The Snowboard Ollie

Winter is definitely here and many of us will be heading to the slopes this season for some skiing or snowboarding. When heading out, it is a great idea to have a trick or skill in mind that you plan on learning. Anything from slaloming on skis to riding your first rail on a snowboard will help to motivate your sessions on the slopes and ensure you do not get too frustrated with crowds.

Whatever trick it is that you plan on learning, see if you can find some video of it being done. Study the video carefully and keep it in your mind as you try the skill once you get out on the snow

We will keep it basic this time and take a look at the snowboard ollie. We have discussed the ollie in skateboarding in a previous post. On snow and a snowboard the trick is performed similarly. As in skateboarding, the ollie is the basis for most aerial tricks on a snowboard and therefore it is important to learn how to do a great one.

1. Try the ollie from a standing position first. Get used to the mechanics of the movement before you try the jump while moving.
2. Start with your knees bent and body upright. You do not want to bend at the hips and lean forward or backward. If you do you will have difficulty landing your ollie as you will have started the trick off balance. Bend at your knees a little though to give you some spring.
3. To start the trick, push down on your back foot moving your center of mass backward over your back foot. This will allow you to pull the front of your snowboard up and prepare you to jump off your back foot. Remember that a snowboard is also pretty flexible so pushing down on your tail will bend the board giving you some spring into the air.
4. As the nose of your board begins to pull up into the air, jump off your back foot so that your back foot comes as high as your front foot. To get higher into the air, pull your front leg higher up and jump higher off your back foot to allow your back leg to catch up in the air.
5. Once your back foot and front foot are at the same height position yourself over the center of the board and stabilize yourself for landing. Your center of mass should now be in between your feet.
6. Land on both feet evenly, so that you do not slide out once you hit the ground. Once again do not bend at the hips. Bend your knees slightly to absorb the landing.

Take a look at this video of a small ollie on a snowboard.


Watch lots of videos of the pros and film yourself to see if you can improve your style or get higher in your ollie or any other trick you try this winter.

Have fun in the snow.

Evaluating and Comparing your Broad Jump

The broadjump is a drill used to measure how far an athlete can jump from a standing position. The NFL has potential players perform this exercise during its annual combine, and uses the results as one of the many ways to evaluate the athletes' power. Below we have synchronized two athletes' broadjump trials. We've also slowed down the side-by-side video to help with the comparisons. And beneath the video window, we've included stillshot images of each athlete during key positions of their trials.


1. Loading Phase
During the loading phase, the athletes swing their arms back, in preparation to swing them forward. They will use this forward momentum to help them jump as far as possible. Also, notice their hips, knees, and ankles are all flexed (sometimes referred to as "triple flexion"). By flexing at these joints, the athletes are building up potential energy that will be released during the liftoff phase. From these two images, we see that the second subject has a slightly deeper knee bend than the first subject.




2. Liftoff Phase
During the liftoff phase, the subjects swing their arms forward and upward, and use this momentum to help propel their bodies forward. We see that the first subject extends his arms all the way, while the second subject has his arms flexed at the elbows. The second subject can definitely improve his form by extending his arms fully. Driving your arms forward as far as possible will allow you to use all the energy your arm swing can provide.

Also worth noting, their lower bodies also go through "triple extension" now (hips, knees, ankles), converting the potential energy into kinetic energy. We see that both subjects take off at about the same angle relative to the ground.




3. Maximum Height
In the pictures below, we see the key positions showing the subjects' centers of mass (COM) at their maximum heights, and at what distance from the start their maximum heights occurred. An athlete's COM during a jump follows a path similar to that of a ball flying through the air - in other words, it follows a parabolic arc. It will reach its highest point midway between the distance it is thrown. By driving your arms upward and forward you can get your COM higher and further forward. By then driving the arms down and bending your hips and knees forward at the top of the jump, you keep your COM elevated allowing you to gain added distance before touching down. Lifting your arms arms/knees and bending hips raises your COM. We see that the first subject reaches his maximum height at a further distance than the second subject.For the second subject, it's difficult to anticipate whether he will land closer or farther than the first subject though, as his maximum height is a few inches higher.

Both subject 1 and subject 2 have not remained fully extended through the peak of their jumps and have started to rotate for the landing. Subject 1 has begun to lift his chest, while subject 2 has already dropped his arms and brought his knees forward. Keeping yourself extended, as long as possible, through the peak height of your jump will allow you to jump further. A body position midway between that of subject 1 and 2 would probably be ideal.

At the peak of the jump it is now time to start rotating your body to get your legs out in front of you. The distance of the broadjump is measured where your toes land, so upon reaching the top of the jump, you should get your legs out in front of you. To make this happen, drive your arms downward and bend your hips and knees up toward your chest. Do not lean back as subject one has began to do; it is better to bring your hips and knees up to your chest.




4. Landing
In order to land safely and get the most distance out of the jump, our subjects flex their hips and extend their legs, landing on their heels with their toes pointed upwards. The second subject lands with his torso bent forward a bit more; but besides this and the placement of their arms, the subjects' landing techniques look quite similar.




5. Finish
The broadjump distances were measured from the subjects’ starting toe positions to their final toe positions. In order to absorb the shock of their landings, it’s important that the subjects bend their knees through impact. We see that the first subject doesn’t flex his knees as much as the second subject, and as a result ends up falling forward a bit at the end of the trial. This shouldn’t matter much though, as the jump distance has already been measured and the purpose of the drill isn’t to work on the landing. However, if someone was performing additional movements at the end of the broadjump (some training camps have the athletes do three consecutive broadjumps and measure the overall distance), it’s recommended to have more of a controlled landing at the end of each jump.




We hope you’ve enjoyed this article, and that you’re getting out there and filming great videos of yourselves and your athletes for detailed analysis!

Analyzing Dane Reynolds in Slow Motion

Sometimes it is simply fun to see a pro athlete perform in slow motion. Usually though we can learn a lot from watching him or her in such detail.

Surfing is one of those sports that lends itself well to photographs and video clips. The action is usually intense and the surfers positions so contorted that it is a wonder to see them perform. Of course because their movements are often quick and dynamic, it is difficult to analyze their motion at normal speed. Recently there have been attempts to analyze professional surfing from a scientific stand point of physiology and biomechanics. Check out a previous article we wrote about a trip to the Mentawai islands.

Recently the Quicksilver surfing team was in Mexico and took along a high speed vision research camera. This super slow motion camera can record at high resolution up to a frame rate of 7530 frames per second. We do not know the frame rate used to record this video clip, it is most likely at around 1000 fps. This does not sound like a lot when we consider that golf swings seen with the Swing Vision system are often recorded at 10X this frame rate. However it is generally accepted that the fastest movement that a human can make can be recorded at 250 fps, therefore a high speed capture at 1000 fps is 4X the fastest movement that the surfer can make. The reason Swing Vision uses a higher frame rate for golf is to capture the golf club and ball, which can move much faster than any part of the human body.

The video shows Dane Reynolds performing an aerial surfing move in Mexico, recorded by the Vision Research Camera.



Analyzing Dane's performance to learn how we can perform a similar move is easier because of the high speed footage. Lets take a look at some critical points.

• Dane starts by balancing his center of mass (the center of all the masses and positions of all his limbs) between his feet, which are toward the back of the board. We can see that his weight is at the back of the board by noticing how the nose of the board is sticking up out of the water. We also see him leaning into the face of the wave so that he can turn quickly to launch into his aerial move.
• Mid way up the face of the wave, Dane applies more pressure to his back foot, shifting his center of mass further back. We see his front knee straighten and his head lift up eyeing his take off point. The movement prepares him to almost jump off the wave with his back foot when he reaches the top.
• At take off Dane pushes his back foot almost straight (jumping). He does this to launch the board into the air and also to bring it up closer to his hands so that he can grab it.
• Once in the air, just off the wave we can see how Dane pushes the board around with his back foot, while bending his front knee. He also lifts his head up and forward as if he is trying to peer over the top of his board. This enables him to get the rotation needed to bring his body on top of his board so that he can set up for the landing. In fact it almost looks like he is climbing up his floating board with his hand.
• Now that he is in the air and has got back on top of the board he needs to prepare for the landing. This time, unlike when he was riding the wave at the beginning, he positions his center of mass over the middle of the board. This will give him a bigger landing area. If he positioned himself over the back of the board as he did at the start, the board would most likely slip forward and out from under him on landing.
• On landing he stretches out his legs to reach for the top of the wave and then allows them to bend to absorb the landing impact. Notice how his arms are in an equal and opposite balancing position over the center of his board to keep his weight centered.
• Interestingly on his landing we can see the flex or wobble of the board itself, which probably gives him a little more shock absorption.
• Finally riding out we can see that Dane's body is leaning backward a little and the board is sliding out forward. This is probably a result of his not having his center of mass directly over the center of the board at landing. However Dane quickly recovers by bending his knees and moving his arms forward to once again position himself over the center of the board and ride out.

Breaking down a movement using high speed video footage can be very instructive. If you are a surfer, we hope you were able to pick up a few tips. If you are not a surfer, take a look around for high speed video footage of your sports and see what you can learn from the pros. If you have any suggestions of high speed video you would like us to analyze let us know. We enjoy hearing your comments.

The Skateboard Ollie

Skateboarding has taken off as a sport over the last decade and the tricks being performed are often incredible. To perfect these tricks skateboarders spend hours practicing and falling over and over again.

Video analysis is the perfect tool to learn how to do skateboard tricks. If you are learning a trick that someone else has already perfected you have the advantage of watching them do the trick and learning from them. You can also get video of yourself performing the trick and compare your technique to theirs.

Another benefit is that it is easy to setup a camera to get the best view for analyzing the video. Because most tricks are done over a defined area and in a specific direction, you can easily setup a camera to get the best field of view and angle to analyze the trick.

One of the more basic skateboarding tricks is the "Ollie" (jump). The Ollie is the basis for most aerial tricks in skateboarding and therefore it is important to learn how to do a great one.

Here is a really good video with a lesson on how to do an ollie. The video of the ollie itself is excellent because the camera is setup well and looking directly at the skateboard and movement and not at an angle.


The video gives a comprehensive description of how its done. We can get some other tips from analyzing the video more closely.

1. At the beginning of the ollie, the rider applies pressure to the tail of board. He does this to force the front of the board up into the air to start the movement. However if he only applied pressure to the tail he would simply fall off the back of the board. Watch how he also maintains his weight over his front foot so that the front of the board will only move up as he lifts and shifts his front foot.
2. Coming to the take off, the rider jumps up into the air but notice that he does not use his arms to jump. The idea with an ollie is to stay connected or at least close to your skateboard throughout the trick. If you use your arms to jump, you may jump too high above your board and end up having a long way to fall back onto your skateboard.
3. The rider in the video also lets us know that to make your ollie higher you "suck your knees up to your chest after you have jumped". This helps you to raise your center of mass and of course the height of your feet and therefore allows the board to lift higher into the air. Your center of mass is the center of all the limbs of your body, and is usually somewhere around your navel. You can move your center of mass by moving limbs. Therefore if you raise your arms you raise your center of mass. If you jump and lift your knees up higher you will also raise your center of mass.
4. Your center of mass is also important for maintaining your balance when landing the ollie. In the video note how the skaters right arm ends up behind him on the landing while his left arm is in front. He is balancing his center of mass over the center of the skateboard by opposite and equal balance of his arms. This does not mean that you need to have your right arm back and left arm forward when landing your ollie, but you should be aware that you need to balance your weight over the center of the skateboard (both forward and back as well as left and right) so that you do not fall off on landing.

Good luck with learning to do an ollie. You can try practicing your ollie first on grass or softer ground before moving to the cement. Remember to also wear a helmet, all the pros do.