What stops us popping up ?

Always keep in mind the kinesiology of the body @supa. We have the advantage of having spring like functions in our muscles and tendons and even to some extent flexible cartilage and bones.
When we go to stand up, lifting the chest off the board first, with hands still planted on the rails coils our body into a spring like position. You don't wanna hold it too long though. Gotta make the most of that latent energy in the spring. Possibly alot of that loss of 'pop' you are mentioning is more so in the delay of the mind in that crucial moment than in the body. Just gotta remember to use that spring at it's optimal coil and not let brain fog get in the way. That's my theory on it anyway. Hope that at least gets you an extra late takeoff legend. I'm sure you're a long way off anyway.

ahhh yes, the magic of gravity on steep faces @supa. With gravity pulling the board away from you it's so much simpler. Conversely, starting on a flat face you're straight up doing a pushup against gravity plus getting bucked around. That's where foam is definitely your friend. A bit of stability from rail to rail.
So i guess you're right in your original post, the real answer in shit wavesis to ride a heap of foam and in proper waves stick to your tried and tested weapons. Mate i'm 47 and i've been a stickler to heaps of foam in flat fat waves for years. I just want to ride the wave as far as i can ultimately. Performance be damned! My fave as i've mentioned in the past is my 8ft softy with boat like proportions.
But if the waves are pumping and under 6ft i'll happily jump onto something in the 25-28L 5'8"-6'1" size knowing that the wave will do most of the work and i can rely on what i already know about surfing as we all do. I just wish i'd surfed more foam as a grom and not struggled in 2ft beachies on little glass slippers.
haha yeah right back at ya's legends. 100percent thoroughbreds you two. Soggy must be loving missing this shitty cold weather, or in SN parlance, a LWT. Can only imagine the laughs you two were having at the swellnut tery. Not a bad bunch all round though.
HUZZA lads!!

Haha so good @supa. That's an epic 21st story!!!!!
My 21st i ditched everyone i knew and drove from Victor Harbor to Bells in my 67 Ford Transit Van...and surfed pumping Bells. I remember clearly sitting in the Southside carpark one night with a skinful or rum and making up a damn good little song on the accoustic that i still play to this day. Some good energy there. Funny where we gravitate to on those kind of moments. Definitely sense a kindred spirit. Speaking of which...pretty sure i was getting the ol top up from Mr Keating at that time too Soggy!!
Against swellnet protocol....sending big love to ya both.
Quality through and through. Get a bit of a warm water shampoo for me please.

Yeah, it was a good catch up over a couple of cold ones yesterday evening. Supafreak is a top bloke.
It’d be pretty funny to get a bunch of swellnutters together. The stories would be hilarious. Hope the cold is combined with a few waves too SR.

My backhand take offs always need work and recently discovered hip mobility is one of the keys.

I'm really interested in this topic. Some days my pop up is so laboured and other days it's ok at best. 61 now and it wasn't amazing even in my 20s. But now I'm finding myself avoiding certain waves if I can't pop up quickly. Yesterday twice I had waves where the whitewater was pushing over from the crest (pretty regular raglan issue in an onshore) and I couldn't get to my feet quick enough and did the full lie down take off then hard to pop up when your board is at max speed and you're still lying down. What stretches and exercises are worth doing to improve this? Any ideas?

I had a chat to some older surfers a few years ago and one of them said he spend ages thinking his pop up was falling away due to strength and not being able to push himself up explosively into position. He eventually figured out it was hip and leg flexibility holding him back, and he couldn't swing his legs underneath himself without sticking his arse way up in the air. He got into yoga - didn't specify any particular style - but did mention that he uses his ability to squat right down to the floor and stay there for a minute to be a good way to see how his body is going.

Hello Dandandan

I appreciate the post .

Surfers shoulders can take a beating from trying to hang onto boards .

A good Pop Up needs everything below my shoulders 2 b working well .

Shoulders are over rated :) !

Thanks mate , yoga and breathing .

Popping up was never a thing until I hit 60.
Anyone can pop up on a mal, but if you still want to carve a few turns and hit the lip it's a fine line between too much and too little volume.
You put on a few extra kilos and lose a bit of fitness and realize that the mind is still willing but the body not so much.
I also get lazy and fail to put in those last few desperate paddles to get up to pop up speed or try to do no paddle take offs under the lip and end up wobbling around having to move my feet into position before getting organized.
I have to remind myself to sit further out and paddle in earlier to get up enough speed to spring up.
You have to go back to basics and think about things that used to just happen naturally.
I think it could be true, you are born a kook and you die a kook.

old-dog wrote:

Popping up was never a thing until I hit 60.
Anyone can pop up on a mal, but if you still want to carve a few turns and hit the lip it's a fine line between too much and too little volume.
You put on a few extra kilos and lose a bit of fitness and realize that the mind is still willing but the body not so much.
I also get lazy and fail to put in those last few desperate paddles to get up to pop up speed or try to do no paddle take offs under the lip and end up wobbling around having to move my feet into position before getting organized.
I have to remind myself to sit further out and paddle in earlier to get up enough speed to spring up.
You have to go back to basics and think about things that used to just happen naturally.
I think it could be true, you are born a kook and you die a kook.

Old-Dog. Hi mate. Hope you’re well.

Hope you don’t mind me chipping in.

One thing i learnt from reading that great book written by Bascom & McCoy, Waves & Beaches, The Powerful Dynamics of Sea & Coasts.

In the chapter about surfing it clearly said to catch a wave you have to get the paddling speed up to the rate commensurate with the waves travelling speed before you can catch it. AW

Hi AW, yes agreed, the faster you paddle the easier it is to pop up, but sometimes I get lazy and just sink the tail and boost forward at the last second without paddling just to save a bit of energy. This allows you to sit in closer and get the ones the pack misses.

old-dog wrote:

Hi AW, yes agreed, the faster you paddle the easier it is to pop up, but sometimes I get lazy and just sink the tail and boost forward at the last second without paddling just to save a bit of energy. This allows you to sit in closer and get the ones the pack misses.

Funny, I do exactly the same, bit lazy really, I try the launch pad style, fails often, shows our age. AW

Not sure about Fast Paddling helping Pop Ups .

If timed right . a no paddle Pop Up seems to be easier 4 me .

Nose goes down , tail goes up , forces all working to help Pop Down , Pop Up .

When I have been out of the Water 4 a while , Landing can B interesting .

Have missed the bloody whole board and done an Airy , a few times .

Not a good look :) !

Hi Pop Down, I'm talking about shortboard pop ups, where you have to paddle hard and fast to raise the board up to get it planing. With a mal it just gets up planing really easy with a few casual paddles, too easy, a 90 year old granny could pop up on those logs.

poo-man wrote:

I'm really interested in this topic. Some days my pop up is so laboured and other days it's ok at best. 61 now and it wasn't amazing even in my 20s. But now I'm finding myself avoiding certain waves if I can't pop up quickly. Yesterday twice I had waves where the whitewater was pushing over from the crest (pretty regular raglan issue in an onshore) and I couldn't get to my feet quick enough and did the full lie down take off then hard to pop up when your board is at max speed and you're still lying down. What stretches and exercises are worth doing to improve this? Any ideas?

Holding a squat position for as long as you can, a couple of times, window wipers otherwise known as 90-90’s, walking pretty much anything that will loosen up your hips, pop ups improve and you’ll find lower back pain and immobility are fixed at the same time.

Last time I was in Bali the waves were small and I hired and rode a mal for the first time in about 55 years. I couldn't believe how easy it was, I suddenly found myself trimming, walking the board, nose riding and posing with the best of them. It was fun being up and flying well before the wave even looked like breaking and popping up never even entered my mind.

dandandan wrote:

I had a chat to some older surfers a few years ago and one of them said he spend ages thinking his pop up was falling away due to strength and not being able to push himself up explosively into position. He eventually figured out it was hip and leg flexibility holding him back, and he couldn't swing his legs underneath himself without sticking his arse way up in the air. He got into yoga - didn't specify any particular style - but did mention that he uses his ability to squat right down to the floor and stay there for a minute to be a good way to see how his body is going.

Interesting topic and my sense is this is key.
Get into the top of a push up position and see how easy it is to bring either foot up under your chest. If this is restricted surely the pop up will be too?!

Yup. Core flexibility is the thing that goes. Work on that and you keep on keeping on.

Enjoying reading all the comments. Cheers.
Great to see the wealth of experience from all.

Hi @supa. Glad that some of that feedback helped. Argh bugger about the crowds destroying the joy and focus of one of your favourite breaks. Might be something in that though, in so far as the mental stress of the crowd. The last thing we need to perform at our optimum is stress. Definitely slows the whole process up.
Interesting reading your comment got me thinking about the whole process and how things can snowball. Especially on a critical wave. I still believe all the work on critical waves is done well before the pop up. I do alot of upper body training as well as cardio, with focus on pullups, pushups and boxing. I find that these three things give me incredible paddle fitness (along with actually surfing) so when a wave pops up that has a 50/50 outcome in terms of intensity, i can trust my arms and shoulders to plough through the water at 100percent and get me into just about anything. Doesn't always work out but the mental confidence of knowing i can get into a wave early and before being a part of the lip is a big one. Again, using that gravity. Getting in as close as i can to the steepest part of the wave as i'm paddling and trying to find that perfect spot where it's more the wave catching me than me catching the wave, in that i just want to do enough power sprint paddling at the right time, so that the steepness of the wave and gravity take over early enough and pull the board down and away from me, making it a way easier entry. It may have got overlooked a bit on my above post, but that latent energy we hold when we lift the chest off the board is one of the fundamentals to a good popup. I'll re mention it here because i taught surfing for many years and there's a huge difference in success rates between lifting your chest off your board and keeping your hips on the board before that explosive pop and swinging your legs through, as opposed to lifting your whole body off the board, hips included and trying to pull your legs through. You'll see this especially with the above mentioned whitewater takeoffs. Experienced surfers too!! They try to lift their whole body up in one motion and pop up, which leads to instability from rail to rail because of too much weight distributed unevenly and sporadically when it's just your hands on the rails hence you're fightiing the board hence you look down, and we all know where you look is where you go.
Nope!! No matter what, when you're on those flat waves, you gotta lift the chest first, keep the hips on the board, feel that latent energy of that spring build up inside you as you coil (picture an archer with a bow and arrow) and at the moment that feels right, use that stored energy in the spring to pop to your feet, eyes up. I feel that we overlook our bodies amazing kinesiology and capabilities of stored spring and energy too much. There's a blueprint to every action.
That's what i reckon anyway! haha.

For any doubters, try and do a push up at home and pop to your feet, and then try and do a yoga style cobra, or arch your back with hips still on ground and then jump to your feet. Which is easier?

Most of it lays in where the eyes end up. Eyes up and body will follow.

I would like 2C a 80 year old gran catch a 10ft Sunset Slab and Pop Up , on a Mal .

Just saying.

edit

Shit , I did C1 that was 74 .

She showed me where a Shark had bitten her , a tough Old girl .

@ Pop Down, I wouldn't really call outside Sunset a slab, and at 10' not really a mal wave, but I did hear that you were the man at 2' Sunset west peak last year.
I don't know if I'd want to see a 74 year olds gash though. ;) Cheers mate.

Hello Old dog

Anything with a 10 ft Face on Hawaii's North Shore sure looked Slabby 2 me .

Yes I was dodging West , but also North Peaks and everything in between , in 1 Set , at Sunset .

Turtles laying eggs on the beach .

Mals more than Hold their own at 10ft , but most go shorter at that size , as I did .

Easier 2 Duck dive .

I rode a new Wayne Lynch 8'2 Evo .

Barton Lynch ( dropping a name ) rode my 9'1 Macca Fireball out there one day at 4' .

When I go back , at whatever size , I am going Mal .

I can Pop Up at any time , at a moments notice .

No time to line up a Runway and get up to Plaining speed , on a Short board .

The bite was on her arm lol and Sunset is very Family friendly .

They all know each other and do compare gash's .

Was thinking on a long drive today , have surfed 4 57 years and will finish my surfing career , on my guts .

I am going 2 Boogie until I die :) .

Like an Elephant Seal .

With flippers .

Keep surfing anything , mate .