Snowboarding Facts

One fact that stands out about snowboarding is that it is the fastest growing sport in the United States today. We all know that snowboarding has now been incorporated into the Olympic Winter Games, but with each Olympic year, we see an increase in events and participants. There are now six events in the boarding games during the Olympics: three for men and three for women.

Snowboarders at one point were stereotyped as rebel young men because when the sport first started out, it was young men who were making the boards in their shop classes or in their garages. It took young men who were daring and dedicated to make the sport as recognizable and popular as it is today. However, with time, things have changed. Now the sport is seeing participation from both genders and the females can be just as daring as the males.

In 2004, 51% of snowboarders were between the ages of 7 and 17 and at that time there were more than six million participants in the sport. If you think about it, that’s more than half of all snowboarders who were all young. Who knows why the figures turned out this way; it could be because youngsters like to try the next new thing and with the popularity of the sport increasing, youngsters were beginning to try it. With snowboarding having roots in skateboarding, again many youngsters are into skateboarding with the rise of the video games such as Tony Hawk. This could be why more youngsters were participating in the sport at that time.

Only 27% of the snowboarding community was women. Now you see why snowboarding was stereotyped as being a male sport. It was dominated by males and still is today; however, the percentage of women participants is steadily increasing with time.

Snowboarding is great exercise. Boarding requires the use of non-typical muscles, those that one usually does not use. You use your ankle and feet muscles for steering and for balance. You use your quadriceps and hamstrings to guide the motion of the board, starting or putting it into motion or stopping it. Abdominal muscles help to provide strength and stability while snowboarding. Recreational boarding can allow you to burn 200-630 calories per hour of play. Competitive boarding can allow you to burn 560-1260 calories per hour of competition depending on your age and weight.

With each passing year, more and more facts and figures are being recorded about the sport of boarding. Because this is a fairly new sport, more and more things are being developed, tried and used. You will see a different set of facts and figures being created every year. However, the most popular and interesting snowboarding facts and trivia detail the creation and evolution of the fascinating sport of snowboarding.