Surfing Waves

Sorry in advance if this has been discussed before - I did some searching on this forum and others and read through some discussions, but I'm still a little confused about the concept of pumping. I thought asking my question directly might help.

I'm a pretty new surfer trying to learn how to generate speed.

From what I understand, pumping works like this:

1. surfing down the face of a wave generates speed because gravity accelerates you
2. extending at the bottom of the wave and then lifting the legs to unweight the board while guiding it higher up the wave let's you get back to a position with more potential energy without losing the speed you gained coming down

a. how much speed you lose going back up depends on how efficiently you perform this movement

3. you should now be going faster, repeat step 1

I'm wondering if there are any other factors that determine the "effectiveness" of the pump (ie how much speed is gained).

For example, I read that part of a surfboard's thrust is generated by water hitting the bottom of the surfboard at a perpendicular angle and getting redirected out the back. Because the water is being pushed back, the surfboard is pushed forwards. From what I understand, this is why a deep bottom turn can send a surfer flying back up the face. If that's the case, then I would guess that engaging the rail more and pushing into the water would also help generate more speed.

When I surf skate, I definitely gain more speed when I push hard into the ground (at an angle) when extending into a turn. I wonder how well this translates to surfing.

So I guess my questions are:
1. is my understanding of pumping correct?
2. does pushing the board into the water (engaging a rail deep and extending forcefully?) help generate more speed?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some insight!

With surfing you have to overcome gravity forces that fight against you going up the wave. In my opinion the fastest you can go is to minimize the amount of force needed to move the board up and down the wave by keeping your center of gravity in front of the board and directed down the line. This means that you are off balance most of the time while pumping. If you move your center of gravity a greater distance it will require more force and slower speed results. so keeping your center of gravity in between the pumps and just moving your legs and lower body up and down the wave results in more speed. However if you are having trouble pumping for speed than this information won't help. It's how to maximize speed not how to do a regular speed pump. When you are dropping down the face gravity is helping and you can push the rail into the water and load up energy to go back up the wave but at the top of the wave you want minimal rail in the water so the board will come back down quickly Even in the bottom turn of the pump you want to not hold the turn and go back up the wave as quick as possible to maximize speed. So yes a bottom turn can generate speed but for maximum speed you want to avoid long drawn out bottom turns if possible. What to do when depends on what the wave is doing. What is required for top speed is a fast wave. The faster the wave breaks the faster you can go if you can keep up. On a slow wave you can't generate lots of speed but if you keep turning up and down the wave you can maintain speed a little bit but this isn't speed pumps. They are for fast waves or fast sections.

Most beginner mistakenly thinking they are pumping, when actually it's their body that is just bouncing up and down to the board.

The beginning of these video shows how the boards rises and falls compressing up to the body and extending away from the body. Look how the head stays relatively on the same level plain.


My advice is to forgot about pumping and trying to generate speed until you can learn TRIM. Where you glide along the wave's face no faster or slower than what the wave is.

oldmansurfer wrote: In my opinion the fastest you can go is to minimize the amount of force needed to move the board up and down the wave by keeping your center of gravity in front of the board and directed down the line. This means that you are off balance most of the time while pumping. If you move your center of gravity a greater distance it will require more force and slower speed results. so keeping your center of gravity in between the pumps and just moving your legs and lower body up and down the wave results in more speed.

This mostly makes sense to me, but if your center of gravity isn't moving at all then I would think you'd be going no faster than you would if you just went straight down the line. Doesn't pumping generate speed by moving your center of gravity up and down the wave face? From my mental model, the part where you move your center of gravity back up the wave face is where kinetic energy is lost which is why you need to extend.

oldmansurfer wrote: What is required for top speed is a fast wave. The faster the wave breaks the faster you can go if you can keep up. On a slow wave you can't generate lots of speed but if you keep turning up and down the wave you can maintain speed a little bit but this isn't speed pumps. They are for fast waves or fast sections.

Makes sense, but for any wave isn't it possible to go faster than just going straight down the line? That's my goal - build up more speed so I can practice maneuvers without worrying so much about stalling.

Thanks for the detailed reply by the way!

waikikikichan wrote: Most beginner mistakenly thinking they are pumping, when actually it's their body that is just bouncing up and down to the board.

Ah yeah I've definitely seen this - people doing quick little squats. This isn't what I'm doing (don't have proof of that though, so you'll have to take my word for it ).

If anything, what I'm doing is surfing up and down the wave face without actually generating net speed (ie gaining speed going down, losing speed going up, repeat).

waikikikichan wrote: The beginning of these video shows how the boards rises and falls compressing up to the body and extending away from the body. Look how the head stays relatively on the same level plain.

Yeah, that looks like what I'm trying to learn to do! I'm just trying to make sure I understand the concepts behind it as well.

waikikikichan wrote: My advice is to forgot about pumping and trying to generate speed until you can learn TRIM. Where you glide along the wave's face no faster or slower than what the wave is.

I think I'm pretty decent at trimming down the line. I'm working on top turns and cutbacks, and I was hoping more speed would make practicing those more forgiving since I wouldn't have to worry about stalling as much.

Thanks for the reply!

ryan96 wrote:Makes sense, but for any wave isn't it possible to go faster than just going straight down the line? That's my goal - build up more speed so I can practice maneuvers without worrying so much about stalling.

It's possible to go faster, but you have to make sure that you're going as fast as you should on that wave. Going faster than it and you're moving away from the pocket, slower than it and you're left behind.

I'm not sure how to scientifically explain the mechanics of pumping, but the board definitely isn't pushing water behind, you're gliding through it. I think when you are moving up the face you're taking away the weight of the board by bending the knees to make it drag the least possible, and then when you're moving down you're pushing the legs down to push the board faster down the line.

Understanding the physics behind it doesn't help much on the practical side. It feels similar to pumping on a skateboard inside a bowl, so if you have the chance try it, just so you know what to aim for. As Waikikikichan said, work on trimming before you go for pumping, but when you get to it, don't try to do that strong pumping you see pro's doing. Start with smooth movements until you get how it feels like, and then you can start putting more strength on the move to take more speed out of it.

Get a surfskate. Surf curved surfaces. You'll get it so fast.

ryan96 wrote:

oldmansurfer wrote: In my opinion the fastest you can go is to minimize the amount of force needed to move the board up and down the wave by keeping your center of gravity in front of the board and directed down the line. This means that you are off balance most of the time while pumping. If you move your center of gravity a greater distance it will require more force and slower speed results. so keeping your center of gravity in between the pumps and just moving your legs and lower body up and down the wave results in more speed.

This mostly makes sense to me, but if your center of gravity isn't moving at all then I would think you'd be going no faster than you would if you just went straight down the line. Doesn't pumping generate speed by moving your center of gravity up and down the wave face? From my mental model, the part where you move your center of gravity back up the wave face is where kinetic energy is lost which is why you need to extend.

oldmansurfer wrote: What is required for top speed is a fast wave. The faster the wave breaks the faster you can go if you can keep up. On a slow wave you can't generate lots of speed but if you keep turning up and down the wave you can maintain speed a little bit but this isn't speed pumps. They are for fast waves or fast sections.

Makes sense, but for any wave isn't it possible to go faster than just going straight down the line? That's my goal - build up more speed so I can practice maneuvers without worrying so much about stalling.

Thanks for the detailed reply by the way!

In both skateboarding and surfing speed can be generated by off balance turning which is what pumping is, other wise your just jumping up and down on the board which doesn't generate speed. You lean to the side then bring the board back under your weight and past to where you are falling the other way then bring the board back under your feet but in surfing you are pumping up and down a face and using the power of the wave so slightly different. In surfing once you get some speed you can lean forward down the line and slightly toward the beach and be in a position at the top turn where you have to bring the board back under you or you will fall off the board and then make the bottom turn under your weight but quick and back up the wave. However if you want to move fast on a slow wave you will just outrun the power of the wave and stall out. So if you are stalling then you need to learn to trim the board like Waikikichan said and learn where the power is in a wave and that will help your stalling problems because speed turns won't help. Personally I think working at your bottom turn till you can project well down the wave is more useful than learning speed pumps initially

On slow moving waves you can get to where it is difficult to do anything other than trim down the line because the wave is weak and slow and small. On those kind of waves I will try to keep moving turning up and down the wave so I maintain some board speed on the slower wave but if I get caught up unable to move and the wave looks like I can do some maneuvers on it I will do a force turn where I extend my legs all the way then drop into a low crouch while turning the board up the face once you get up to the top gravity helps you but you have to usually crank a hard turn at the top as well and continue or you will loose speed and go back to trimming. It's a lot of work but more fun than trimming down the line. But that is not speed pumps and speed pumps aren't needed.

While we are on the topic there is another pumping maneuver that generates a little speed or moves the board forward quickly just a little bit. It's sometimes called the Huntington hop because surfers there use it to stay on the wave between the outside and inside breaks where the wave slacks off for a bit. It looks like they are just jumping up and down but it's a carefully timed jump with alternating force between the rear foot and the front foot (jumping up on rear foot and down on front foot. It's used when they are stalling at the top of the wave

oldmansurfer wrote:While we are on the topic there is another pumping maneuver that generates a little speed or moves the board forward quickly just a little bit. It's sometimes called the Huntington hop because surfers there use it to stay on the wave between the outside and inside breaks where the wave slacks off for a bit.

He shows this at 7:34. ( rail to rail at 7:20 )

here is another video

With the Huntington hop you are off balance forward so you are falling forward and moving the board under you to prevent falling forward. This might be used when you are stalling in the flats

oldmansurfer wrote:With the Huntington hop you are off balance forward so you are falling forward and moving the board under you to prevent falling forward. This might be used when you are stalling in the flats

Yeah I remember doing that a lot when I was younger. We used that same exact technique.. where it would be like a 'tic tac' from skateboarding, if the wave still had some shape to it.. and then switch to the hop, to force the board down the face, if the wave had totally backed off. But it worked much better when I was a kid and about 125 pounds I also think we milked the waves a lot more back then.

Yeah so speed pumps are for generating speed on fast waves and the hop is for slow waves. Unlike skateboarding if you go too slow the board will sink into the medium you are riding. So skateboarding you can go from completely stopped to moving along at a good pace but with surfing you have some minimum speed below which nothing will work. So whatever you do it has to be done before you are going too slow. The tic tacing isn't so important as the up and down motion of the board in my opinion. It's that hop that generates the speed whether going straight or tic tacking in my opinion. For it to work however you need to be above the minimum speed and it needs to get you to a functioning part of the wave where you can get speed by other means. What I call speed pumps only work on steeper waves and on less steep waves the same turns don't really generate speed and speed is not needed on slower waves. The side to side pumps require you being off balance forward and to the side to be most effective. The hop just forward although if you add side to side then you need to be off balance side to side in addition to forward to be effective and I just don't think the side to side shifts in balance are enough to generate significant speed (but I may be wrong). The maximized speed pumps I was talking about before are only for the very fastest waves and not needed except for very fast freight train wavs or sections. I used to surf this one very fast break and would do a series of 20 or 30 very fast speed pumps to make the wave (like up and down in 1 second). I was the only surfer making the waves.

oldmansurfer wrote:With the Huntington hop you are off balance forward so you are falling forward and moving the board under you to prevent falling forward. This might be used when you are stalling in the flats

When I stall on waves that are too small to pump I sometimes swing both arms forward to create a little extra speed.

I can ride very very small waves if I get up enough speed to be riding them in the first place (on my 8' funboard). Usually I will start on a bigger wave then it gets smaller and smaller and if I am coming in I sometimes ride a ripple that is less than the height of the board. It's a matter of getting my weight over the right part of the board and staying in the right part of the right wave. If the waves are good I usually cut out when I can't do any more maneuvers but when it's small and junk I will try to see how long I can ride the wave. It's a challenge for me when the waves aren't challenging. Stalling is not a problem for me other than sometimes I am on a wave that is waist high or higher and I get caught up riding in the pocket when there is a little face to do maneuvers on I don't think of this as a stall because I am right in the pocket but there isn't enough power to get me up to the top of the wave so unless I do something I am stuck there in the pocket. It really ends up being a lot of work because the wave doesn't provide the power so I have to. It's just forcing turns out of a weak wave and I have to keep turning or I will go back to trimming down the line. I often end up out of breath from the effort needed but happy to have the chance to practice maneuvers other than trimming.

I guess you can use the hop on a fast wave as well