Division of Occupational Therapy - OT Connect
Snowboarding
Fact Sheets
As gravity provides the core motive power, snowsports are ideal for people with limited mobility. Equipment modifications have been developed in board, ski and boot design and in seated equipment that enables participation and enjoyment to a very high level. Skiers and snowboarders can reach a level of freedom that is difficult to find in other sports. Snowboarding and skiing usually occur at a ski resorts and require special equipment. If you are new to this sport, choose a resort that caters to both you skill level and special needs.
Because of the cold temperatures encountered when snowboarding, persons with diminished sensation or diminished circulation are at risk of frost bite and other cold-related skin damage, more so than the population of non-disabled snowboarders. Care must be taken to dress warmly and wear comfortable boots. In addition, because of the danger of foot and finger frost bite, a number of additional options are available. Electric socks, boots, and gloves offer warmth for the non-disabled skier, but for snowboarders with diminished sensation, the electric heating elements may be too hot and cause burns.
Since snowboarding is a sport that requires physical exertion, often at high altitudes, the amount of oxygen consumption for someone with limited lung function may be severely limited. During heavy exercise, such individuals may have shortness of breath and fatigue if they work too hard. Therefore, individuals with limited lung capacity must keep a low work load.
Snowboarding is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. While similar in some aspects to skiing, snowboarding does require some different considerations. For example, in snowboarding wrists are very vulnerable, especially for beginners. Wrist guards and a helmet are important gear to consider.
Snowboarding Glossary
- Backside
The backside of the snowboard is the side where your heels sit. The backside of a snowboarder is the side to which his/her back faces.
- Blindside
Any rotation where the rider approaches or lands “blind” to the direction of travel such that he/she must look over his/her shoulder. An air performed with this technique usually increases the level of difficulty.
- Bonk
To hit a non-snow object with the snowboard while riding as part of a trick.
- Boost
To catch air off a jump or a halfpipe.
- Bust
A more enthusiastic version of to the verb “to do”, e.g. “Check out this shot of Ryan busting a huge air!”
- Camber
The amount of space beneath the center of a snowboard when it lays on a flat surface and its weight rests on the tip and tail.
- Cant
The angle at which either foot points pigeon-toed or duck-footed. The angle of your feet affects whether your knees bend toward or away from each other.
- Centered stance
Your stance is centered when your bindings are mounted on the snowboard so the distance between the tip and the front binding is the same as that between the tail and the rear binding. With your bindings set this way, you would have similar control riding forwards or backwards.
- Chatter
Vibration of the snowboard as a result of high speed, tight turns, and/or icy conditions.
- Corduroy
A term to describe the tracks left by a snowcat grooming a trail. Corduroy is usually great for laying out clean turns.
- Dampening
Reducing vibration (chatter) to increase handling. A shock-absorbent material like rubber is sometimes laminated into boards for this purpose.
- Delaminate
Separation of the layers in your snowboard, usually the result of long-term usage, impact from crashes, or a board defect.
- Directional stance
Your stance is directional when your bindings are mounted on the snowboard so the distance between the tip and the front binding is different from that between the tail and the rear binding. With your bindings set this way, you would ride more easily in your preferred direction.
- Duckfoot
You are duckfooted if your stance angles have your toes pointing outward like a duck.
- Effective edge
The length of your snowboard’s metal edge that makes contact with the snow. When you turn, you shift your weight to your effective edge.
- Fakie
Riding backwards, meaning the opposite direction than your usual stance.
- Fall line
Like a plumb line is to wallpaper, the fall line is to a slope. It’s the path of gravity’s pull on you down the hill.
- Flat bottom
The part of the halfpipe between the two walls.
- Flex
Describes the stiffness of a snowboard. Different degrees of flex are better for different styles of riding.
- Forward Lean
The degree to which the highbacks of traditional bindings or the boots of plate bindings keep your ankles and calves bent over your toes.
- Freeriding
Snowboarding for fun on any terrain, not including a halfpipe.
- Freestyle snowboarding
Usually associated with riding a halfpipe, but encompasses any kind of riding that includes tricks.
- Front hand/foot
The hand/foot closest to the nose of the snowboard. For regular-footed riders, the front is the left hand and foot. For goofy footed riders, the front is the right hand and foot.
- Frontside
The frontside of the snowboard is the side where your toes sit. The frontside of a snowboarder is the side to which his/her front faces.
- Goofy footed
Riding with the right foot closest to the nose of the snowboard.
- Grab
To hold the edge of the snowboard with one or both hands during an air or other trick.
- Halfpipe
Built with snow, a halfpipe is a vertical U-shaped structure used in freestyle snowboarding. Like a skateboarding halfpipe, riders use the opposing walls to get air and perform tricks as they travel down the fall line of the slope.
- Hard boots
Similar to ski boots, hard boots are rigid and made from hard plastic. They are typically used for carving and racing. Many freeriders dislike the stiffness and prefer the soft boots typically used with strap bindings. The Belligerent" Sinch Strap gives the convenience of step-ins without sacrificing the comfort of soft boots.
- Heel Drag/Overhang
Bindings should as centered as possible between the toe and heel edges. When they are placed too far toward the heel side, the heels drag in the snow while riding and interfere with turns, etc.
- Heel edge
The edge of the snowboard where the heels sit.
- Heelside turn
A turn made on the heelside edge.
- Highback bindings
This type of binding includes a piece that supports the ankle and calf while edging and making heelside turns.
- Hole Pattern
The layout of holes on the top of a snowboard, through which the bindings are fastened. Both three- and four-hole patterns are standard, but most snowboard companies use the 4-hole pattern.
- Insert
The piece of metal laminated within a snowboard in order to secure the screws that attach the bindings.
- Jib
To ride on a non-snow surface, e.g. rails, logs etc.
- Leash
A lasso-like device used to attach the snowboard to the front foot so it won’t slide away while getting in or out of the bindings.
- Lip
The top edge of the halfpipe wall.
- Nose
The front end of the snowboard, specifically the tip.
- Ollie
Borrowed from skateboarding, to Ollie is to get air by first lifting the front foot, springing off the back foot, then landing on both feet.
- Pipe Dragon
A grooming machine used to groom halfpipes.
- Plate Binding
Similar to ski bindings, a plate binding requires hard boots that connect directly to the snowboard through a flat plate. Unlike ski bindings, however, plate bindings are typically not designed to release the foot.
- Quarterpipe
Designed like a halfpipe but with only one wall.
- Rail
Part of a snowboard, consisting of a sidewall and an edge. Snowboards have two rails.
- Railing
To make hard, fast turns. Not to be confused with railing (n.), which is a handrail- type structure on which freestyle riders might jib.
- Rear hand/foot
The hand/foot closest to the tail of the snowboard. For regular-footed riders, the rear is the right hand and foot. For goofy-footed riders, the rear is the left hand and foot.
- Regular footed
Riding with the left foot closest to the nose of the snowboard.
- Rocker
The opposite of camber, so when the snowboard is placed on a flat surface, it rests only on the center portion.
- Roll down the windows
What it looks like a person is trying to do when he/she is off-balance or out of control and rotates his/her arms in an attempt to recover.
- Rollout deck
The horizontal part of the halfpipe wall that serves as a vantage point, waiting area, or walkway to the uphill end of the pipe.
- Running length
The range of the bottom of the snowboard that comes in contact with the snow.
- SlopeStyle Competition
A freestyle event where the participant is judged on tricks performed while riding over a series of assorted jumps.
- Soft boots
Boots worn for freestyle and freeride snowboarding. Most riders prefer the comfort and range of motion of soft boots to the rigidity of hard boots.
- Speed check
To slide sideways in order to quickly slow down before a jump or other situation where speed control is necessary.
- Stance
How one’s feet are positioned on the snowboard, as in regular or goofy-footed, but also including the width and angles of the placement.
- Stomp pad
The piece of non-slip material on the snowboard, attached next to the back binding. The stomp pad gives you a place to rest your back foot when you’re getting on or off the lift.
- Tail
The end of the snowboard closest to your back foot.
- Toe edge
The edge of the snowboard where your toes sit.
- Toeside turn
A turn made on the toeside edge.
- Transition a.k.a. Tranny
The initial curved part of a halfpipe wall between the flat of the bottom and the vertical section of the wall.
- Traverse
As in skiing, to ride perpendicular to the fall line of the slope. In the halfpipe, a freestyle rider traverses the flat bottom in order to perform tricks on either wall.
- Twin tip
A snowboard whose nose and tail are shaped identically, so the board will ride equally well in either direction.
- Vertical a.k.a. Vert
The topmost portion of the walls of a halfpipe. They are vertical in order to allow the rider to fly straight up from the halfpipe wall.
- Wall
The opposing sections of the halfpipe. A wall is comprised of a transition (where the rider begins the ascent) and vertical section (where the rider launches and performs a trick).
Anecdotal Reports
Story copied from: http://www.original-gimp.com/intro.htm
Hello, my name is Lucas Grossi. I am the Adaptive Snowboard Representative for the United States of America Snowboard Association. USASA (www.usasa.org) offers full competition in alpine and freestyle events for adaptive riders.
I also direct Gimps on the Glacier,the first and sickest adaptive snowboard camp ever. This camp happens one session a year through our good friends at High Cascade Snowboard Camp and Vans. I live and ride in Whitefish, Montana.
When I was 12, I was in a car accident and my left leg was severed below the knee. I was really on the down and out for a couple of months because I couldn't do anything. Then my brother, Jake, came home from a skateboarding competition in Portland. He saw a kid there that was a bilateral above-knee amputee who sat on a skateboard and pushed with his hands.
We went out into the garage and figured out how it was done. Pretty soon I was doing fifty-fifty grinds and rail slides on little parking blocks. It was the one thing that bumped me out of my slump and put me back on track.
The winter came and it was time to get on the snow. I learned how to three-track in the Tahoe Adaptive Ski School at Alpine Meadows. Then I raced with Far West Disabled Ski team for a few years. Three tracking was fun but there was definitely something missing. I had an undying need to learn how to snowboard. I was tired of sinking up to my eyeballs in powder and watching my buddies float effortlessly by.
So I went to my prosthetist and he helped me rig up my fake leg. The next weekend I went to Red Lodge, MT with my friends Stefan and Charlie. We got to the top of the chair and I asked them how to do it. Stefan said, "Point it!" I did just that and ended up taking out a tourist about a hundred feet later! (This is why all of you should take a lesson with a professional snowboard instructor when you decide to try it.) It has been ten years since that first run and I can still feel the excitement.
People with all various types of permanent physical disabilities are able to make snowboarding work for them. Below-knee and above-knee amputees ride with a little rigging to their prosthetic and sometimes using outriggers. People with partial paralysis can use restrictive knee braces and outriggers to shred down the hill. Paraplegics snowboard with a dope ride called a sit n' jib, which is kind of like a mono ski. Blind snowboarders are shedding with the help of a guide. Arm amputees are also snowboarding in much the same fashion as able-bodied folks. These methods are tried and true. I am sure that a lot of you have already working them out. It just takes the right attitude and a little trial and error.
Snowboarding is the greatest thing I have ever done. There is nothing like leaning back, pointing the nose of your board and laying out some big ol' roosters in two feet of fresh snow. If you have ever dreamed of doing this, then e-mail me. I direct a number of adaptive snowboard camps through out the year. I would love to help in any way possible. If you have already figured out how to ride, then come and join the posse of renegade adaptive riders. Snowboarding is a gift that offers true freedom. I would like to share this gift with all of you.
Sincerely,
Lucas Grossi
Adaptations
Snowboarding equipment itself can be very different for people with different types of disabilities. For those with partial paralysis or snowboarders with visual or hearing impairments, conventional snowboarding equipment may be used with special instruction.
Amputee
Prostheses can be used in snowboarding for someone with an amputated lower extremity. Often these prostheses are custom designed for the individual.
Visual impairment
For a snowboarder who has low vision or who is legally blind, the snowboarder would be led by a guide and wear a fluorescent orange vest marked "Blind Boarder" to alert other boarders and skiers.
Paralysis
A person with partial paralysis (lower body) uses special knee braces and one or two poles with small ski-like fittings on the ends to hold themselves upright while working down the slope. At times a "spotter" skis behind the boarder with safety straps attached.
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