Surfing Waves

For years Ive used the chicken wing, dog leg back foot technique for riding shortboards, and is therefore more of a step up than pop up.
This served me well until going out in steeper faced waves where this technique is just too slow. Im trying to convert to the burpee type pop up from my knees which seems to be much much harder for me. I was wondering, how much of the explosive 'pop' comes from the arms in the press up part or from the knees pushing into the board to explode up?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

I think the most critical part of the popup is core strength and flexibility. You arm strength is the second most important factor but really it is endurance or the ability to keep working after you have been paddling. Your arms start the upward motion but only for your shoulders then you throw your but up in the air which is what brings the rest of your body up so it's your core muscles that do that. There are videos to watch and practicing on land helps if you practice the right form. Make sure you get your hands back toward your waist when you popup. Flexibility is important for this to work.

Here's a decent thread on the subject.

https://surfing-waves.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28007&hilit=popup

Here is a video https://youtu.be/PSOD4qsG9Go

The video mentions start with arching your back and that is what you need to do to get your hands back nearer to your waist.

Your arms and legs work in conjunction of course, but a micro split second difference. The hands/arms explode off the deck to get your upper body/torso going up and rotating back. That clears room for you feet to rotate under your butt.
The problem is most back foots don't end flat on the deck but on the toes. That ends up being unstable.

** note ** However long it took you to make the bad habit, will be about as long as it takes you to break it. So if you've been doing the "chicken wing" for years ........

It’s really tough to change your muscle memory, I had to do the same thing - lose the chicken wing.

What helped me was to spend a day iin the whitewater and do as many jump up style take off as I could. I started doing some at home too. It took awhile, but I beat it out of my system.