Ollie Physics

Do an ollie while rolling. When you are rolling your board and your body will be more easier to control. While doing any pop trick you will stay in line with your board. It's a law of motion.

This page is on the science of the ollie, by an amateur. This is more of a story of what I think is happening. What I say doesn't come from a lab. Tested by people who know science well. Maybe one day It will be.

Ollie Science Here

The ollie movement like a lever but at the pop the lever angle if changed quickly. This cause s the board to leave the ground.

A lever is a rigid object that with a pivot point to multiply the force applied to another object.

Using the back wheels as the pivot point on the skateboard. You push down the tail rotating around the axle. Moving the front of the skateboard up.

The skateboard keeps going up. When the tail hits the ground it pops. The centre of the rotation point changes in an instant.

This changes the angle that the skateboard is travelling up at. It causes the skateboard to leave the ground.

The front of the skateboard is travelling up and the back has left the ground.

Using your feet and the grip of the top of the board you catch the board as it is moving up. At normal speed the board appears to stick to your feet.

The skate moves their feet to level out the board and hold it.

As this motion happens it appears that the board sticks to your  your feet. 

This article on the physics of the ollie covers things in a different way than I do. With some good images to explain. I pulled one to show what they are getting at.

If you are comfortable rolling when you pop your ollie. Then you will have enough balance to land the ollie and roll away. The moving ollie should be your goal.

But first you need to learn to pop the ollie. There are a few ways to do an ollie. When learning and tweaking the ollie for high and or long gaps.

The tweak is the key to a good ollie but not the key to getting in the air. Getting into the air should be the first focus when learning the ollie.