Surfing Waves

Hey guys my name is Nicholas and this is my first ever post on the website! I was scrolling around google searching for useful surfing websites when I came across this one and sparked immediate interest! Anyway, lets get to the questions...

The first major question I have for the progression of my surfing is performing basic snaps, cutbacks and other surfing maneuvers. I know this might be hard to illustrate without footage but im gonna give it my best shot, the main problem I have is falling backwards after reaching the lip just before a snap, it's extremely frustrating as sometimes i'm able to perform regular snaps and in other sessions I continuously fall over, all im really asking for is advice so I can be able to perform regular surfing turns!

Another question that seems to cross my mind is surfing exercises on land, obviously there are exercises ranging from pushups to balance weight training etc etc and other commonly performed workouts but what never seems to be mentioned are exercises that simulate surfing on land, whether it be a skateboard, basic practice of head movement etc etc im super interested to see any ideas that truly help.

Thanks a lot guys and I hope ill be able to progress, it feels like I've hit this point and im not progressing anymore which has become extremely frustrating.

What kind of board are you surfing? I am going to make a guess that you are catching a rail because you are too far forward on your board but there are others with lots of experience who can maybe answer better than me. As far as land stuff I think anything that improves your balance and stamina and paddle muscles will help you surfing as well as just over all strength and core strength training. There are lots of people who think skateboarding is good for their surfing. Larry Bertlemann was one of those but my thought is that imagining you are surfing is good training for surfing never mind if it is on a skateboard or not but skateboarding is good for your balance. However falling skateboarding isn't as nice as falling surfing. I do a lot of stretching and leg raises for my core and some light weights (15 pound dumbbells) for arm strength. I also hike up and down a hill for endurance and to get used to exercising without enough oxygen. I am 64 but when I was a youngster I used to do a variety of things such as rock hopping or downhill trail running and another difficult to describe in a few words activity. I thought they imitated surfing and I used to imagine I was surfing when I did them.

Another possible reason is that you are moving too slow for whatever reason. Possibly you aren't getting enough speed on the bottom turn.

what helped me most was really putting my weight back for turns.

ProggressiveSURF wrote:
The first major question I have for the progression of my surfing is performing basic snaps, cutbacks and other surfing maneuvers. the main problem I have is falling backwards after reaching the lip just before a snap.

Don’t even need to see a video of you surfing to know what’s going wrong. By just hearing what you said, you’re “ putting the carriage in front of the horse “ and “ by the time you think it’s to late “.
You said before “basic snap”. Well you need to be really good at cutbacks BEFORE you can start doing Snaps. Because you don’t have basic cutbacks down, engaging the rail, flowing from rail to rail , body line and form ( front arm leading and back hand coming across the chest ), you can’t get to Snaps. Your putting a square peg in a round hole. When you force it, it’ll resist and buck you off. ( but for advanced surfers they rely on that to break out the fins and tail, which you shouldn’t be concerned with right now )
The body line and form has some to do with you falling back but you also said “ you fall back after reaching the lip “. You need to work on the Where and When. By the time you reach the top it’s too late. You NEED to initiate your turn mid way up the face. ( you have to take in account the momentum, drift and the lip coming at you ).
Another thing to work on ( which you didn’t say ) is where you are looking. In the mid face turn you site the point on the lip to hit, as you hit you should’ve already sighted your landing. Stay one move ahead ( or more ) like in Chess. You’re living in the moment and getting literally stuck there ( then fall back ).

watch some good surfers do turns - find some J-bay footage, because they are able to do a heap of turns. this is a good one esp connor coffin



as wkk says, notice when they start the turn. Notice where they are looking and when they start to look, notice connor's clean and powerful arm movements. notice his leg compression and extension. Yes its a lot, but it all needs to work together .

Thanks so much to everyone who has responded to my post! Im super impressed not only by the amazing explanation that everyone has had to share but just how fast you guys took to respond, it's truly amazing.

Ill defiantly take into consideration every single comment that has been posted. I'm going to work on a range of head movement, cutbacks, balance, core exercises and watching professionals turns to all help my surfing. I'll be regularly posting my progression for anyone who's interested and to ask for any other questions if needed.

~ Thanks!

One of the great things about videos is you can watch them and go through the motions with the surfer. They rotate their upper body before they get up the wave and are looking back down the wave when they snap which happens when the front of their board first contacts the lip (that is also what I do). Instead of working on arm movements or head movements try to emulate the surfers whole body movements and imagine you are surfing. I call that mental imaging and I do that to learn to do new things surfing.