speed, so we saw it open on day 1 only.

Where I personally learned a lot on the boxes and jumps on day 1 and 3, I had reserved day 2 for some photo shoots. It was the first time for me to go up the mountain fully equipped with my photo bag. At the first hour I didn’t feel really comfortable with 5000 euro of equipment on my back and a snowboard below my feet…

Anyway, it was great dedicating 5 hours of my time to photo’s. It’s nice to see that a lot of boarders are interested in them getting on the photo and around 20 people asked for my email so I could sent them their photo’s. The big lesson learned when taking photos and not wearing a helmet is to use sunscreen on my head! Word of the next day was lobster…

One of the fun things is the people you meet during such a trip. We’ve met Dave Raybould and David Garcia-Mendia who are both snowboard instructors.  Great guys to board with and have drink with afterwards. So much fun! We will for sure meet up in the near future as well.

It took me some time to arrange all the 1600 photos I took and the small video shots as well. Normally I shoot a lot of shots in burst modus and then select the best photo from the sequence and throw the rest away. Sanne told me it would be interesting to make a video of the burst shots, so below the video of the best burst shots and some left over video clips.

I will put some more photos online next week. Sanne Buurma and Dave Raybould also wrote some reviews, so no need for me to go more in detail. Cheers!

If you’re as addicted to snowboarding as I am, then I’m sure you will agree that the summer is a bit long.

The solution: focusing on how to improve your snowboarding in other ways (e.g. skateboarding).

There are lots of other ways that you can train your muscles and program your body for snowboarding, without ever having to touch the snow.

This post is going to show you how to develop your muscles and mind so that you will see quick improvements next time you go shredding.

What muscle groups are most important for snowboarding?

Before we start, let’s take a look at what muscle groups are important for snowboarding and why:

• Leg muscles:
  • Super important because they maintain the constant squat that is your snowboard stance.
  • The calves help you control the flexion and extension of your ankles. This helps you control turning and create pop when you jump.
  • Core muscles (around spine)
    • Support your whole body and posture.
    • Help you control and maintain balance
    • Used to create spinning power
    • Support your back
• Abdominal muscles:
  • Important for initiating spins
  • Support your back
• Foot muscles:
  • Help you control turning (torsional flex of the board)
  • Used more than in many other sports

Your whole body should be kept strong, but the above muscle groups are the ones that you should focus on strengthening if you want to step up your game.

Muscle development

Developing and strengthening the key muscle groups listed above will help you maintain your skills from one season to the next, and also allow you to maximise your potential. The lazier you are between seasons, the longer it will take to start improving next season. If you train effectively between seasons then you should be able to get back up to speed within a week, rather than it taking 3 or 4 weeks.

Here are 5 ways you can develop your muscles for snowboarding:

1. Cycling – Uses the same range of muscle motion (amount of movement) in your legs. It uses virtually the same muscle groups and is low impact on the knees.
2. Swimming – Great for maintaining core muscles that aid balance, and for all-round fitness.
3. Running – Can be quite difficult at first due to the shortening of your muscles that occurs from snowboarding. This means that lots of stretching is required to lengthen them over the summer. Focus on stretching your quadriceps and calves. The ankle joints can also become quite stiff from snowboarding. Basic mobilisation exercises are all that is required.
4. Trampolining – Excellent for core balance muscles and timing of movement patterns. You will learn: composure in the air, timing for spins, creating spin energy through your core etc.
5. Focused training (i.e. squats, lunges, sit-ups, push-ups, gym balls, balance boards) – Great for keeping the key muscle groups strong.

Any other training of the key muscle groups will help you maintain your snowboarding level during the off season.

Sports with transferable movements

By participating in sports that use very similar movement patterns, you will program your body to move in a certain way. These movements can then be transferred into your snowboarding, effectively steepening your learning curve. Imagine these movement patterns as “tools” to assist your snowboarding. I think of snowboarding in almost everything that I do.

Here are 6 suggestions:

1. Skateboarding – Arguably the brother (or sister) of snowboarding. Almost all the same movements, although it’s a lot harder.
2. Mountain boarding (like a snowboard with wheels) – Similar movements when it comes to turning, jumping and grabs. Hurts a lot more when you fall.
3. Surfing – Similar muscle groups and balance needed, although it’s a lot harder work to paddle out and into waves.
4. Longboarding (skateboard) – Similar carving balance although the extra grip takes a bit of getting used to.
5. Freeboarding – This is the closest thing to snowboarding that I’ve ever tried on concrete. The weight movement is the same as snowboarding. Falling on concrete at high speed though = pain!
6. Snakeboard/Streetboard – Similar in that your feet are strapped in. Rail tricks and spinning are virtually the same thing.

Mental training

I’ve learnt over the last few years that mental training is just as important as (if not more important than) physical training. Snowboarding can be quite dangerous, especially when it comes to riding park and backcountry. You need to make sure that you are mentally prepared so that you can unlock your full physical potential. Girls tend to defeat themselves mentally (generally) more than guys, but I won’t get into the reasons for that in this post.

When you feel scared, you can’t think straight, and you definitely won’t perform well. Mental training will help you keep a clear head when you need it most. It will also stop you from releasing too much adrenaline, which can make you act irrationally and only half commit to tricks. I generally find that I injure myself most when I’m in a state of fear (called the “flight” response in psychological terms).

Here are 4 ways to mentally train for snowboarding:

1. Watch lots of videos of other people performing tricks that you want to do (youtube is great for this).
2. Imagine yourself doing tricks over and over again, all the time.
3. Take part in sports that are equally as dangerous – this will increase your tolerance to danger (therefore making your body release less adrenaline).
4. Think about snowboarding all the time!

Commitment to the cause

If you’re a “fair weather” snowboarder, or you only want to go on a week holiday a year, then you might as well not bother with the above training. It’s really only applicable to those that want to improve.

No-one gets good at snowboarding without putting in a lot of time and effort. There’s no magic wand and you have to be mentally prepared. You can be as physically fit as you like, but at some point you are going to have to step outside your comfort zone, which requires a mental choice.

Snowboarding addiction

You can snowboard on dryslopes, indoor snowdomes, skateboard, cycle, swim, run, or whatever takes your fancy, but just think about which parts of that sport you could apply to your snowboarding. This is what my addiction does to me.

I challenge you to takes away what I’ve just told you and think about all the other ways that you can improve your snowboarding, without ever having to touch the snow. Then when next season rolls around, you should see quick results.

And please tell me about your summer training in the comments below.

About the author: Dave Raybould is a Snowboard Instructor and Writer. He runs a website packed full of Tricks, Tips and Advice www.SimplySnowboard.com.

(click to befriend Dave on facebook)