With a solid foundation of youth sports, Izzy Goode had the potential to take her athletic career in any direction she wanted; she chose the lake.

Coming from a family of celebrated Olympians, it could definitely be said that Goode is from pedigree stock - pursuing various sports at a high level during her childhood, the world was at Goodes prodigiously athletic feet.

We sat down with Izzy to find out what turned her head to competitive wakeboarding and how she took that passion and rode the wave to the very top of the sport, currently being ranked GB #1

How did you get into wakeboarding?

“My story of wakeboarding starts back in 2012, I really wanted to try an extreme sport with my brother. My uncle used to wakeboard so we found a lake, got on the water and the first time we tried it we absolutely fell in love with it.”

At what point did you realise you wanted to be really push and be competitive?

“There wasn’t really a big moment. I’ve always been competitive, anything I do I want to be the best in it, and that’s what I strive for. It was the same with wakeboarding; I’d fallen in love with it and thought ‘I’ll try a few competitions’ and I ended up doing really well in them. I remember this one guy saying to me ‘You ride like a guy, you don’t ride like a girl!’ Which strangely made me think ‘I can take this somewhere’.

You mentioned you’ve got quite a competitive streak, before wakeboarding were you competing in anything else?

“From a young age I was a gymnast, I was county champion. I absolutely loved it and that gave me really good aerial awareness which translates onto the water and into wakeboarding. I also took part in steeplechase and golf at the county level.’

Did you find your background in gymnastics helped you take to wakeboarding?

“Definitely! With wakeboarding you’re in the air, you’re flipping - when you’re a gymnast you’re doing tuck backs, you’re doing somersaults and all of that gives you your aerial awareness which you can then move to wakeboarding.”

Would you recommend gymnastics training to anyone looking to improve their wakeboarding, even if they didn’t have a background in it?

“Definitely! Gymnastics or trampolining. I train on my trampoline quite a bit, I have my wakeboarding handle attached to a pole so then I can practice my hand passing, or flips off the kicker without being on the water. I still go to the gym in the winter to practice my tumbling which keeps my fitness up, as well as my aerial awareness.”

You’ve already had some incredible achievements, but you’re not just a full-time athlete, you work, are studying at university, train and still find time to be a national champ! Quite the schedule…

“Planning my schedule a month ahead definitely helps! With work - Monday, Tuesday I’m in the office, Wednesday I’m at university until half five, Thursday I can get down to the lake before being back in uni on Friday for a full day.”

And then you’re training on top of that… How does that fit in and what part does it play in your success?

“So important! Every morning at 0630 I wake up, from then I’m in the gym training until 0800 - that’s my time to really focus on my strength and conditioning. I feel like it’s an essential part of your training, you can’t expect to be good if you don’t put the work in off the water. Wakeboarding is an extreme sport, that comes with boundaries, if you want to push those boundaries then you’ve GOT to put something in off the water.”

Was there a point at which you really needed to do the extra work, or did this come naturally to you with your athletic background?

“Whilst I was a gymnast I always did extra work off of the mats, flexibility; condition etc. But once I started wakeboarding I also started lifting weights and found that hugely beneficial. Strength and flexibility is hugely important in wakeboarding, you’re landing in all kinds of positions and you need to be able to get back up - having that flexibility and strength in your joints and muscles is really beneficial. My old coach did so much training off the water, looking at her motivated me to lift heavy weights, I realised that training in the gym is only going to make me better in the water.”

Do you think strength and conditioning for action sports is something that needs more awareness?

“Definitely! People just think that they can rock up to a sport and become good at it, and some people can. But at the same time you might do that sport for say two years and end up injured because you haven’t put in that effort in the gym. Wakeboarding only lasts 6 months of the year and then you’re in the winter, unless you’re going abroad to do warm weather training you need to be in the gym. I spend my time in the gym over the winter and I need that, without it I’d have no way of getting my fitness back up before the season. You can’t expect your body to last for long periods of time if you don’t train it, you’ve got to be prepared for the strength it takes to be a wakeboarder.”

Do you have any words of advice for any budding wakeboarders or action sports athletes who love their sport, but just can’t get on with the strength and conditioning side of the pursuit?

“Find something you love to do and go with that, whether that be skipping, running, gymnastics, lifting weights… Anything is going to be better than nothing. If you can do just one extra thing, once or twice a week, just to start then try it and keep trying until you find something you fall in love with. BUT - you’ve got to give it a good try, so keep trying!”

Do you think you’d be in the position you are now if it wasn’t for the work you put in off the lake?

“Definitely not. Without doing the strength training I wouldn’t be where I am on the lake. As soon as I started lifting weights and building my strength I noticed the difference. The more strength I built, the bigger and better tricks I could perform!”

How can you make Izzy’s medal winning training philosophies work for you? Goode delivers her most immediately actionable advice to help you go from doggy paddle to water baby.

• I never train for longer than 90 mins, usually around an hour. In the winter this may be 5 days a week, but I listen to my body and rest when I need to or if I think it will affect my performance on the water during the summer.

• I train using a PUSH/PULL/LEGS split, then the fourth day will be completely cardio based. The next few days I see how my body feels and if there are any areas I need to focus on (or rest).

• Each session I include 15-20 minutes of cardio, to keep my conditioning up ready for the lake. Some days I’ll lift heavy and some days I’ll bring the weights down- you have to listen to your body and know what you’re going to be able to recover from.

• I love GVT (German Volume Training) so, ten sets of ten reps - on a lower day this could be squats and hip thrusts, those are my two favourite lower body exercises.

• After cardio and weights, I move into some more dynamic and plyometric movements; jumping lunges, jumping squats, walking lunges. I’ll superset a few of those movements and that absolutely kills me! You need these plyometrics to build the explosiveness for jumps, these translate onto the lake really well. Your body needs to know what it’s doing in the water, the more you can replicate in the gym the better.

• Finally I’ll finish with a few more accessory resistance movements, I’ll choose these depending on what I did for my GVT movements, before finishing with a cardio cool down, some foam rolling and then using my recover pro (a percussive therapy device) on my muscles.

For anybody who’s ready to invest in their quest to get ‘lake ready’, Goode delivers her recommendations for your home gym arsenal, and let us in on the why’s and how’s.

• Barbell - “You can do any exercise with a barbell, especially the ones that are most important for building strength for the lake - Squats, hip thrusts, and deadlifts.”

• Dumbbells - “Dumbbells are perfect to add load to your plyometrics, helping to build strength and explosiveness. I do a lot of jump lunges and jump squats with dumbbells; the stability and the landing practice you get translates to wakeboarding really well.”

• Jump Rope - “Skipping is so good for your cardio. In wakeboarding a run lasts a minute and a half max, so running for twenty minutes is great, but skipping at a high intensity for that 90 seconds replicates the sport better. I feel like I can go hard for 90 seconds, be dead at the end of it but still be able to get back up and go again 2 minutes later - just like in competition! Skipping also helps to build your coordination and balance, massively important for wakeboarding.”