Learn the heelflip: the prerequisites, five stages from isolated flick to catch, why the board shoots forward and the front-foot angle trick.
The heelflip is the mirror image of the kickflip: you pop an ollie and flick your front foot with the heel diagonally forward and out over the heel-side corner of the nose. The board rotates once around its long axis — just the other way. With a solid rolling ollie it is not one bit harder than the kickflip, but it demands a completely different front foot stance.
That is exactly where most people fail: they carry over the kickflip stance and then wonder why the board shoots away in front of them.
The good news comes from the lab. When researchers used EMG to compare the muscle activity of experienced skaters during ollie, kickflip and 360 flip, the number of muscle synergies did not differ significantly between the tricks [1] — the motor complexity is on one level (the heelflip itself was not measured). At the same time the variability between skaters was high [1]: there is no millimetre-exact stance that works for everyone. Your job is to find yours and then reproduce it.
You do have to take the landing seriously. There is no solid force measurement for flip tricks here; the yardstick is the ollie landing: in an ollie off a 45.7 cm platform the forces rose within the first 30 to 80 milliseconds to 4.74 plus/minus 0.46 body weights [2], almost five times your weight in the blink of an eye (the skaters landed firmly on purpose). Plan the landing accordingly.
The heelflip does not forgive skipped prerequisites. These criteria are checkable:
What you do not need: a clean kickflip. Both flips are equally valid entry points, and many people learn the heelflip alongside it or even first.
Back foot centred on the tail as in an ollie. Front foot much flatter and almost square to the board, toes hanging slightly over the toe edge, heel pointing towards the heel-side corner of the nose. This is where the heelflip parts ways with the kickflip. Milestone: you find the stance blind and it feels stable, not wobbly.
Stand next to your board, one foot on the ground, and flick with your heel only, diagonally forward and out over the heel-side corner of the nose. Milestone: 10 out of 10 flicks rotate a full 360 degrees around the long axis and land on the wheels.
Now combine, standing still or rolling very slowly: pop, front foot up towards the nose, then the heel flick forward and out. Deliberately land next to the board. At this stage only the rotation counts. Milestone: in 8 out of 10 attempts the board rotates fully and lands on its wheels.
Only once the rotation goes through consistently: the back foot catches first and stops the rotation over the tail, the front foot follows immediately onto the front bolts. Look at the board, not at the floor. Milestone: you land on both feet over both trucks, even if you step off afterwards.
Add speed, land deep, knees soft, eyes forward. Balance and lower body strength were among the most important factors in a performance model of 45 skaters [4] — every minute of balance work pays off here. Milestone: five landed heelflips in a row in one session.
By experience, flip tricks are among the fall-prone tricks. That is not a reason to stop, it is a reason for protection and an empty spot.
Your biggest real risk sits in the ankle. In an online survey of 197 Spanish skaters, ligament sprains were the most common type of injury at 39.6 percent, mostly at the ankle — and they also led among recurring injuries (68.7 percent of the 67 reported recurrences) [5]. An ankle that has been injured once stays a risk. The second number from the same survey fits: 87.8 percent did no skate-specific training programme [5].
The landing itself is absorbed mainly by your forefoot: in a simulation study the load was highest at the middle metatarsals, which is why forefoot cushioning in a skate shoe is central [6]. Worn-out shoes are not a style question here.
And the chronic load is real: In a survey of 64 skaters, 82.8 percent reported current pain, more often than statistically expected at the knee, ankle, lumbosacral region and foot [7]. Twenty minutes of balance and calf work per week is cheaper than six weeks off.
This guide explains and motivates, it does not replace supervised coaching or a physiotherapeutic assessment. With recurring rolled ankles you see a professional, not the next session.
Pull the heel back instead of extending it forward.
The typical heelflip error is not the angle of the flick but what happens after it: the front foot stays stretched out forward in mid-air. That pushes the board away — and it lands two metres in front of you while you stand on the ground.
The trick: think of the flick as snap plus retraction. Heel out over the corner, and in the same breath pull the knee back towards your chest. Your foot describes a small circle, not a long reach forward. A heelflip that stays under you is 90 percent a question of the retraction, not the flick.
Take the one that feels more natural. Both are equally valid entry points into the flip family, and the EMG data show large individual differences in motor control anyway [1]. If you practise both at once you will keep mixing up the stances at the start — better to finish one properly.
Because your flick goes forward instead of forward and out, and because the foot stays extended afterwards. Snap the heel diagonally over the heel-side corner of the nose and pull the knee straight back towards your chest. Second cause: your front foot sits too far forward on the nose.
Too much flick with too little height. The board has more angular momentum than flight time. Shorten the flick and work on ollie height — that probably relates to fast force development in your legs [3]. Less heel, more pop.
With a stable ollie and two to three sessions a week, most people need a few weeks to a few months for their first landed heelflip. There are no solid learning-time studies, that is experience talking. How clean the ollie was beforehand decides almost everything.
There is no solid measurement of landing forces in flip tricks here; the ollie landing off the platform is the yardstick [2]. Between kickflip and heelflip there is no solid comparative data. What helps is the same in both cases: land deep, hit both trucks, wear cushioned shoes.
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