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Nuclear Grab - new

Will be added to chapter "Getting Started"

Suggested by renec112 · Aug 04, 2026 11:32

New article: Nuclear Grab

Final community vote: 0 yes / 0 no

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Nuclear Grab

Skill: land a straight air with a Nuclear grab

The Nuclear is one of the more advanced grabs. Reach with your back hand across your body and grab the heel edge between the nose and your front binding. Because your back hand has to travel all the way past your front foot, the board has to come to you - this grab doesn't work by reaching down.

Learn it on heelside straight airs off the L-kicker, where you have enough airtime to set up the grab. Ride in with a progressive heelside edge and pop off the kicker. In the air, keep the handle close to your front hip with your arms bent - if your leading arm gets pulled straight, you'll never reach the grab. Push the handle down, let go with your back hand, then bend your front leg and straighten your back leg. This shifts the nose up toward your free hand. Letting the board turn slightly backside in the air (like a small shifty) brings the heel edge even closer to your back hand.

Here is a good explanation, but executed without a kicker:

YouTube video

Video by Julia Rick

Key tips

  • Grab with your back hand on the heel edge, between the nose and your front binding
  • Keep the handle close to your front hip with bent arms - this is what makes the reach possible
  • Bend your front leg and straighten your back leg to bring the nose up to your hand
  • A slight backside shifty in the air makes the grab much easier to reach
  • Bring the board to your hand, not your hand to the board
  • Build up to it: comfortable grabbed airs first, then shifties, then combine them into the Nuclear

Where it goes in the course

Getting Started + new article here

  • Welcome to Wakeboarding welcome
  • Water Start (Sitting) water-start-sitting
  • Your First Turn first-corner
  • Full Round full-round
  • Dock Starts sw-dock-starts
  • Toeside Turning toeside-riding
  • Straight Airs (S-Kicker) straight-airs-s-kicker
  • 50-50 (Box) fifty-fifty-box
  • Nuclear Grab nuclear-grab

Easy Tricks

  • Switch Riding switch-riding
  • Jump Starts jump-starts
  • Ollies ollies
  • Side Slide side-slide
  • Surface FS 180 side-slide-180
  • Indy Grab indy-grab

Upper Beginner

  • Switch Corners & Full Rounds sw-corners-and-rounds
  • Hard Edging hard-edging
  • Straight Airs (All Stances) straight-airs-all-stances
  • 50-50 (All Stances) fifty-fifty-all-stances
  • Method Grab method-grab
  • Frontside Shifty frontside-shifty

Intermediate Tricks

  • Power Slides power-slides
  • Surface BS180 surface-bs180
  • Tail Press surface-wheelies
  • Backside Shifty backside-shifty
  • Backboard & Front Lip (Box) box-forward-slides
  • FS180 (Box) box-fs180
  • BS Handplant bs-handplant
  • Kicker FS180 (S-Kicker) kicker-fs180
  • Tail Spray tail-spray
  • Nollie Starts nollie-starts
  • Ollie FS180 ollie-fs180

Advanced

  • Surface 360 surface-360
  • Kicker BS180 (S-Kicker) kicker-bs180
  • Nuclear Grab nuclear-grab
  • Back Lip (Box) box-bs-slides
  • Backroll backroll
  • Rail to rail rail-to-rail
  • Kicker 360 kicker-360
  • Ollie BS180 Blind Unwrap ollie-bs180-blind-unwrap
  • Heelside Transfer heelside-transfer
  • Kicker Tantrum kicker-tantrum
  • Raley raley
  • Mexican Roll mexican-roll

Mastery

  • Scarecrow scarecrow
  • Backside 360 backside-360
  • Kicker heelside 540 kicker-heelside-540
  • Rewind Toeside BS180 rewind-toeside-bs180
  • Batwing batwing
  • KGB kgb
  • Whirly Bird whirly-bird

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