Mike McGill, an American professional skateboarder from the legendary Bones Brigade, invented the McTwist in 1984.

Quick Scoop

Who invented the McTwist?

  • The McTwist was invented by Mike McGill.
  • He first landed it in 1984 on a wooden half-pipe at a summer camp in Rättvik, Sweden.
  • He later unveiled it publicly at the Del Mar Skate Ranch in California, where it quickly became one of vert skating’s most influential tricks.

What exactly is a McTwist?

  • A McTwist is an inverted 540-degree mute-grab aerial in a vert transition.
  • Technically, it combines a front flip with a 540-degree spin while grabbing mute.
  • At the time, only a handful of top pros could land it, which helped cement its mythic status in vert skating.

How did it get its name?

  • The name “McTwist” blends “Mc” from McGill’s surname with “twist,” a term already used in tricks like the Gay Twist.
  • “Twist” in this context referred to spinning tricks pioneered earlier by skaters such as Lance Mountain and Neil Blender.

Why is it such a big deal?

  • The McTwist was a turning point for vert skating, raising the bar for difficulty and progression in the mid-1980s.
  • It became a benchmark trick; for years, being able to do a McTwist was a marker of elite-level vert skill.
  • The trick later influenced other heavy moves, from Tony Hawk’s 720s and beyond to snowboard variations like the Double McTwist 1260.

Forum / “latest news” flavor

Even decades later, skate history posts and social clips still cite Mike McGill as the inventor of the McTwist and celebrate anniversaries of that first 1984 landing. Community discussions and forum threads about “who invented the McTwist” consistently point back to McGill and that Swedish camp session as the origin story.

TL;DR: When you ask “who invented the McTwist,” the answer is Mike McGill, who first landed the iconic inverted 540 mute-grab in Sweden in 1984 and then brought it to Del Mar, changing vert skating forever.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.