How Do I solve problem of putting more weight on front foot of snowboard?

Question

I recently messed around with the stance with on my board and I put it at 20'' stance with 1 1/2'' setback and the bindings at +9 and -9. I would say about 70% of the time I did great with putting more weight of front foot. Everything seemed much easier turns etc. But sometimes it seemed like I really had to concentrate on putting weight on that foot. what I wanted to know is if I moved the front binding up and had less of a setback would that naturally transfer more weight to the front of board without me really thinking about it? Also would the bindings angles make a difference. I had a problem of kicking my back leg to move the board when I had my back binding set at 0. Since I moved it to -9 im moving the board with just shifting my weight now which feels much better. It seemed towards the end of the day when I got very tired I was leaning on my back leg alot, is this common to alot of people when they get tired? Im riding a burton royale 158 directional twin

Answer 1

Weighting the back foot is a common problem.  I would not recommend adding set-back into your binding mount position unless you were going to ride serious powder.  Use the manufacturers center to set your bindings (use the same set of mounting holes for both the front and back feet).

To get your weight on your front foot try this: when initiating a turn try pointing your front hand down toward the tip of the board.  While this will look odd, you will get the feel of it and will then be able to do it without the pointing.  If that doesn't work, just go back to very slow beginner turns - do a lot of them so that weighting the front foot starts to come naturally.

If all else fails, get a lesson from a certified instructor.  They have  a huge bag of tricks to help people with problems like this.

Answer 2

Less setback would obviously put more weight on the front of the board, but it is even more important that you weight the front leg more when initiating turns all the way until you reach the fall line (straight down the hill).

If you shift your weight back in the middle of a turn, the board will stop turning and just go straight down the hill - which is where a lot of people get that bad habit of "kicking" the back of the board around to finish the turn.

Get more aggressive and convince your mind that if you lean back you will actually speed up as the turn takes longer.

Good Luck.