Various kinds of wakeboards:

If you are a beginner then you should start with longer wakeboards that come with square edges or square rails. These kinds of wakeboards are much more stable and trouble-free to control, whereas it is much easier to land with the round-edged wakeboards. Being round edged, these wakeboards allows you to gather speed much conveniently. They also provide quicker lifts during air tricks.

Some of the wakeboard riders also take the fins, rockers, design and the bindings of the board into consideration. The main function of the binding, which is also known as the boots, is to provide a secure attachment to the boards. These bindings also provide a comfortable support for your ankle as well as for your heel.

Wakeboard Ropes:

The ropes used for wakeboarding generally vary in length and elasticity. The normal length of a wake-rope ranges between 60 and 70 feet. Some of them are one-piece that come without any length adjustments, whereas others come with additional adjustment loops.

Wakeboard Towers:

These days, most of the wake boards come with wakeboard towers. In such boards the rope is s mounted on this tower, instead of being tied on the back of the boat. The length of the tower is usually 2 to 3 meters from the water level. These wakeboard towers help the riders to achieve a better pull and stability as well as allow them to gain more height while performing air tricks. They further provide supplementary space wakeboard speakers, for wakeboard racks, and lights.

Wakeboard Accessories:

There are several wakeboard accessories easily available in the market. These accessories add extra color and glamour to your wakeboards. You can attach wakeboard speakers to the towers which can be utilized to play music as well as to give instructions to the riders. You can also get waterproof covers for your wakeboard speakers. Wakeboard lights are in fact necessary if you want to show off your skills at night. Most of the handles come with rubber padding as they need to be comfortable to hold on. For the beginners it is essential to use wakeboard helmets for additional safety.

Tips for buying wakeboards:

• Before buying your own wakeboard study about them as much as possible. The boards and the equipments differ by levels of experience.
• Always consider your level of wakeboarding for your safety purpose.
• Get your bindings as well since most of them come without one.

This next statement might confuse some of you, but learning a trick on a trampoline is way different from taking it to a snowboard. So how can a trampoline help you get better at snowboarding then? Here are some tricks and techniques to use on your trampoline that will benefit you when you take them to the snowboard slope.

Springs Only!

We all know that those springs can snap and come flying. What you didn’t know is I guess somebody sued and now they make these really lame trampolines with elastic wraps instead of metal springs. The result: an almost unusable trampoline. It doesn’t bounce right, it doesn’t bounce high, and it’s a huge waste of money and time.

So in using the tips on this article, I am talking about a metal spring trampoline. The originals. You can usually get them super cheap just by looking in your penny saver or the classifieds. Trampolines are big cumbersome objects that people like to get off of their lawns once the kids grow up (I never grew up though… sorry mom). I found mine for a whopping $40 and it’s lasted going on two years.

Starters

JUMP! The first thing to do with your trampoline is jump as high in the air as you can. A couple things to concentrate are how you are timing the jump and your body’s orientation in the air.

Once your body leaves the ground all sorts of core muscles (inner muscles that you can’t see, not even if you workout all the time) will kick in and try to keep you level and stable in the air. If you are flailing your arms about in the air going every which way then this is where the trampoline will help you.

Jumping straight up and down will get you use to being in the air. If you want to add more authenticity you can strap you snowboard on (just remember to tape the edges so you don’t tear your trampoline). Now you are ready to practice some grabs.

Grab every spot on the board you can (between bidings only!) and just start playing around with it. Adding your own little tweaks to grabs on the trampoline will set you apart and develop your style for the snowboard slopes. For nose and tail grabs make sure you are grabbing the very tips of the board every time!

Spins/Inverts

This is where a trampoline can come in really handy. Now, spinning/flipping on a trampoline is entirely different from executing the trick on your snowboard… there is no edge work, no transition, and no speed involved in the equation, but…

You can’t just throw a 540 without knowing what it feels like to rotate a spin and a half. That’s where the trampoline comes in.

When spinning/flipping on a trampoline there are several things to take into consideration:

1. Your orientation: are your legs tucked, are you relatively flat based in the air.
2. The windup: Concentrate on how you are initiating the spin. This will help you gauge how much force you need to bring the rotation around on the slopes.
3. Head position: Where are you looking as you do the spin? Think about doing the trick on your snowboard. Where do you need to be looking to bring the trick around completely? At what point during the spin do you spot your landing zone?
4. The landing: Are you landing a nice full rotation? Think about your edgework. The nice thing about snowboarding is that if you under rotate a spin you can kind of recover by sliding it through after the landing… but you need to make sure you are landing on the edge that’s going to give not just dig into the snow and scorpion you down the landing.

In any rotation trick in snowboarding you can expect to be flying blindly through the air at some point. Practicing those in-air aspects on the trampoline eliminates a lot of that guesswork leaving only your approach up the transition to figure out.

Especially with inverts, you want to be landing on your back on a trampoline not hard-pack snow. Inverts put your head and neck in a good bit of danger, it’s good to be sure you are going to land on your feet to some extent before you try it on hill, and that’s where a trampoline comes in.

Once you start understanding these tricks more strap on a snowboard and start throwing in some grabs. Certain grabs aid certain rotations… you will have to play with it and find out what works best for you.

Rails/Boxes

How can you practice a snowboard rail on a trampoline? Well you aren’t going to practicing the slide that’s for sure. First you are going to spray-paint or lay down a line of tape straight down the center of your trampoline. This line represents the box or rail.

See where I am going with this? Now you choose frontside, backside, switch, or regular and jump. This is practice mainly for 270s and above. It is a really good way to get used to staying on target while spinning.

As you do this you are gong to want to pay attention to several important on hill aspects: Make sure you are keeping a good bead on where the line is underneath you, it will help you so much later when you can land dead center on a rail every time.
Also keep in mind that if it were a rail or box you would be sliding after the fact… so take into account how you would angle your bodyweight to land flat based and slide.

Make sure you get comfortable with executing spins on hill before you go try 270s and whatnot because even though you will know how to complete the rotation and adjust to the slide angle, you will need to be comfortable spinning off a transition and getting your snowboard to go where you want.

This is pretty obvious but you should know and be pretty comfortable with all the slides and presses on all the kinds of jibs before you start going after 270s.

That’s my trampoline snowboard practice guide. I cannot stress enough that these are only a means to an ends and you will still have to do a bit of tweaking to make it work on hill with your snowboard. I hope it helps or at least kills some of your summer downtime waiting for those local mountains to be white-capped once again.

The first question that comes to mind for this particular extreme sport is, “Why.” Why would you jump off a perfectly good bridge? Or crane? Or why would you jump off a platform? Or hot air balloon? The question that follows closely behind in the observer’s mind goes something like this – “Is that a rubber band tied to their feet?” The answer to the first is simple: To fly, bounce and fly again. To we land based humans, the desire to soar through the air has been with us throughout history. Bungee jumping offers the sensation of flying from the initial free-fall to the repeated rebounds. And, the answer to the second question is, well, yes. It’s a rubber band!

Bungee jumping, or some non-elasticized form of it, has been documented for centuries. As far back as the Aztecs people have been plunging headlong into space with some sort of lifeline tied to their bodies. Back then it was vines – not much give I imagine. Today, the “rubber band” is actually much more that. It is thick pre-stressed braids of latex shock cord. Most jump companies have added a body harness to the attachment fittings for added security. There have been injuries and fatalities, but they are very few considering the several million jumpers since its modern beginnings in 1979. All equipment is provided at the sites whether on a bridge or at a commercial jump site. Just bring your confidence!

There are a couple of variations of bungee jumping around today. One starts you in the reverse position. That is, you are on the ground with one end of the bungee attached to your harness and the other to a crane above. The cord is stretched and stretched and suddenly you are released from the ground to go flying straight up into the air. There are similar rebounds until your momentum wanes. Very thrilling reverse gravity experience! Another lighter than air simulation is the trampoline bungee. You jump normally on a trampoline while attached to a bungee from above. This gives you extra jumping power as the cords are tightened during your acrobatics.

There are many structures worldwide that are used for bungee jumping. These structures include bridges, dams, suspension bridges and towers and are destination sights in and of themselves. The world record for the highest bungee jump occurred at Macau Tower in Macau SAR China at the height of 760 feet. This is a tourist structure and the jump was off the observation deck. The official record keepers only consider jumps from fixed structures to insure accurate measurement. That being said, a jump of 3,157 feet at full cord extension took place from a helicopter in Cancun.

The particular extreme sport is open to most people of reasonably good health. It does not require any special skills. However, you will find that the “skill” of releasing your hands before the jump will suddenly give your trouble. No practice or preparation is required so stay off the roof! Pack up your nerve and head off to the nearest bungee jumping location to experience the thrill of flying. The free-fall is exhilarating as the wind whistles by and ground rushes up. Then you rebound again and again. Like most thrilling adventures, you will want to get back in line for that second jump!

In wakeboarding, a boat with a rope tows the rider. The rider rides on a buoyant board, called a wakeboard, and uses the wake to launch himself up into the air and then back into the water. Though this may sound simple, there are quite a few tricks and spins to learn before you can master the sport.

The essentials for wakeboarding are wakeboards and wakeropes. Wakeboard length varies between 120 and 150 centimeters and the wakeboard width is between 40 and 45 centimeters. Beginners should begin with longer wakeboards with square edges or square rails. Square-edged boards are more stable and easier to control, though round-edged boards are easier to land. Round edges also allow boards to easily gain speed, providing quicker lifts during air tricks. Krown, Hyperlite, Liquid Force and CWB are specialized wakeboard manufacturers and their wakeboards cost between $350 to $600.

Experienced wakeboard riders also take into consideration the rockers, fins, bindings and the design of the board. Bindings or boots provide a secure attachment to the boards and should provide a comfortable support for the heel and ankle.

Wakeboard ropes vary in elasticity and length. The length of a wakerope is normally between 60 and 70 feet. They may be one-piece, which does not allow any length adjustments, or may come with adjustment loops. A tighter and stiffer rope allows little stretch and is used to perform air tricks.

Wake boats nowadays come with wakeboard towers. Instead of the rope being mounted on the back of the boat, the rope is mounted on a tower, which is normally 2 to 3 meters from the water level. Wakeboard towers allow a better pull and stability and also enable a rider to gain more air height while performing tricks. The towers also provide additional space for wakeboard racks, wakeboard speakers and lights. Fly High and Skylon are the more established wakeboard tower manufacturers and the price ranges from $900 to more than $2000.

Wakeboard accessories add color to the sport. Wakeboard speakers may be attached to the towers and can be used to play music or to give instructions to the riders, especially beginners. Waterproof covers are also available for the wakeboard speakers. If you want to flaunt your skills at night, then you can also add wakeboard lights. Handles should be comfortable to hold on to and most come with rubber padding. Beginners should also use wakeboard helmets for additional safety. Eye-catching wakeboard apparels are also available with wakeboard dealers.