Cairngorm Snowboard Club

Coaching Mandate.

Coaching consists of a relationship between the coach and the athlete in which trust is the main bond. Working together they can come to decisions equally to produce the best results for the said athlete.
Apart from the obvious riding side to coaching which include focused and physical training, there are other important aspects involved in developing the riders ability within the sport. These include mental training, confidence building and goal setting.

On the riding development this will include snowboard technique, foot steer, edge control, correct posture, stance, flex and extension through turns, riding switch (backwards). For the more advanced or for those wanting to digress in a specific direction race training (snow boarder cross) and freestyle coaching are available.

Freestyle is a discipline that incorporates ‘tricks’ with the use of ramps, jumps, kickers, boxes and rails as well as flatland tricks which require no ramp / jump i.e. ollies and buttering. It is hoped that freestyle coaching will increase an athletes quality of snowboarding experience, develop a wider range of skills and ultimately produce a safer more capable snowboarder. It is also the most popular discipline of competitive snowboarding.

Boarder cross is a race discipline which involves 4 - 6 riders racing down a course of various obstacles on a knockout basis. The obstacles are a mixture of jumps and berms where the art of compression and freestyle techniques are valuable assets.

It is also important to instil the importance of warm up and warm down exercises before and after any snowboard activity. This will warm up the muscles and ligaments prior to riding and help rid the body of any toxins i.e. lactic acid at the end of a session.

FOCUSED AND PHYSICAL TRAINING.
Understanding the fundamentals of the race or trick written and verbally combining dry-land and on hill drills for race technique or specifically designed for each trick. Going through the motions and developing the skills to perform to the best of ones ability. Learning easy and effective workouts/exercises that will instantly explode your balance, pop and style. There is nothing better for improving your snowboarding skills than time on snow. Practice and dedication. Learning and perfecting tricks in a manor of progression applicable to your ability. Plain and simple you learn to walk before you can run!!

MENTAL TRAINING.
By far the most overlooked aspect of snowboarding. Mental training helps to enhance your physical training and performance by using different techniques to build confidence, focus,solidify new skills and memorise plans and routines.
Visualise yourself doing a doing a trick you can do well, run this through your head a few times. Visualise yourself doing the trick and focus on how well you do it. Now, visualise yourself doing the new trick you want to learn, go through the motions in your head. See yourself pulling off the said trick, from take off to landing really get inside the trick and see yourself nailing it. Do this over and over until you feel the same confidence in the new trick as the one you already perform well. Mental training builds confidence and positive attitude.

CONFIDENCE BUILDING.
Confidence building is learning to believe in yourself and your skills in all areas of life including your snowboarding. It is not always easy to build up ones confidence but little things can go a long way. Believe in yourself, don't be afraid to ask for help and advice, don’t let people put you down, always be positive and confident in your actions, help other people, this always makes you feel good about yourself, try something new on your snowboard every time you ride, no matter how easy it seems. All these thing will make you feel good about yourself and contribute to building on your self confidence. Your coach will use all these positive things to help you to gain confidence in your snowboard abilities.

GOAL SETTING.
Goal setting in any sport, and in life in general helps you to be successful. Having a goal to reach and a plan on how to get there means you are constantly moving forward and improving your snowboard ability.
In snowboarding you should set two kinds of goals, long term and short term. A short term goal may be to learn a new trick, while a long term goal may be to put that new trick into a slopestyle run with two kicker tricks and two rails tricks for the next competition and land them all cleanly and ride away with top prize.

Goals can be outcome or performance goals. An outcome goal could be being placed in the top three of the British champs, whereas a performance goal could be nailing that backside 5. However goals should be realistic and achievable or they become negative and a dent in your self confidence which we don't want to happen. Your coach should be able to help you set realistic goals. It is important to remember, goals are individual to each rider.

TRAINING.
There will be 10 training sessions through the season (weather dependant) on Sundays starting mid January. Any athletes wishing to compete in any national or international competitions will be encouraged to do so. Coaching will be relevant to the standard and or direction of the different groups being coached.

It is hoped to run a possible four freestyle specific clinics through the season for the more advanced rider. These will run when terrain park, snow conditions and weather allow. These will be very performance based where the emphasis will be on learning advanced freestyle tricks. Examples of this being : Clinic 1 Kickers- straight airs and grabs Clinic 2 : Spins and rotations Clinic 3 : Switch tricks, half cabs, switch 3’s & 5’s Clinic 4 : ollie on box and rails . These will be broken into morning and afternoon sessions where for example morning may be on kickers and afternoon on the rails.

A Typical training day may be as follows. This will vary according to ability and group.

9.00am meet at T-Bar cafe Cairngorm mountain.
9.15 Warm up.
9.30 First train or tow up.
9.40 Warm up run.
10.00 Riding technique, edge control or jump training straight air to 180 rotation
12.00 Lunch. Debrief and any video analysis on morning riding. (Optional)
1.00pm Ride on rail/box training, Ollie on rail / box training
3.00 Training session over.

HELMETS MANDATORY, BODY ARMER OPTIONAL BUT PREFERRED.