# Stances & angles of some of the pros



## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

Interesting table, but the first line of that article kills me: "Your stance says a lot about you as a rider, whether you’re a duck-footed park rat or a forward-facing carver."

So riding -6 +18 must make me a park rat eh?!?


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

+27 +9

Terje, Blauvelt, N. Wolken and Jeremy Jones. 
Ma homies.


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## GDimac (Nov 19, 2015)

F1EA said:


> +27 +9
> 
> Terje, Blauvelt, N. Wolken and Jeremy Jones.
> Ma homies.


Truee. 

My top faves to watch:

Nico, Ben Ferg, Blauvelt, Haller. 


My setup:

12/-10

21.5"


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## raffertyk2 (Dec 16, 2014)

I have moved all over the board from starting at forward angles something like +23/+9 to +17/0 to +15/-15 to now riding +15/-12 

I can't say I am completely happy where I am and there are pros and cons of each stance but with my current stance I feel like I am not giving up to much riding regular but still get the benefits and ease of riding switch relatively seamlessly


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

I have different backfoot angles on different boards. Flattest angle on Splitboard, steepest angles on carving board. The from foot always stays about the same.. about 30.


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## jjj604 (Dec 16, 2015)

not that it wasn't impressive before but terje riding +4/8 on his back foot and still killing the switch slalom at mt baker is just :surprise:
i'm settling in at +15 / -15 this season


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

Astonished about the rather narrow stance widths... are most of those guys rather short?
(I'm just 5'8" and ride a 23" stance :dunno


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## raoul duke (Feb 23, 2017)

i thought the widths all seemed a bit narrower than expected too. at 5 ft 7 inches, i've used 21.5 in width for a while but have recently bee trying to widen to 22-22.5 inches, hoping for a bit more stability but no conclusions there yet...

i like how the author of the whitelines article couldn't even be bother to do a couple of unit conversion and present either everything in inches or everything in centimeters, or both. instead we get some in cm and some in inch.......helpful


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## kriegs13 (Nov 28, 2016)

raoul duke said:


> i thought the widths all seemed a bit narrower than expected too. at 5 ft 7 inches, i've used 21.5 in width for a while but have recently bee trying to widen to 22-22.5 inches, hoping for a bit more stability but no conclusions there yet...
> 
> i like how the author of the whitelines article couldn't even be bother to do a couple of unit conversion and present either everything in inches or everything in centimeters, or both. instead we get some in cm and some in inch.......helpful



lol off topic but funny you mention this. I work in kitchens and its like pulling teeth trying to get the younger cooks to use one format or the other. Finalizing recipes after testing is always a pain to record because i spend half the time on Converter+ (great free app btw)


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## benjinyc (Feb 24, 2017)

would help if the author mentioned what boards these numbers were for since 'reference' gets mentioned a lot


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

neni said:


> Astonished about the rather narrow stance widths... are most of those guys rather short?
> (I'm just 5'8" and ride a 23" stance :dunno


Wow that's pretty wide for your height. I have almost the same width... I think. haha

But it's ok.
On the mountains, when I see a girl on a wide-ish stance... she normally rips.

I just use reference and set back an insert pack depending on the board. Fish and Landlord I ride them both at reference. Live and Dupraz I have them setback one step.


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## jjj604 (Dec 16, 2015)

raoul duke said:


> i like how the author of the whitelines article couldn't even be bother to do a couple of unit conversion and present either everything in inches or everything in centimeters, or both. instead we get some in cm and some in inch.......helpful


he's just letting us canadians feel relevant. down with the imperial system

afaik, most pro snowboarders aren't on the taller end of the spectrum. one guy that always stood out to me was bode merrill. having that kind of style at 6'3" isn't as common as with the smaller guys and he's listed here as having a +15/-3, 23.5" stance. a few years back i recall reading that he used to ride 25" wide. ridonkulous


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## robotfood99 (Mar 19, 2016)

*Stances &amp; angles of some of the pros*

I find my ideal stance is almost always board dependent. For all twins its 15/-15 at 22.5 centered but for directionals, the only constant is front 21. Width, setback and back angle vary depending on the board. This used to bug me but now makes sense and i am comfortable with it. Just have to remember to jot down the settings on post-its and stick them on the boards for storage.


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

99.9% of my riding is forward (0.1% switch, only when I'm training or taking a course) and I still prefer a directional duck stance or -6 +18 or so. When I put my bindings in that position, then stand in the living room, squat, twist, bend knees, etc., it's the stance that feels most comfortable on my knees. Touch wood, but 25+ years of hard riding in now, I have yet to have a knee injury or even aggravation.

Started 0/+45 back when the bindings were permanently fixed to the board (or maybe that was just my cheap plastic snowboard? ), switched to a -12 +12 stance for a few years in my teens, and I've slowly been rotating them more directional ever since.

Not sure why people think you need a forward stance to carve, or a duck stance to ride switch? Some people may feel an advantage one way or another, but in general stance is all about finding out what works best for your body.




neni said:


> Astonished about the rather narrow stance widths... are most of those guys rather short?
> (I'm just 5'8" and ride a 23" stance :dunno





raoul duke said:


> i thought the widths all seemed a bit narrower than expected too. at 5 ft 7 inches, i've used 21.5 in width for a while but have recently bee trying to widen to 22-22.5 inches, hoping for a bit more stability but no conclusions there yet...


I'm 5'7" too, been riding 21.5" width forever. Friend talked me into trying to widen it a couple years ago, I could see some benefits, but overall for me I felt it made me slower to rotate. I find the 21.5" stance width is quicker in tight trees, while still offering stability on landings, lots of room for fore and aft weight transfer. Again, that's what seems to work for my body.



raoul duke said:


> i like how the author of the whitelines article couldn't even be bother to do a couple of unit conversion and present either everything in inches or everything in centimeters, or both. instead we get some in cm and some in inch.......helpful


Yeah that's sheer laziness. I imagine most people are like Canadians and can do a fairly quick conversion in their head, but when presenting data, it's pretty useless to present it in more than one unit!

Rather than write "reference" as the width, it would have been easy to ask them which board and length they ride at reference, then look it up!

Almost makes me want to redo the chart.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

poutanen said:


> I'm 5'7" too, been riding 21.5" width forever. Friend talked me into trying to widen it a couple years ago, I could see some benefits, but overall for me I felt it made me slower to rotate. I find the 21.5" stance width is quicker in tight trees, while still offering stability on landings, lots of room for fore and aft weight transfer. Again, that's what seems to work for my body.


My legs are proly longer as its normal for girls to have longer legs vs guys have longer upper body at the same hight :dunno:


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

neni said:


> My legs are proly longer as its normal for girls to have longer legs vs guys have longer upper body at the same hight :dunno:


You saying I got a long torso? :snowboard1:


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## GDimac (Nov 19, 2015)

neni said:


> Astonished about the rather narrow stance widths... are most of those guys rather short?
> (I'm just 5'8" and ride a 23" stance :dunno


loll, well Nicolas is 5'10, Ben Ferg/Christian Haller are both 5'9 and Blauvelt at 5'8. Majority of my fave pros I look up to all appear to be on the avg height range.

I'm personally 5'7 and love riding in the 21-21.5 range. Max I'll do is 22", if the board is longer but anymore than that I don't feel comfortable at all and don't feel as explosive on my pop, ollies, turns etc. All the benefit of added stability doesn't outweigh the pros of having my stance width at around shoulder width esp for my freestyle side of riding. Just feels way more natural for me and better on the knees in general, imo. So it's not much of a surprise to me the stance widths of a lot of those pros, esp those with heavy freestyle backgrounds.





poutanen said:


> Not sure why people think you need a forward stance to carve, or a duck stance to ride switch? Some people may feel an advantage one way or another, but in general stance is all about finding out what works best for your body.
> 
> 
> I'm 5'7" too, been riding 21.5" width forever. Friend talked me into trying to widen it a couple years ago, I could see some benefits, but overall for me I felt it made me slower to rotate. I find the 21.5" stance width is quicker in tight trees, while still offering stability on landings, lots of room for fore and aft weight transfer.



^^^^ Agree with all of the above. 21.5" is the sweet spot for me right now.


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## raoul duke (Feb 23, 2017)

Some really useful info/perspectives here, thanks everyone. Sounds like my "natural feeling" 21.5 in stance might be ok. I've used that for years but started to wonder if i was missing something with the wider option and so recently started experimenting. Just looking at other folks it appeared to me (just eye-balling) that a slightly wider stance was more common but maybe not. I might continue to try 22 in a few more times just to feel it out a bit more. However, to poutanen's point, i do like tree riding and would not like to compromise agility in there.......


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## Phedder (Sep 13, 2014)

I'm quite surprised how many freestylers have a fairly large difference between their front and rear angles. I was expecting to see more symmetrical duck stances. Interesting article for sure!


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## jjj604 (Dec 16, 2015)

raoul duke said:


> Some really useful info/perspectives here, thanks everyone. Sounds like my "natural feeling" 21.5 in stance might be ok. I've used that for years but started to wonder if i was missing something with the wider option and so recently started experimenting. Just looking at other folks it appeared to me (just eye-balling) that a slightly wider stance was more common but maybe not. I might continue to try 22 in a few more times just to feel it out a bit more. However, to poutanen's point, i do like tree riding and would not like to compromise agility in there.......


it could be board dependent as well. i like 21.5 on my small decks and 22 on my all mountain and pow boards. i tried to narrow the stance on my all mountain last week with the thought of making it more nimble but it just didn't feel good with the sidecut


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## Motogp990 (Mar 10, 2013)

From day 1 i've been at +15/-15 and other than some testing a few years back, I've always ridden +15/-15

I decided to test some different angles today. 

I still like +15/-15 the best. However, i tried the following angles, listed in order from favorite to the least favorite, beside 15/15.

+15/-9
+15/-6
+15/-12
+12/-12

My width is either 22" or 22.5" and I'm 5'11".

I felt all the angles besides 15/15 didn't align my hips with the board, the way i like it. 12/-12 felt the worst for me. I almost wanted to try a wider stance width because for some reason my stance felt uncomfortably narrow at 12/-12.

Riding anything other than 15/-15, I wasn't as confident going off jumps because I felt my hips weren't inine with the board and was hesitant going off anything big for fear I would be off balance.

That all being said, a lot of my feeling could have been more mental than physical, since I'm so used to riding 15/-15.

To get a more unbiased opinion, I'd need a much larger sample size than a couple runs at each angle and I'd have to have somebody else change my angles for me between tests so I could do a true blind Pepsi challenge.


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

Motogp990 said:


> To get a more unbiased opinion, I'd need a much larger sample size than a couple runs at each angle and I'd have to have somebody else change my angles for me between tests so I could do a true blind Pepsi challenge.


I always chose coke (as the better tasting cola beverage )...


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

Motogp990 said:


> From day 1 i've been at +15/-15 and other than some testing a few years back, I've always ridden +15/-15
> 
> I decided to test some different angles today.
> 
> ...



So you didn't try steeper angle on the front?? It's all about that front foot.

Try +18 -9
Guaranteed good 

Ooooor you can try my board for a bit more angle hahaha


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## Motogp990 (Mar 10, 2013)

F1EA said:


> So you didn't try steeper angle on the front?? It's all about that front foot.
> 
> Try +18 -9
> Guaranteed good
> ...


Didn't try a steeper front foot.

Tbh, I was tired of changing the angles and testing after the 4th set up and didn't want to bother any more haha.

I'll try a couple more next time .


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## Mig Fullbag (Apr 15, 2014)

Motogp990 said:


> I still like +15/-15 the best. However, i tried the following angles, listed in order from favorite to the least favorite, beside 15/15.
> 
> +15/-9
> +15/-6
> ...


It's all probably due to you being used to a 30° splay and having your hips parallel to the length of the board. If you try it again, maybe go for the following angles:

+18/-12
+21/-9
+24/-6


And spend more time on each one to get used having your hips, torso and shoulders aligned with your feet and not the board's length.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

5'6 here and 21-22 inch goofy -15/+15


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

Mig Fullbag said:


> It's all probably due to you being used to a 30° splay and having your hips parallel to the length of the board. If you try it again, maybe go for the following angles:
> 
> +18/-12
> +21/-9
> ...


Yeah good point.
+18 -12 and +21 -9 should good ones to try.

And this is all....... for the sake of trying things out really. If you're ok 15 -15 then just stick to that and no need to waste time...... but since you already have like a million days already this season; what's a couple lost hours.......


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## Phedder (Sep 13, 2014)

Mig Fullbag said:


> It's all probably due to you being used to a 30° splay and having your hips parallel to the length of the board. If you try it again, maybe go for the following angles:
> 
> +18/-12
> +21/-9
> ...


Ditto that. 

Moto, I'm the same with the 30 degree splay, playing around with other angles never felt comfortable if I strayed from that. I've probably got the most days this season on my Huck Knife at +15/-15 and I'll ride it anywhere and everywhere but always with a freestyle flare. I'll ride +18/-12 on my AM board and +21/-9 on my pow board, all feel comfortable and all feel good switch as well. Give them a try!


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## Triple8Sol (Nov 24, 2008)

Saw this article when it came out, and it's pretty interesting, and in line with what I've been doing. On twins and directional twins, for years I've been running 22-23" width with +18/-12. This season I got rid of all my twins and have been riding directional boards only. As a result I've been running 21.5-22.5" width with +21/-3. On carving boards, I've been running reference stance, which is usually 21-21.5" width and +24/+3 or +27/+6.


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## matemike (Mar 5, 2017)

Good article, thanks for sharing. TBH, I don't recognize a large portion of those pro names, but the chart still puts the width and angles of their stance into my perspective. 
I'm 6'0" with slightly short legs for my height, (32" inseam). I ride at reference stance width on my board which is 22" but I moved both settings one notch forward to get centered on the board because it is a directional twin, trying to achieve a true twin stance. I also ride at 15/-15, knowing everything is symmetrical makes me feel more comfortable for some reason for my 180's and butters/helicopters as I call them. (Spinning 360's without leaving the ground)

Furthermore, I'm not nearly experienced enough to even tell a difference if my stance were tweaked a little or not. Talking with my buddies who are the better riders of our groups usually don't even bother knowing much at all about the stance. They can just tell it's not crazy wide or crazy narrow nor is it crazy duck footed or pigeon toed. They can simply take a board with a quazi normal setup and go rip it up, their skill level is simply good enough for minor stance changes to not make a big deal to them. 


I wish the stance chart in the article had high back cant positions as well. That's the biggest adjustment where I see comfort go down while control and smoothness go up. Trying to find the medium seems to be an ever-changing angle throughout the day every day for me.


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## MisterNarwhal (Dec 6, 2016)

Mig Fullbag said:


> It's all probably due to you being used to a 30° splay.


Surprised nobody has mentioned anything about Devun Walsh's +27/-15 angles. His angles are a full 40% wider than anyone else on the list, with nobody else riding greater than riding 30°.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

MisterNarwhal said:


> Surprised nobody has mentioned anything about Devun Walsh's +27/-15 angles. His angles are a full 40% wider than anyone else on the list, with nobody else riding greater than riding 30°.


You know its actually funny that I prefer something like +18/-15
It's coincidental because I have union force bindings and they are big for my size 8 boots so I have some play in the bindings.
I find myself always wanting to give the front foot more angle even the binding is set at +15/-15.


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## Clayton Bigsby (Oct 23, 2012)

pointed out a guys stance up at stevens pass last week, it looked like 0 front and -12 rear ? :icon_scratch:


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

Clayton Bigsby said:


> pointed out a guys stance up at stevens pass last week, it looked like 0 front and -12 rear ? :icon_scratch:


Might be rental or noob that has not figured out which way they should be going,'
I had two friends been riding too narrow stance and 0/0 for a year. I fixed it for them and immediately they say it's more comfortable and better.


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## Motogp990 (Mar 10, 2013)

Mig Fullbag said:


> It's all probably due to you being used to a 30° splay and having your hips parallel to the length of the board. If you try it again, maybe go for the following angles:
> 
> +18/-12
> +21/-9
> ...


You may be right about the 30 degree splay.

I tested angles the entire day and I deffintely liked all the angles with a 30 degree splay more than simply closing my rear angle like my previous testing.

+18/-12
+21/-9
+24/-6
+27/-3

I didn't mind +24/-6. Did some A-B comparisons with my usual +15/-15. Carving, straight lining, olies and switch on groomers and a bit of tree riding.

I'm going give +24/-6 a full day tomorrow. Will ride some park and more tree riding to see if I would consider a permanent change.


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

Motogp990 said:


> You may be right about the 30 degree splay.
> 
> I tested angles the entire day and I deffintely liked all the angles with a 30 degree splay more than simply closing my rear angle like my previous testing.
> 
> ...


Yeah +24 -6 is pretty nice. Especially on your wide board and smaller boots, you may get some drag otherwise. Then +27 -3 will almost feel like a fwd stance.


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## Motogp990 (Mar 10, 2013)

F1EA said:


> Yeah +24 -6 is pretty nice. Especially on your wide board and smaller boots, you may get some drag otherwise. Then +27 -3 will almost feel like a fwd stance.


Even +24/-6 feels fwd-ish to me haha.

I may actually like +24/-6 better than +15/-15 in the park. 
I seemed to be able to generate a bit more pop or generate some pop easier, off the kickers, with +24/-6.

I'm still not sure about +24/-6 in the trees. I'll have to give it a few more days but I felt like I was having to put in more effort than usual. Not sure if it was because of +24/-6 or maybe I wasn't as confident as usual because I was thinking about my stance angle.

Oddly, I actually found riding switch a bit easier with +24/-6.


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## F1EA (Oct 25, 2013)

Motogp990 said:


> Even +24/-6 feels fwd-ish to me haha.
> 
> I may actually like +24/-6 better than +15/-15 in the park.
> I seemed to be able to generate a bit more pop or generate some pop easier, off the kickers, with +24/-6.
> ...


hahaha so better in the park and switch?? and so-so in trees??
That's like..... the opposite of what almost anyone would guess.

Well, as long as the knees or feet dont hurt, then it's no problem. 

Oh and BTW i may take Fri off


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

What is your Inseam?


neni said:


> Astonished about the rather narrow stance widths... are most of those guys rather short?
> (I'm just 5'8" and ride a 23" stance
> 
> 
> ...


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

Fielding said:


> What is your Inseam?


32 2/3" :dunno: (83cm)


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## Motogp990 (Mar 10, 2013)

neni said:


> 32 2/3" :dunno: (83cm)


I deffintely think there's merit to the girls have longer legs than guys theory on why guys may have relative narrower stances. 

Fwiw I'll 5'11" with a 31" inseam. My width is 22"-22.5".


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## Hoffa (Mar 3, 2017)

neni said:


> 32 2/3" :dunno: (83cm)


Same. Surprisingly narrow for most of them. I am 5'9 and ride 23.5" but I attribute it to being gangly.


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