So you want to surf bigger waves?

Almost every surfer I know of wants to surf bigger waves. Whether you are only surfing 3ft beachbreaks or charging 15ft-20ft Dungeons, chances are, you want to surf bigger waves, better. But few surfers know what to do to make the waves they surf the next winter much bigger than that which they have surfed the previous. That is why you will find someone who has surfed for 15 years unwilling to paddle into anything over double overhead. They got to a point and didn’t progress further.

I have a few tips that got me into some of the biggest waves of my life this past winter.

Train for it.

Fitness is the most important aspect of handling heavier situations, and surfing alone will not get you near fit enough to get into significantly bigger waves.

You have to train your body to be prepared to handle heavier situations.

The most important aspect is your core strength. You can have shoulders that will out-paddle an Olympian, or have the leg-strength to out-carve Jordy Smith, but without core strength, you will never be able to take a beating. You have to be prepared to go over the falls, get tumbled around, and come up to face five more waves on the head.

Your core strength refers to your abdominal muscles and your back muscles. This is what keeps you stable. These muscles you use when paddling, while doing hard turns, keeping your balance, getting worked, and even holding your breath.

To strengthen your core, most people start doing sit-ups. Don’t.

Sit-ups are virtually useless, as are there counterparts, the crunch.

Rather do planks and bicycle crunches. There are other core strength exercises that work, but these are my personal favorites.

To do a plank, simply get into a push-up position, but instead of holding yourself up with your hands, support yourself with your elbows and forearms. Hold this position without moving for as long as you can. 

 

To do a bicycle crunch, lie on your back with your legs in the air and your hand touching the sides of your head. Bring your right leg towards your face while simultaneously extending your left elbow towards your left leg. (It should resemble the motion of biking/running.) Next, switch sides. Bring your left leg towards your face while extending your right elbow towards your right leg. Do as many as you can.

A good way to truly work your core to it’s max, is to fist do a plank for as long as you can, and follow with as many bicycle crunches as you can. Rest for a minute, and repeat. Do this till you cannot hold a plank in good form for more than 30 seconds, or complete a good form bicycle crunch.

Your core is the part of your body that is the hardest to exercise, but the rewards are the highest.

The next important thing is strong arms and shoulders. These are the easiest to train.
Now, don’t go to your nearest gym and start doing a ton of weights. For surfing, the best exercises come from body weight training. The good old pushup is the best exercise for strong shoulders, whilst pull-ups give the greatest rewards for your efforts. To do a proper pushup, be sure to keep your back perfectly straight, and do the pushup slowly. With pull-ups, be sure to use to mix up your grips to train as wide a variety of muscles as possible. A good idea is to do as many pull-ups of as many grips as you can, and follow immediately with as many good form pushups as you can. This way you train the widest variety of muscles at the same time, and you speed up results in a big way.

 
Your legs are also very important. To do big carves, pump for massive speed, make sections, and in general rip a wave apart, you need strong legs. To build strong legs my two favorite exercises are the squat and the lunge. These two simple exercises can greatly increase your leg strength.  Just remember that when you do lunges you must keep your back straight at all times.

Another important aspect of surfing is cardiovascular endurance. You have to be able to endure a prolonged exertion, not just a quick burst of strength. To build your cardiovascular endurance, you can simply go cycling, running, swimming or jump rope.

Personally I like triathletic training, and a combination of cycling, running, and swimming in a single workout feels like a really good way to train. An ideal cardio workout would be to cycle to the beach, swim in the ocean, run on the beach, and cycle back. Adding variety to a workout is a good way to combat boredom, and work the entire body.

Get the right board.

I’ve seen far to many people surf the same board in 2ft slop, and 8ft tubing waves. One of the biggest reasons a lot of people struggle to surf waves in the double overhead range and up, is that they are on the wrong boards. You just can’t surf massive waves on a 6’2” shred stick. Just because Kelly Slater could surf a 6'2" at 20ft cloudbreak doesn't mean it's a good idea. If you want to get into bigger waves, you’re going to need a bigger board. Now, an extra two inches definitely won’t cut it. Put at least an extra foot on what you would ride in waves inside your comfort zone. Now, most young guys think a 6’10” rounded pintail is a semi-gun, most people are wrong. Unless you weigh under 70kg, semi-guns don’t start until over 7’2” in length, and if you are over 80kg, you should really be getting yourself something in the 8ft range. It is better to be overgunned and catching waves while everyone else is struggling, than undergunned and fluttering around on your microchip praying to God that the thing will have enough buoyancy to float you back up after duckdiving a 12ft freak set. Often times, on the double overhead days, there are freak sets every half an hour or so that are triple overhead or even more. It is better to be prepared than sorry. If you want to surf triple overhead, you must be prepared for quadruple overhead, if you want to surf quadruple overhead, you must be prepared for anything. Speak to a shaper that surfs big waves himself, and ask him to rather make the board to big than to small. If you think you are going to surf 8ft waves this winter, plan for 12ft. You might become so comfortable in the 8ft stuff because of some extra chunk in your board that you will end up surfing waves far bigger than you expected you’ll surf. I know that this winter I was just hoping to get comfortable in 6ft waves, and I ended up surfing 8-9ft waves with confidence. I was doing all this on the wrong sized board too. I could only imagine what I would have been able to do with one of these:

You will get tubed off your head with one of these...

Get acquainted with different spots.

Certain spots can only handle up to a certain size, or doesn’t get big to often.

My biggest limiter last winter was that I wasn’t acquainted with any spots that have 8ft waves and over on a regular basis. Outerpool generally is limited to waves up to 6ft, and starts breaking very wide at 8ft. Per occasion the swell direction is just right and it will handle 8ft waves, but it is rare. Mystery reef can handle huge waves, but because it is on the other side of the harbor, it doesn’t get that big all more than a few times a year. If you really want to get into bigger waves, you have to surf spots that can handle big waves often. You can’t just rock up at a spot you’ve never been to, on a massive day, and expect to ride the biggest waves of your life without knowing the place at all. Get a few sessions in on some smaller days, and then start riding it bigger and bigger, to see how it reacts to bigger waves. Keep in mind, that at certain spots, the place only starts to work properly when it gets big. So be sure that you have experience with big waves, have the right equipment, and are fit enough to swim in if your leash snaps, before you go surf at those spots.

Deep, dark, foreboding, and perfect