What is your wakeboarding set up?

Every since I got my boat in July of this year I’ve been mainly focusing on Wakesurfing. I think I got the waves dialed in but I was wondering what everyone is running for wakeboarding. I’m at the novice to intermediate level. At 70 foot rope and 21 mph I can clear week to week but I’m only getting about 6 feet of air as far as amplitude. Yeah I know… kindergarten level [emoji23]
Call yesterday we did several runs at 23 mph wait front ballast filled all the way and 750 pounds of lead midship. Check out the video below.
The week was clean but I didn’t seem to get much of a pop out of it.

https://youtu.be/HBWwvGymQ2c

Please post your set up on here, things like Bolt speed, ballast, type of boat, rope length.

Let me know what I need to do to get more pop and more air out of it.


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Im not a pro by any means but it looks like your knees are really bent and absorbing some of the ramp. Great video. The lake looks amazing.

Trying pulling rope into 60 feet and 20 mph. Focus on the spring at the top when holding the edge. Then you can lengthen out the rope and speed up. Also, 23mph is moving! Scares me thinking about it.


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Yesterday was the first time that I really rode at 23 mph. No only reason why I did it was because Lake was smooth as glass. Typically a ride at 21 or 19 if it’s really choppy.
So if I’m hearing you guys correctly the issue is with my style and that the wake. Is that correct?
I have to be honest with you guys, I have been trying to straighten up when approaching the wake but for some odd reason I think that I’m doing that while I’m riding but in reality one say see a video of me it’s obvious that I’m not. I need to find some drills to help me do that. Any suggestions


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I remember those days trying to learn pop, you don't more speed or weight. You have to stand tall when you hit the wake and load the rope more. My coach said pretend you are jumping over a fence, you put your hands on the top of the fence (handle) and pop up with your legs while pushing down on the handle. The more pop the higher you go, you want to be fully popped at the top of the wake.

Try drills of single wake jumps, only cut out 4-5 feet from the wake and focus on really pull against the boat and popping.

Sorry meant this drill. :)
https://youtu.be/gPQnmoxEG38

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Originally Posted by parrothd

I remember those days trying to learn pop, you don't more speed or weight. You have to stand tall when you hit the wake and load the rope more. My coach said pretend you are jumping over a fence, you put your hands on the top of the fence (handle) and pop up with your legs while pushing down on the handle. The more pop the higher you go, you want to be fully popped at the top of the wake.

Try drills of single wake jumps, only cut out 4-5 feet from the wake and focus on really pull against the boat and popping.

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That’s a good advice. Unfortunately now I have to wait a 5 days to try is again. Ugh [emoji30]
Do you think that taking lessons was helpful? How many sessions did you do?


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Originally Posted by Emilware

That’s a good advice. Unfortunately now I have to wait a 5 days to try is again. Ugh [emoji30]
Do you think that taking lessons was helpful? How many sessions did you do?

I recommend everyone take lessons.


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For me lessons are great, I try to have a coach for anything I want to be good at, sand volleyball, wakeboard, wakesurf. But the results depend on how well you take the info and apply it. You still have to put the time in. I did weekly, but for wakeboarding started late in life so the recovery from the falls put a damper on progress. For Wakesurf spent a few weakens with a coach and now really good. :)

Sadly, I’m about 11 years into riding and still can’t get consistent pop. It’s a huge nemesis holding my riding back! I can try the drills and still just get it right once in a blue moon. Solid w2w each time, but without the needed height.

Anyway, I seem to like to ride faster than most so my preference on my Mojo is 70 to 75’ at 22.8 mph. That’s with all 3 ballast about 75 to 80% and 400 lead.

https://youtu.be/FDi6N8F4yQA

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Originally Posted by BigOrange

Sadly, I’m about 11 years into riding and still can’t get consistent pop. It’s a huge nemesis holding my riding back! I can try the drills and still just get it right once in a blue moon. Solid w2w each time, but without the needed height.

Anyway, I seem to like to ride faster than most so my preference on my Mojo is 70 to 75’ at 22.8 mph. That’s with all 3 ballast about 75 to 80% and 400 lead.

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Video every set and analyze it each day.

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Originally Posted by BigOrange

Sadly, I’m about 11 years into riding and still can’t get consistent pop. It’s a huge nemesis holding my riding back! I can try the drills and still just get it right once in a blue moon. Solid w2w each time, but without the needed height.

Anyway, I seem to like to ride faster than most so my preference on my Mojo is 70 to 75’ at 22.8 mph. That’s with all 3 ballast about 75 to 80% and 400 lead.

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Brandon Judd the (wakeboard coach) is going to be in Nashville on 10/29 and 10/30. Good dude that is really promoting wakeboarding no matter your age.

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Originally Posted by MJHSupra

Brandon Judd the (wakeboard coach) is going to be in Nashville on 10/29 and 10/30. Good dude that is really promoting wakeboarding no matter your age.

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What’s the info? Is he coaching somewhere on a local lake?

KnoxMojo would be a good person to comment on this and how he progressed. Scott really upped his riding over the last few years.

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Originally Posted by MJHSupra

KnoxMojo would be a good person to comment on this and how he progressed. Scott really upped his riding over the last few years.

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Knox really helped my son figure out how to pop. Staying on your edge, keeping line tension and standing up as you hit the ramp and pushing handle down all Helped his pop


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Thanks for the kind words guys!! Getting coaching over the last few years and progressing has been amazing!! It is hard to coach over video other than the basic stuff, stay on edge, stand tall, don't absorb the wake, keep the handle waist level, and the such. If anyone in the Nashville area is wanting coaching, look up Wake Coaches, Brandon Judd, or send me a message and I will get you his info. Thanks for the wakeboard post! Keep at it and don't get discouraged!

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Originally Posted by BigOrange

What’s the info? Is he coaching somewhere on a local lake?

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It was on a Facebook post and he was looking for add'l peeps. Did not list the specific local lake:

www.wakecoaches.com
Brandon Judd out of FL
[email protected]
(530) 305-8500

Jealous you're still out!

You're hitting the wake more like a skiier and absorbing a lot of the energy into your legs, you want to extend your legs as you ride up the wake so that you go from a sitting in a chair position up to a standing position right as you reach the top of the wake.
It makes all the difference in the world.


I had always been hitting it similar to you and trying to use speed to get the air which doesn't really work, you have to pop at the right time.

First time I got the pop right behind my SA I dropped the rope midair as I had no clue I was going to go that high lol.

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Originally Posted by SONIC

Jealous you're still out!

You're hitting the wake more like a skiier and absorbing a lot of the energy into your legs, you want to extend your legs as you ride up the wake so that you go from a sitting in a chair position up to a standing position right as you reach the top of the wake.
It makes all the difference in the world.


I had always been hitting it similar to you and trying to use speed to get the air which doesn't really work, you have to pop at the right time.

First time I got the pop right behind my SA I dropped the rope midair as I had no clue I was going to go that high lol.

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Thanks for the advice [mention]SONIC [/mention], I cannot wait to try it. Hopefully I get the “oh shit I’m flying too high” moment soon.
Do you extend your legs at the wake or keep them locked in on approach?


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Extend them as you're riding up the wake

Shawn Murray leaves them mostly stiff the whole transition so that's valid too, stiff not locked though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDi6N8F4yQA

One of the first steps to getting the “pop” you are looking for is to get comfortable with what is called the “progressive edge”. It doesn’t really matter much what you are doing with your legs if you don’t have lots of tension on the rope at the top of the wake. The advice given on extending your legs and standing tall at the top of the wake is correct but if you don’t have line tension you won’t get much pop. Most novice riders make the common mistake of cutting out far away from the wake then cutting in towards the wake as hard as they can right away. What occurs is that you reach your top speed out in the flats instead of at the wake. The issue is that once you reach your top speed you let off on your edge therefore losing “line tension “. You want to do, instead, is once you finish cutting away from the wake just let the boat begin to pull you back into the wake. Call this 1/10 intensity. As you begin to approach the wake you want to steadily ramp up the intensity of your edge towards the wake. You don’t want to hit your max intensity 10/10 until you reach the wake. You will still be hitting the wake at the same speed as you used to but now you have line tension! Don’t worry about extending your legs just yet. Keep them “strong”, not locked when you hit the wake so your legs don’t absorb all your hard work. Keep the the handle of your new wakeboard rope at your hip and you will get LAUNCHED! Once you are getting consistent pop on both your heel side and toe side (nobody wants to be a heel side hero) then you can start to work on your timing extending your legs at the top of the wake. Right now you should slow the boat down to the slowest it will go but still has a clean wake, shorten the rope to a length that you are consistently landing on the downside of both wakes. Once you have the progressive edge figured out and you are landing in the flats consistently you can start letting out the rope and inching up the speed. Not too much on the speed though. My friend is currently the top rider in Canada, Hunter Smith, and he rides at about 21 mph. Happy shredding!

Ya I agree, @Tommy2slow is right! Great explanation!
Learning a progressive edge is how you get height. Loading your board with line tension sends you up. If you've ever tried or seen someone do an air trick at a cable you can really see this progressive edge and load. Since there is no wake or kicker, the height is relying on only line tension and load. As you get more comfortable with it won't seem to take so much strength - eventually you shouldn't feel like you're cutting in for a raley each time.
Loading the board happens in tandem with a progressive edge. As you edge harder you push the board deeper into the water. It's like pushing a basketball under water then releasing it - the deeper you push it under, the higher it will bounce out. (This is a subtle characteristic that happens as you edge progressively so you don't necessarily want to intentionally push your board under water). As you load your board (edge in) and release it in different ways like scooping off the tail (which will initiate a backroll motion) or pushing off more of your front foot (initiating more a glide or front flip trick) you can see how different tricks can be initiated with different edging and pop styles. Yes, handle placement and pull in the air is obviously important for different tricks but the edge/pop style is also important.
Different tricks typically work better with different edge styles - some require more of an aggressive load while others can be a littler flatter like spins. Usually a more aggressive load leads to more line tension, which is not necessarily good or bad, just depends on what you're trying. Also a wider approach taking your air path into the flats will typically have more line tension in the air.
So after saying all that, yes you must develop a progressive edge where you start mellow and edge harder up through the wake. You also have to make sure you don't over cut. Sometimes people will try to over cut and lose all control. So this progressive edge is only good for you if you keep it in control.
Another thing I find helpful, especially when learning toeside stuff, is to make sure you don't lose leverage on your line tension at the wake - you don't necessarily have to push super hard with your legs but keep your hips up/forward and not break at the waist. A lot of people will will edge in hunched over and bend at the waist as they hit the wake, losing the tension and load that's building in the edge up the wake. Pros do this all the time BUT they have their edging all figured out and understand how to keep tension, they're just using different positioning for various tricks so they might not be the best to always copy when you're figuring it out yourself. Heelside is less touchy with this because you're in an easier position to lean back with your shoulders into the line keeping it tight and your edge deep. Toeside though, is harder to keep that leverage so you really have to intentionally keep your shoulders back, hips forward and lean back into the line with your rear shoulder. You're trying to keep tension through the line, pulling back against the line with that rear shoulder and standing tall enough that you're not folding at the waist when you hit the wake. DO NOT become a heelside hero! It's tempting, because heelside feels so much more comfortable when you're starting but it's like riding a halfpipe snowboarding - it becomes way more fun when you can hit both the frontside and backside walls, it doesn't really work well until you can use both sides. It's kind of similar in wakeboarding. Even if you can't take them wake to wake, for every heelside hit in your set you should mirror it with a toeside hit even if it's single wake (just take a closer approach to practice your pop without casing the second wake).

A good drill to develop this loading and line tension is to start really close to the wake and try to get a lot of upwards height without that wide approach. You can try to get wake to wake with only a 5' approach. If that's too ambitious to start, you could ride full line length and do this single wake so you don't have to worry about casing the second wake. This short approach forces you to build your edge speed quickly - start slow then roll into a hard edge through the top of the wake. You'll also notice that this should create a straight up and down air path as opposed to high speed low and far (which is not what you want). Getting wake to wake on a low, fast and far air path is not going to be fun or helpful. You have to develop that poppy straight up air path. It's more important to first develop that correct pop and load before being overly concerned with clearing the second wake.
As said before, ride at a slow speed (as long as the wake is clean and you don't feel like you're dragging) because it's easier to load your edge and falls are obviously more mellow. Keep the line short to start so you can focus on popping straight up and not far to clear the other wake.
Lastly, ride with a lot of ballast, a bigger wake is easier to pop off of (obviously) and easier to time out. A small wake is so abrupt and requires more precise timing. As you get into REALLY big wakes you can actually cheat a little and just cruise off of them like a ramp instead of developing a proper progressive edge and line tension. So you may not want to start with a sacked out G but definitely ride with SOME weight, it'll make jumping way easier and more fun. As long as you're riding a short line and slow speed it's probably a little safer than trying to blast high off a tiny curb wake.