In this wakeboarding how to, The Boarding School’s Shaun Murray shows you how to wakeboard better faster by changing the length of your wakeboarding sessions.
Landing a new move might be the best feeling you’ll ever have as a wakeboarder. To get there, you need to be in your best shape, both mentally and physically. That’s most likely not going to happen when you’re 30 minutes deep in your session.
Through all my years of teaching people to become better riders, I find people tend to ride too long, which burns them out, making new moves nearly impossible to land. On average, a person rides about 20 to 30 minutes at a time. In my humble opinion, I think you should have more riding sessions, but in shorter spurts.
Rather than riding once or twice a day for 30 minutes each time, take two or three 12- to 15-minute sessions. Also, most people do all of their go-to moves first and then try new things at the end of the session. If you are in good, midsummer riding shape, start with two to three warm-up jumps and get right into it. Being fresh is a huge advantage.
At The Boarding School, we encourage this theory, and it helps people progress much faster. We also notice that hard falls are more likely to happen deeper in sessions when riders are tired. I like to ride for 10 to 15 minutes on average, but when practicing for contests, I’ll take three- to five-minute sessions while doubling my frequency.
Know When You’re Tired
I wear a stopwatch so I can time myself when riding, because it is hard to tell how tired I am when I’m out there. An indicator of fatigue is when your consistent moves fall apart on you. Whether it is a sketchy landing, not enough pop or a missed grab, you have to realize when to say when. If this happens on your last ride of the day and you still want to be out there, just do easy tricks like different 180s, and try to grab in ways you never have before. It’s OK to burn yourself out at the end of the day for conditioning, but it’s not worth trying your hardest moves and risking a season-ending injury.
