Is Wakeboarding the Best Summer Training Tool for Snowboarding?

The summer months are usually difficult for snowboarders: no snow, no riding, and months away from the board. Because of that, snowboarders are always looking for ways to get better during the offseason. Activities like skateboarding, surfing, and mountain biking are typically popular options, but one sport is becoming a common training tool: wakeboarding.

With many similarities, more snowboarders each year are finding themselves out on the water on a wakeboard. While the riding surface may be different, the sports share many of the same movements and aspects, including balance, edge control, body positioning, and aerial awareness.

• Related: The 7 Best Off-Season Training Activities for Freeride Skiers & Boarders

Superior For Turning

While fun and still useful, wheeled board sports like skateboarding and longboarding cannot recreate the way a snowboard turns. They certainly can help with balance and board control, but they can only replicate so much.

Wakeboarding, on the other hand, shares many of the same riding mechanics as snowboarding—the most important of which is edge-to-edge movement. Just like on snow, riders use their edges to carve, control speed, and turn the board. By applying pressure on either the toes or heels, the wakeboard’s edges engage, turning the board in the direction the rider wants. This same movement applies to snow, where snowboarders use the same edge control to initiate turns and hold carves.

For snowboarders, this makes wakeboarding more than just a summer activity. It gives them a way to keep muscle memory so they are ready for the winter.

Growing Access to Cable Wake Parks

Snowboarders looking to wakeboard are also seeing the rise of an important tool: cable wake parks. Unlike wakeboarding behind a boat, cable parks pull riders around a small lake using an overhead cable system.

For snowboarders who want to progress in the terrain park, cable parks are a perfect option for summer training. Many cable parks are littered with park features like rails, boxes, and jumps that closely mimic the features found at ski resorts. Many of the same tricks can be performed on a wakeboard, helping snowboarders to refine their technique before taking the tricks back to the snow. Riders can perform grabs, boardslides, 360s, and other common snowboard tricks on a wakeboard, helping hammer home proper technique.

Another strength of cable parks is the ability to lap. Cable parks run in a loop, pulling riders around the lake repeatedly. This allows riders to hit the same feature over and over again in a short period of time.

Perhaps the biggest strength is access. Traditional wakeboarding requires a boat, driver, lake, and specialized equipment. At cable parks, riders can simply buy a session, rent a board, and get out on the water. Cable parks are becoming more common across North America, and they are already widely popular in Europe. As more parks open up around the world, snowboarders have more opportunities than ever to prepare for the winter season.

Not A Perfect Substitute, But Very Close

While wakeboarding shares many mechanics with snowboarding, it is not a 100% perfect training substitute. Water has a different feel than snow underfoot, bindings are mounted differently, riders are pulled, and riders have more weight on the back foot.

However, the feel of a wakeboard gets snowboarders closer to the same feeling than many other warm-weather board sports. From edge-to-edge turning to terrain park training to building muscle memory, wakeboarding allows snowboarders to keep their skills sharp while they are away from the snow. With the rising accessibility of the sport through cable parks, more riders are finding themselves picking up a wakeboard and getting out on the water.