The Secrets of the Perfect

Pop Up
CrisMy primary goal is to help surfers / athletes/ humans,
improve their potential with movement, exercise, nutrition,
and the foundations of athleticism. It’s that simple.

Fix Your Pop Up

A skilled, fluid, and effortless movement, or a fumble and
flail towards kookdom. If your surf pop up is in the fumble
and flail category, then this post is a mandatory read on
your path to better surfing.

The Pop Up: It is a movement that is either unconsidered

by those that execute it flawlessly, or it is a movement that
becomes a bane of surfing. To those of you that have
issues, problems, and difficulties with the start of your
surfing, this is how you fix your surf pop up.

SURF POP UP TECHNIQUE

First, you must be clear that there is no singular way to
pop up “correctly”. As you’ve just seen in the Pros in Slow
Mo video, they all pop up differently, but it’s smooth,
flowing, and ultimately results in an upright yet casual surf
stance.

Some plant the rear foot first, while others plant the feet
simultaneously. You’ll notice some still have their hands on
the board when their front foot plants, while there are
others that have already begun uprighting the torso and
arms while the front foot comes in contact with the board.

The point is this: there is no one right way, however,

there are consistencies you want to aim for.

There will also be individual needs for the technique

based on aspects like your height, your femur length, the
board size, and previous joint injuries, surgeries, and
mobility.

What you can and should take from that video is that the
movement is smooth. It is not a “POP” so much as it is a
casual

“let’s fluidly get my legs underneath me so I can stand

and begin maneuvering the board to interact with the
wave face”.

Heavy pops and pounds aren’t the way to go. Smooth it

out, flow it out, and aim to get upright into that relaxed yet
athletic surf stance.

SURF POP UP BODY POSITION

START WITH THE END IN MIND
Eyes Down The Line

Where’s you’re head at? Are you staring down at the nose
of your board worrying about the drawing wave face? Or
are you already looking down the line, thus affecting your
shoulder and torso position, and already reading the
physics of the wave?

Your eyes, head, shoulders, and torso position are a key

component to a good pop up. You can’t fix your pop up
unless you start looking where you want to go. Eyes up,
head up, pop up. Watch that Pro Slow Mo video again and
pay attention to their upper body posture prior to popping
up, during, and just after.

If you get a better idea of where your body needs to end

up, and how it needs to start, the in-between process will
become easier. If you need to start at A, and und up at C,
you should have a better idea of what B needs to,… well…
be. (that was damn clever).

WHAT’S YOUR POP UP PROBLEM?

Let’s create a bit of clarity on what your problem is, so you

can have a better idea of what you need to implement to
fix your pop up.

Popping Up is a Skill. It truly is a technical movement that

good surfers make look easy and fluid. Thousands of
repetitions have created that slater-esque perfect
technique. Or perhaps in your case, thousands of
inefficient pop ups have cemented into your brain a faulty
movement pattern that results in a bent forward drop knee
fall on your face and miss the wave of your life pop up.
Those pop ups can get rather annoying.

This skill is a movement pattern, meaning it becomes a

subconscious movement habit. There isn’t a consideration
as it happens automatically. I equate it to the ease with
which you can put a key into a car’s ignition without
looking for the millimeter wide hole to fit the key in.

Your nervous system has hardwired that movement

pattern. That is the essence of a pop up. It is a technical
movement of reaction, that requires a fully functioning
body. We need to fix your pop up by engraining a new skill
by practicing perfect repetition, and making sure your
body moves in the manner a pop up requires.

What most technique coaches fail to consider is whether

your body, it’s structure, and its ability to move through
joints is what is limiting the skill and technique of popping
up fluidly. So can you move?

SKILL IS BUILT ON FOUNDATIONS OF

MOVEMENT
Skill, the act and art of surfing (and popping up), is built
upon foundations of whether or not your body can move
well. Does your ankle have an adequate range of motion?
How about your knee and hip?

Do you have enough core control and lower abdominal

strength to stabilise the pelvis so that there is a “platform”
of control for you to whip your hips underneath you? The
ability to move through joints and the ability to control
those movements with strength lay the foundations for
the skilled and fluid pop up.
Can you deep squat? Try it now. Ass to grass deep squat.
Don’t roll collapse your arches, and don’t rotate your feet
out more than 30 degrees. How does it feel? Do the joints
hurt? Where’s the restriction? Does a previous hip
reconstruction limit your ability? Maybe a deep squat is
flawlessly easy for you. If so, that’s a good thing, not only
for your joint health long-term, but also because it
demonstrates that joint mobility isn’t restricting your pop
up.

If you have problems on that ass to grass deep squat you

not only need to likely work on the mobility of your lower
body joints, but it’s quite possible you’ve got mobility
limitations negatively affecting your pop up, and other
aspects of your surfing.

I look at the ability to deep squat because surfing requires

you to get into positions like me in that barrel pic.

A tight hip or knee won’t let you get there. That low barrel
crouch position is essentially a step in the process of a
fluid pop up. You would have seen that repeatedly in that
slow-mo pro pop up video.

You will fix your pop up by becoming clear on what

foundations are limiting your skill and then dialing in the
technique. I walk you through the entire process in my FIX
YOUR POP UP PROGRAM

STRETCHES & DRILLS TO FIX YOUR

SURF POP UP
Any skilled movement in life and sport requires certain
physical attributes in varying amounts. The pop up
requires certain amounts of joint mobility, aspects of
strength, bits of power, and layered on skill. Not to
mention the awareness of reading an ocean, timing a
wave, and the innate experience of being in the ocean and
interacting with the physics of a wave.

If your hips can’t move, then your skill is likely severely

limited. A tight and restricted hip limits your ability to pull
your leg underneath your body. This forces you to bend
the torso forward, likely too far, so it’s throwing your
weight forward and causing you to fall over your toe side
rail. Kook-dom. The body is negatively effecting skill and
technique.

If you mobilise your hips however, it doesn’t

automatically improve the skill. It opens the door and
takes the brakes off your ability to practice and access
that skill. It needs to be applied to practice, and then it still
needs to be implemented where it counts… the ocean.

This should make sense by now, or at least I hope it does.

Improve your limitation, or eliminate it, then practice the
skill.

The skill is improved through repetitive practice so that it

becomes efficiently engrained in the body, hardwired.
Your aim is to eliminate movement limitations so you can
work on the skill unimpeded by a body that doesn’t move
well.

This is the point at which actual pop up practice on dry

land is highly beneficial. I’ve even recommended to clients
to get a foam top and practice in some 1-foot surf. Drill the
skill.

Let’s say you’ve got that ass to grass deep squat, so you
know it’s not a movement restriction. Maybe you’re just
too weak.

Perhaps those little weak arms are too gassed from

paddling out and having to duck dive some set waves, so
when it goes to popping up there isn’t enough strength
endurance in your pushing muscles to provide a fast and
flowing push to swing your lower body underneath you.

Assess your limitations. Eliminate them. Get more

mobile, and layer on functional strength. Add in the
essential skill practice. Boom. Fix Your Surf Pop Up.

HOW TO IMPROVE THE ACTUAL SURF

POP UP SKILL
It may be that your skill just plain sucks and you’ve
embedded a less than optimal movement pattern into
your nervous system. You would simply need to drill
perfect technique in a non-stressful surf environment, and
continue to progress that in different wave situations. This
is where skilled surf pop up practice at home, or in the
gym setting becomes highly relevant.

As I mentioned earlier in the article, the technique can and

does vary from person to person, depending on injuries,
age, and type of surfboard. I get deep into technique, as
well as the entire assessment process of finding your
limitations, and strengthening your body specifically for a
pop up, and improving your surf-time in my Fix Your Pop
Up Program.

You could have just one of those issues, like a tight hip or
a restricted ankle, maybe a sprinkling of weak core and a
bad shoulder, or combinations of those issues.

Getting clear on the limitations specific to you is the key to

truly fixing your pop up, and working on an effortless skill.

THE MENTAL GAME TO FIXING YOUR

SURF POP UP
I’ve touched on how a skilled movement is ingrained in
your nervous system already, but what I haven’t discussed
is a threat and anxiety and how that will put an immediate
halt to learning.

So much of good surfing is an ability to read the ocean. To

see swell lines and make decisions on where and how the
wave is going to break. The speed that this wave’s inertia
will hit the reef and how fast it will stand up. This “reading”
allows you to make better-informed position about your
pop up.

Will it jack up and require a higher speed pop up, or is it a

tapered take off that will let you casually get to your feet? I
see so many failed pop ups because of the inefficiency of
reading surf. This is a truly difficult thing to teach and I
see it really only developing with more time in the ocean.

What you can work on, however, is your mindset and

reaction to the wave and to the ocean.

When working on a skill you want to eliminate variables so

that you can truly work on the fluidity of whatever that skill
is. You want to have zero anxiety. No frustration. Be zen
mind. Clear the road for the nervous system to learn the
pattern of movement.

You can implement this by working the pop up drills on

dry land. I get into the specific techniques and drills in
great detail in my Fix Your Pop Up Program. You need to
remove the stress variables and uncertainty to drill the
pattern.

If you get into the ocean, become overwhelmed by other

surfers, get anxiety-ridden about the surf, and overly
stress about the perfection of the pop up, the skill
improvement is dead. When under threat, or high speed,
your body will likely revert to that old pattern it knows all
too well, the wonky pop up.

That is why it’s crucial to actually drill your perfect pop up

on dry land, and then ideally go practice it in clean surf, of
a size that is absolutely non-threatening to you. You also
need a smile on your face. I’m serious. Get into that brain
space of enjoyment, fun, and happiness, because the
stress and over-thinking will kill the skill acquisition
process.

Now go and Fix Your Surf Pop Up.

Respect the fact that it will take repetition, and those pro
pop ups you’ve seen have been embedded into their
bodies with thousands and thousands of reps.

IS YOUR SURF POP UP FRUSTRATING

YOU?
If you’re frustrated with your pop ups, and want to simply
surf more fluidly, and get to your feet with ease, you’ll love
my Fix Your Pop Up Program.

This program will give you the specific stretches you need
to loosen up the lower body, provide you with the
exercises to strengthen the core and hips, and teach you
the techniques to get fluid with your surf pop up. Click the
image below and get started right now.

Get the ultimate TRAINING PROGRAM for

Fixing & Improving Your Pop Up... For Good.