How Tony Hawk Is Using Tech To Extend His Career And Prepare For X Games Return

When Tony Hawk began skateboarding at age nine, he never could have imagined he’d still be doing it into his fifties—let alone professionally. At the time, there simply was no blueprint for it.

And even the greatest skateboarder to ever walk the earth has had to engage in a constant battle with Father Time—who is always, eventually, undefeated, but who can be staved off with a commitment to physical health and an unshakeable mindset.

Hawk has never struggled with that mental fortitude; from when he turned pro at 14 through today, he has been relentless in chasing down his goals. He famously landed the first 900 in competition at X Games in 1999 after 10 failed attempts as organizers let him keep going in the interest of making history.

And sure enough, 22 years later at Hawk’s inaugural Vert Alert event in Salt Lake City, I watched his 10-plus attempts to land a frontside Cab revert—which he’d done just once in his life, 26 years earlier—after the clock had run out on the best trick contest in which he was competing alongside the sport’s young guns.

Drenched in sweat and literally bloodied from slamming repeatedly into the hard wooden ramp, he finally did it. He was 52 years old.

That Hawk and his peers would have the requisite physical health to continue skateboarding at a professional level into their fifties was never a given.

“When I was a kid, you were not supposed to be a pro skater or continue to skate into your adult life; there was no career in it,” Hawk, now 54, told me. “You were considered old in your twenties.”

Today, skateboarding is an Olympic sport, and its pros train in state-of-the-art facilities, with access to nutritionists, performance coaches and recovery specialists.

“We didn’t have those resources or any of that knowledge,” Hawk said. “Not that we would have utilized it. We would have gone against the grain anyway; we loved what skateboarding provided us and being part of the counterculture.”

But Hawk has has a front-row seat to what life is like when your body betrays you. Forget being able to skateboard; after he broke his right femur in March 2022, Hawk needed a cane just to get around, which the world witnessed when he presented at the Oscars later that month.

Hawk has dealt with injuries before—many of them over his long career. But this one felt different, he says. He was initially in denial about how serious his broken femur was, getting back on his skateboard as soon as he physically could and ignoring the signs that something was wrong.

Jumping the gun would wind up keeping him out of commission even longer than he had originally feared; in December 2022, Hawk had to have his femur surgically realigned. He admitted that he was “cavalier” about the injury, and he’s been giving his body more grace this time around.

The experience forced Hawk to pay closer attention to his health than ever before, including taking advantage of new technology to track his overall wellness. So many athletes at the top of their respective sports laud the benefits of wearables; until he started using one—Citizen’s CZ Smart watch—regularly, Hawk had no idea how much data he was failing to take advantage of.

“I’m thankful to live in this era because there are these resources available allowing me to be relevant and skating as a profession into my fifties,” Hawk said. “I embrace the tech and the info provided by that. I never tracked my sleep or my heart rate, or my optimal times for performance, and here I am doing it now, recovering from a broken femur.”

The Gen-2 CZ Smart watch Hawk uses is supplemented with the proprietary YouQ wellness app, which was developed using research pioneered by NASA Ames Research Center and AI models built with IBM Watson.

The wearable can determine a wearer’s chronotype—their biologically inherent sleep and wake schedule—and thus forecast their cognitive and physical energy over the resulting day. Hawk discovered that his optimal time for peak performance is midday, which didn’t surprise him—his time to skate was already 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“It’s definitely changed my perspective on what I think I should be doing or what I think is possible and how I can better prepare for more longevity,” Hawk said.

While Hawk thinks tech will have an enormous impact on the future of skateboarding—largely in how it will help athletes learn how to recover optimally so they can compete at peak levels for longer—he stresses that advanced wellness tech isn’t limited to pro athletes in its utility.

“It benefits anyone from all walks of life,” Hawk said.

Supplementing his recovery with the smart watch and the YouQ wellness app, which he’s beta testing, has allowed Hawk to circle X Games Chiba on May 12-14 as his return to competition, after skating in a few demos earlier this year. Hawk will be competing in the X Games best trick event, which he was also slated to do in 2022 before his injury.

“I’ve been working on a couple of new tricks I hope I can make or unveil there,” Hawk said. “All this technology is definitely helping me in terms of how I approach it and when are my optial times to be skating. When you’re practicing for just one event in best trick, it’s a different approach [than big competitions]. The activity is all very intense in a short period of time.”

As for what Hawk has up his sleeve, think more frontside Cab revert than 900.

“I’ve given up trying to do variations of big spins,” Hawk said. “I’m focusing on very technical tricks that I would say may only be appreciated by hardcore skaters. I’m adding my own flavor to them; I’m not gonna say the stuff I’m doing is so difficult the other skaters won’t be able to do them, but I’m adding my signature to the best trick event.”

Gui Khury, at 12 years old, took the baton from Hawk at X Games 2021 when he landed the first-ever 1080 in vert competition—with Hawk watching from the deck, having surprised the world by coming out of X Games retirement to compete in the best trick event.

The two years since have been some of the hardest of Hawk’s career, but with the help of a titanium rod in his leg and a very smart watch on his wrist, he’s preparing to compete at X Games for only the second time in 20 years following his retirement.

“This is my comeback,” Hawk said. “I’m just happy to be back skating well enough to actually be considering doing new tricks.”