How to generate speed

November 29 2021, by PTY LTDCroch AU, 3 min reading time

In this article, we’ll focus mostly on how surfers use a technique commonly referred to as pumping in order to generate speed.

In this article, we’ll focus mostly on how surfers use a technique commonly referred to as pumping in order to generate speed.

Pumping is the act of surfing up and down on the face of the wave in a smooth flowing motion. Before getting technical, the first thing that is essential to understand is the type of line experienced surfers draw to generate speed. If you look at videos of experienced surfers, you’ll notice that they use a lot of the waves face when pumping and then usually come back up to the top third. If they need speed, they don’t ride further down the bottom of the wave into the flats as they know they can easily lose momentum there. Also, they don’t just wiggle in the middle. If they wouldn’t benefit from good propulsion during their bottom turn as they set their rail, neither would they gain extra speed as they drop back down. So, the first thing to notice is that surfers usually pump by using lots of the waves face and then often come back up to the top third.

Another important thing to notice is that the line they draw is close to the pocket, also called the curl because the wave is steeper in this area they can get more acceleration. Experienced surfers don’t pump far out on the shoulder or very low down on the flats. The art of generating speed is done by moving to precise parts of the wave while shifting your body weight at specific times. It isn’t just about pumping up and down in the right area of the wave, you need to know when to compress and when to decompress your body to maximize your acceleration. Think about advanced surfers as they start going back up towards the face. They unbend their knees, stand high and throw their arms towards the direction they want to go to. Once they’ve gone up the wave their board starts turning back down towards the bottom of the wave. At this moment, they bend their knees and compress their chest down towards the front knee. If you skateboard, think of when you want to drop down a quarter pipe, you need to lean your upper body down and forwards to let gravity push you down the ramp. Understanding the physics of pumping can give you some key insights on what needs to change in your technique. Did you ever wonder how skateboarders can start from the bottom of a half pie and basically pump themselves higher and higher on the ramp? In theory, shouldn’t a skater dropping in on a half pipe get no higher than where he was on the other side of the ramp. It would make sense to think this way making a comparison to a pendulum which will never get higher than its starting point once released. During the drop, all the gravitational potential energy converts into kinetic energy and then the kinetic energy gets converted back to gravitational energy on the other side. If anything, the skater should go lower on the other side when considering friction from the wheels and air resistance. As a wave has a similar shape to a quarter pipe, consider the following as a hypothesis that makes a lot of sense in practical terms but has not been researched fully in the waves to our knowledge. We do apologize if the physics aren’t 100 correct and we understand skateboarding and surfing are different.

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