Learn the kickflip: the hard prerequisites, five stages from isolating the flick to the catch, the typical rotation errors, and why you train the catch last.
The kickflip is an ollie in which you let your front foot slide diagonally off the corner of the nose during the upward motion: the board spins once around its long axis and you catch it again with your feet. If your rolling ollie is solid, the kickflip is realistically a project of a few weeks to several months. And then comes the sentence that helps you most.
The kickflip is not harder than the ollie — it is just more precise. Not a motivational phrase: when sport scientists measured the muscle activity of seven experienced skaters during ollie, kickflip and 360 flip using EMG, the number of muscle synergies did not differ significantly between the three tricks [1] — motor complexity is comparable. What is blocking you is not missing talent. It is a timing and angle problem in one single foot.
What you should take seriously instead is the landing. For the kickflip itself there is no solid force measurement here — the ollie landing is the yardstick: in an ollie off a 45.7 cm platform the forces rose within the first 30 to 80 milliseconds to 4.74 ± 0.46 body weights [2], almost five times your weight in the blink of an eye (the skaters landed firmly on purpose). Plan the kickflip landing at least as seriously. Height on a kickflip is not style — height is time, and time is the only currency the rotation accepts.
The kickflip is the trick most skaters get stuck on. Almost always because they skipped the prerequisites. This list is not negotiable:
Back foot centred on the tail as for the ollie. Front foot angled at roughly 45 degrees just behind the front bolts, heel barely over the edge. Important: the EMG data show high variability between individual skaters [1] — there is no universal millimetre position. The right stance is the one that reproducibly produces a full rotation for you. Milestone: you find the position blind, without looking down.
Stand next to your board with one foot on the ground and flick the board with your front foot only, off the corner of the nose. There is exactly one question: does the board turn a clean 360 degrees around its long axis and land back on its wheels? Milestone: 10 out of 10 flicks rotate fully and land on the wheels.
Now combine, standing still or rolling very slowly: you jump like an ollie, and during the upward pull the front foot slides diagonally forward and out over the corner of the nose. Land next to the board. Deliberately do not catch it yet — this step trains the rotation only. Milestone: in 8 out of 10 attempts the board rotates fully and lands on its wheels while you land beside it.
Only once the rotation is dialled does catching come in. The sequence: 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 in the air, not at the ground. Milestone: you land on both feet over the trucks, even if you step off afterwards.
Now increase your rolling speed. Land low, knees soft, eyes forward rather than down. Milestone: five landed kickflips in a row in one session — from here it is yours.
The kickflip is the trick where skaters start risking landings — and that is exactly where the injury problem begins. There is no force measurement for flips here; the yardstick is the ollie landing off a 45.7 cm platform at 4.74 body weights in under a tenth of a second [2]. In a simulation study the middle metatarsals carried the highest load [4]. Cushioned skate shoes and a deep landing are the difference between a session and a break.
The most common real problem, though, is 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 [5]; they also dominated the recurring injuries (68.7 percent of the 67 reported recurrences) [5]. An ankle that has been injured once stays a risk. Which fits: 87.8 percent of respondents did no skate-specific training programme [5].
The chronic load is real too: 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 [6]. Twenty minutes of balance and ankle 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 or persistent pain you see a professional, not your next session.
Stop trying to catch the board. The biggest progress blocker on the kickflip is that beginners train steps 3 and 4 at the same time: they flick and chase it with the foot — braking the rotation before it finishes. The board lands on its edge and the skater concludes the flick was wrong. Usually it was not.
The trick: twenty attempts in a row in which you deliberately land next to the board. Rotation only, no catch. Your brain learns the flick without the conflict with your catching reflex. Once the rotation goes through consistently, the catch arrives almost by itself — for many within a single session.
With a stable ollie and two to three sessions a week, most people need a few weeks to a few months to land their first kickflip; consistency comes later. There are no solid studies on learning times — this is experience, not evidence. In practice what decides it is almost always how clean the ollie was beforehand.
Because the flick goes sideways instead of forward. The front foot has to slide off the corner of the nose, diagonally forward and out — not across the side edge. Second common cause: the back foot sticks to the tail and tips the board. Lift it deliberately after the pop and the board flips flat.
Yes, and specifically rolling and over a board lying flat. The kickflip is mechanically an ollie with an added movement, and per EMG both share a common jumping synergy [1]. Without ollie height the rotation simply has no time — and achievable height probably depends on fast leg strength [3].
Take whichever feels more natural to you. Both are equally valid entries into the flip family, and the EMG data show large individual differences in activation anyway [1]. Most people learn the kickflip first, because flicking outward feels more intuitive than the inward heel flick.
Because rolling adds forward momentum and you unconsciously shy away backwards. Ride deliberately slowly, keep your shoulders over the board and jump forward and up with it instead of away from it. And land low: balance and leg strength were among the most important factors in a performance model [7].
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