Snowboard tricks are aerials or maneuvers performed on snowboards for fun, or in competitions. Most often, these maneuvers are performed on obstacles such as jumps, halfpipes, quarterpipes, hips, handrails, funboxes, or ledges, or on the surface of the snow. Many have their origins in precursory board sports such as skateboarding and surfing
The identifiers frontside and backside describe how a trick is performed. These identifiers are very important technical terms and are commonly misunderstood because of their different uses for jumps and rails. For aerial maneuvers, frontside and backside identify the direction of rotation of a spin. For instance a regular rider doing a frontside spin off a jump would rotate his body counterclockwise opening his shoulders up so that his "front side" is the first side of his body going forward off the jump in the first 90 degrees of his spin. A regular rider doing a backside spin off a jump would rotate his body clockwise closing his shoulders so that his "back side" is the first side of his body going forward off the jump in the first 90 degrees of his spin.
Snowboard tricks are named in the same manner that earlier board sports (skateboarding, surfing) named their maneuvers.