Physics of Snowboarding

In snowboard as in any other sport the athlete has to be thinking at all times, analyzing the situation that surrounds you, make split decisions, and even perform quick calculations in your head.

Where this happens most in snowboarding is when the snowboarder is going to performs some type of aerial trick off of a jump. There are a lot of things that a snowboarder has to be aware of and be thinking about before he hits the jump. How far do I need to go to make the landing? How fast do I need to be going when I hit the jump? If I am going to spin, how fast should I so that I can make it around in time? The list goes on and on.

Some other factors that can come into play are: snow conditions, the type of snowboard, and experience of the rider. Which are much more advanced topics, and way beyond the scope of what we're worrying about here. What I am mainly going to be looking at are the basic characteristics of your average snowboard jump.

So how much speed should I have to hit the jump with? Well to answer this question you first have to know how far you have to go to clear the landing of the jump so that you donít land in the flats and break you knees or go to far and break your back.

If the jump that you need to clear is 20 feet long you will have to be going at a certain speed. So, what is that speed? Well you can figure this out by knowing what angle you built the jump at, the height of the jump and the distance to the landing. It is fairly easy to find the velocity by using the equation for a trajectory.

Now that you know how to find all of the correct parts of your jump to clear it successfully you can now add some difficulty and variety to the trick by spinning while in the air. Since you know the distance and your velocity from before you can find out what your air time was. Once you have all of that info you can use it to solve for what your angular velocity should be depending of how much you want to spin. That way you can make sure that you'll complete the spins in time to spot your landing and get ready for impact.