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Ahhhh…wakeboard vests. We all wear them; we all love them. Not only can you look like your favorite pro rider while you’re on the water, but you can be safe out there too. While we advise you to stay privy to the laws of the waterway you ride on in terms of picking a competition (comp) wakeboard vest versus USCGA vest, also be sure to choose a vest that keeps you afloat and your head out of the water if something were to go wrong. Every body type is different, so get out there and try a few wakeboard vests on to find out which vest style and size works best for you. Remember, when trying on wakeboard vests, the tighter the better! Any little gaps of air between the vest and your skin will undoubtedly cause the vest to rise up from your shoulders when you’re in the water. Happy hunting for your new wakeboard vest this year, and stay safe!

For more wakeboard vests, check out our page on how to choose a wakeboard vest.

Comp Vests

Billabong Slice

Body Glove Malinoski/Rockstar Comp Wakeboard Vest

CWB Team Vest

Hyperlite Franchise Blue Camo

JetPilot Chris O’Shea Signature Wakeboard Vest

Liquid Force Watson Comp vest

Ronix Parks black/volcano Impact vest

Slingshot Impact Vest

CGA Vests

Billabong Slice CGA vest

CWB Reverb CGA vest

Hyperlite Team CGA vest

JetPilot Shawn Murray CGA vest

Liquid Force Reflex CGA vest

Ronix One Capella CGA vest

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Ride with Confidence

Your summer is quickly approaching, and we know how much you’re champing at the bit to get back on the water. We want that as much as you do, but before you go gallivanting to the nearest waterway as soon as the ice melts, let’s discuss some off-season training principles that will help you get in shape physically and mentally. This way we can quickly and safely get your bag of tricks back to where it was at the end of last season — or better.

We’ve divided up this instruction into three sections: injury recovery, injury prevention and how to start riding again after a long off-season. In each section, we’ve hand-picked a few pro riders who bring a specific expertise to the table: Mike Dowdy, having just successfully recovered from an injury; Kyle Rattray, co-owner and trainer at Clermont CrossFit; and Shawn Watson, bringing 20 seasons of experience with him. It’s hard not to learn something with a lineup like this.

Admittedly, any training outside of wakeboarding does take effort and planning — so, one might ask, is it worth it? If you’ve never tried, then you don’t know what you’re missing. Being in shape mentally and physically sets you up for success on the water in a number of ways: You’re less prone to injury, you feel lighter on your feet, don’t tire as easily and, most of all, you’re more confident. This confidence is the key for consistency, learning new tricks, and increasing your style. After all, confidence and style are inseparably connected. Think about it for a minute: Have you ever seen a really stylish trick that was performed timidly? We didn’t think so.

Injury Recovery with Mike Dowdy

Early last year, Mike Dowdy tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) on his left knee. After a thorough recovery, he’s back riding strong again. We caught up with Dowdy to get some insight on recovering from a significant injury like this.

Aside from the obvious physical recovery, there can also be some unanticipated emotional barriers to overcome. It’s important to have short-term and long-term goals to keep you positive through it all. “The day I got injured was pretty dark. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone and was pretty emotional.” Dowdy recalls. “After surgery and for the first few months, I was pretty bored at home. There wasn’t much I could really do. The hardest part for me was watching all the other riders while I was just lying in bed. At first I kept looking at it as a burden to have been injured, but now I see it differently. It helped me get strong physically and mentally. I think what helped the most was having something specific to work on every day to help me progress.”

This is where the direction from your doctors comes into play. There’s a lot more to a recovery than merely the absence of pain. Dowdy says: “I learned a lot from all the doctors in my inner circle. They taught me a ton about the way the body works, what to eat, what not to eat, and what stretches and warm-ups to do.”

Relying on the expertise of a physical therapist can make all the difference in your recovery. Each injury affects a specific area that can be targeted with the right type of exercises. Dowdy says: “The exercise that helped me the most are called ‘step-ups,” which are basically how they sound. I would hold a 25- or 30-pound dumbbell in my hands, place one foot up on a box or bench, one on the floor, and then step all the way up and back down. I’d do 10 or 15 reps three times, and then switch legs. I’ve done this exercise nearly every day since my injury. It really got my quads firing, and it played a huge role in getting me back to normal function.”

Injury Prevention with Kyle Rattray

It’s pretty obvious that most on-the-water injuries occur during the landing impact. Most of us chalk it up to a mistake made at takeoff, but what if there was something that you could do off the water to prevent some of these landing injuries? We brought Kyle Rattray in to enlighten us on the subject. Referring to these unnecessarily rough landings, Kyle says: “I feel that it is due to the rider’s inability to decelerate and absorb impact properly. So many people absorb impact by hinging at the hip, keeping their legs stiff, and diving their chest forward. Not absorbing impact properly, I feel, directly results in a lot of knee, hip and lower-back injuries.”

INCORRECT: 

CORRECT: 

Don’t worry — there’s a simple off-the-water solution to correct this bad habit. Kyle suggests perfecting your “air squat”: a similar motion to a front squat in the gym but without the risk of load bearing. “To perform a proper air squat, you should be able to start from a standing position (riding or pre-landing position, feet shoulder-width apart), descend to the bottom of your squat with both feet flat on the floor, your weight distributed from the ball of your foot back through your heel (should be able to wiggle your toes in the bottom of your squat), your knees should track and be in line with your toes, and maintain an as-vertical-as-possible torso while maintaining your lumbar curve (keeping your chest up, not rounding your back).”

Now that you know the correct position, let’s talk about how it transitions to the water. “This air-squat movement should be the exact same movement you use to land on your board.” says Kyle. “Landing this way will help make your landings feel softer, and put you in a safe position to take impact and receive load. It will put your body in a great position to ride away from your tricks. Not only will landing in this way will help keep you injury-free, but your landings will become more consistent too.”

Start Smart with Shawn Watson

Let’s be honest here, we all know that it’s going to take some time to get your sea legs back after a long, cold landlocked off-season. To help you get your tricks back quickly and safely, we’ve teamed up with Shawn Watson to guide you through this process.

Most of all, don’t rush back into your hard tricks right away. Have a plan and ease into it. “I didn’t listen to my elders as a kid, and now wish that I had,” says Watson. “I’ve had two serious knee injuries in which both happened at the start of my set with no warm-up prior to my ride. Looking back, had I listened and had a legit pre-ride warm-up, I could’ve prevented a lot of injuries.”

So how do you warm up? The answer is simple. Start off small and incremental. You can even start out with some basic carves and ollies, then do them switch — it all depends on what level you’re at. Watson says: “I typically starting off with simple grabs, 180s, and some basic spins and flips. You want to make sure that you’re confident and in control edging into the wake so you’ve got your timing down.”

Once you’ve warmed up, take a moment to make sure that all of the separate pieces of your harder tricks work individually before you put them all together. “Before going straight into an indy tantrum to blind, for example, I’d take a few steps to get the basics dialed,” says Watson. “First I’d make sure I was fully comfortable with my indy tantrum and landing it with ease, then I’d build up my heelside backside 180s. I’d start with a few inside out — ollieing early from inside the wakes and landing down the face of the wake, then take it wake to wake, and then add an indy grab to it. Once I feel comfortable with that, I’d move onto the indy tantrum to blind, and incorporate all of the above into one.”

This principle can be applied to any trick you’d like to recover. Armed with this knowledge, you should start progressing even earlier in the season, setting you up for the best summer ever.

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Toeside Back Roll with Shaun Murray

When walking, its human nature to lean in the direction that we want to travel. This can really mess with your toeside edge if you give in to the natural inclination to crouch forward and lean toward the wake during your approach. Remember, the only thing you have to lean against is the rope. If you lean against the rope while pointing the nose of the board at the wake in a tall, hips-forward, twisted position, you will have enough leverage for this load-and-release base invert.

With that said, there are a few steps to get you prepped for the wake-to-wake version. Sometimes, it can be a challenge just to get yourself upside down. “Many students I’ve coached have a hard time getting their feet out from underneath them — no matter how much they want it,” Shaun Murray says. “I’ve used a one-handed, one-wake, short-rope and slow-speed to get them … inverted.”

For this drill, pump up and down the wake in a tall, one-handed edging position with a rhythm of three consecutive pumps to feel the right lift from the wake. On the third pump, load it up by edging all the way through the wake and allow the board to carry you up into the flip in a tall, hips-forward edging position.

“Do your absolute best while trying any new trick — especially these — to keep your eyes in the game,” Murray says. “Knowing where to look can help you continue to move in the proper direction of your trick rather than stalling it out.”

Taking it wake to wake requires a long coast with a late edge and little extra patience at the wake. “I remember thinking that the best attempts for me were when I kept cutting all the way to the top, especially if I pushed my hips into my back arm — which was still on the handle until the peak of the flip,” Murray says.

Keep looking through the flip until you spot the landing. Murray recalls his experience landing his first toeside back roll: “I was so pumped when I first landed it because I saw the landing so clearly and knew I could do it again.”

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Tantrum with Adam Errington

Lucky for you, this flip is pretty simple — the edge, however, can be a little more complex. Once you figure out the trip-style edge at the wake, the rest is easy if you have a strong back flip. “A tantrum is one of the most basic inverts to learn, and in my opinion, it’s the one with the least amount of effort,” Adam Errington says.

In order to learn this trip at the wake, there are a few drills that will help you learn quickly with low impact and less risk of injury. The first are backside re-entry ollies — where you ride three-fourths of the way up the wake on your heels, ollie off of your toes and land back on the face of the wake or near the trough. This resembles the edge change required at the wake to “trip” you into the flip.

Once you have your backside re-entries dialed in, practice one-handed, one-wake tantrum attempts to get a feel for the tripping pop at the wake. On your first few attempts, let go of the rope completely just before you hit the wake. This will build your confidence and decrease your reliance on the rope. This invert does not require any line tension to function, so resist the urge to pull on the rope to gain stability.

When it’s time to take your attempts wake to wake, Adam says to “come into the wake with a crouched position and a more aggressive approach than you would on a normal wake-to-wake jump — this is because you will lose momentum at takeoff. As you near the bottom of the wake, take your back hand off the handle and square up your chest and shoulders as you simultaneously begin to stand up out of your crouched position.”

This is where the re-entry ollie practice really comes into play. Be sure to stand completely tall and push with your legs to take full advantage of the wake’s energy.

“Getting this timing down is hard, but that what all the drills are for,” Adam says.

Once you’ve got the takeoff correct, it’s pretty simple from there. Push your chest up, keep your eyes open and spot your landing. This is where your trampoline training will really pay off.

Click here to learn a TOESIDE BACK ROLL——>

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Progressive Heelside Back Roll with Shawn Watson

The key to learning this flip is figuring out the correct pop. The heelside back roll is a load-and-release-style invert. This means that the flip’s function is dependent on line tension. To learn how the physics work, it is best to break it up into a series of small steps in a low-impact environment. “It was more trial and error for me when learning,” Shawn Watson says. “First, I tried inside outs to get the rotation, then I went to a 60-foot rope length to land it and then gradually lengthened my rope out to the normal riding length.”

When you begin your wake-to-wake attempts, keep your approach short and progressive. This means that you will have to edge into the wake exponentially by forcing yourself to save your hardest lean against the rope for when you are edging through wake in a tall edging position. “When starting the approach, I think of using a 1-10 edging scale into the wake,” Watson says. “I’m going to be at a 1 on my initial approach and gradually building up my lean so that I’m edging my hardest at about a 6 as I’m going off the top of the wake.”

This edge will only function properly if you stand fully tall at the wake. In order to get good pop, keep your hips pushed forward and your shoulders back against the rope the entire time you edge through the wake.

“I think about edging all the way through the top of the wake and rotating the tip of my board away from the wake and up into the sky,” Watson says. “As I leave the wake, I look over my shoulder up into the sky and keep looking that way until I spot the wake. I then let go of my back hand to stop my rotation and land down the back side of the wake for a nice soft landing.”

Keep in mind that there is a natural 90-degree frontside rotation inherent in this invert. To avoid slipping out over your heels on landing, simply cancel out the accidental frontside rotation by pushing the handle out toward the flats a bit when you spot the water.

Click here to learn a TANTRUM!——>

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How To: Land Your First Invert | Words: Brandon Judd | Photos: Bill Doster

Flip Out

There are few moments in life that are quite like riding away from your first flip on a wakeboard. For those of you who have passed that milestone, you know what we’re talking about. For those of you who have not yet experienced this euphoria, keep reading — we will give you the tools you need to land your first invert.

Some of you may think that this doesn’t apply to you because you have already landed your first invert, but this does not exclude you. You may be doing your invert in a way that impedes your progression to more complicated inverts, or you may not be able to land all three of the inverts that we will cover, so take notes.

To start off, we asked around and had a few pro riders tell us which invert they landed first and asked them to assist us in our quest to guide you through each base invert. In this article, we walk you through the basic learning process of a heelside back roll, a tantrum and a toeside back roll.

Before you hit the water, be sure that you are comfortable upside down. This will greatly accelerate the learning process. Spend some time on the trampoline getting comfortable with each flip — preferably with the assistance of a trained spotter. To mimic the feeling of each trick on the water, tie a rope and handle to a stable stationary object, such as the trunk of a tree. Each trick may not function on the trampoline exactly like they will behind the boat, but it will help you gain crucial air awareness that will come in handy midair when troubleshooting the flip.

Ideally, you should be able to properly execute the goal invert with frontside and backside 180s and switch stance — each with and without the rope. So, for example, if a tantrum is the goal trick, you should be able to do a simple back flip with and without the rope, a switch tantrum with and without the rope, a tantrum to blind and a tantrum to fakie with and without the rope. Once you have this dialed in, you will be able to recognize and combat any unintentional frontside or backside rotation when attempting your first flip behind the boat.

Click here to learn a HEELSIDE BACK ROLL——>

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