125 Master the Pop-up: Dry-Land Drills for Faster, Smoother Take-offs

Podcast - SURF MASTERY

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Struggling to stand up quickly and smoothly on your surfboard? Your popup might be the one skill holding your surfing back.

The popup—your transition from paddling to riding—is the hardest maneuver in surfing and the foundation of every great ride. If yours is slow, clumsy, or inconsistent, it’s costing you waves, confidence, and how others see you in the lineup. But with the right approach, you can build a fast, stable popup even if you started surfing later in life.

Learn why a smooth, athletic popup sets the tone for your entire ride.
Discover dry-land exercises that develop the exact strength, mobility, and control needed for a flawless takeoff.
Get a step-by-step reverse training method to make your popup faster, more stable, and more consistent.

Press play now to unlock the techniques and training drills that will transform your popup—and every wave you catch.

Summary:
Your popup is the foundation of every great ride—and one of the hardest skills to master in surfing. In this episode of the Surf Mastery Podcast, host Michael Frampton breaks down why the popup is so critical, what’s really happening during the movement, and how to train it effectively on land. You’ll learn the common mistakes that slow surfers down, how to build the strength and mobility needed for a lightning-fast takeoff, and the reverse training method that can transform your consistency in the water. Whether you’re a late starter or looking to sharpen your fundamentals, these practical drills will help you catch more waves and surf with greater confidence.

Transcript:

Michael Frampton: Welcome back, or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves and to surf with more speed, style, grace. I am your host, Michael Frampton, and today we are talking about the popup, AKA, the takeoff. It is the hardest maneuver in surfing. And it's the one thing in surfing that demands the most athleticism.

Going from lying prone to getting to your feet without changing the way that the board moves through the water, or losing sight of the way the wave is breaking. That is hard. It takes a lot of athleticism to do that. And your popup isn't just about getting to your feet, it's also your entry into the wave.

If it's slow or unstable, everything after that suffers. It's kind of like singing a song. You've got to hit that first note. Now, if your popup feels slow or clumsy or inconsistent, not only is it costing you waves, it's costing your perception in the lineup. Are you a competent surfer that doesn't waste waves?

Or are you looked at as a kook? Now all good surfers have a good popup. I remember my first filmed surf coaching session, and that was the first thing we talked about was my popup. And until I saw the footage and spoke with the surf coach after, I didn't realize how bad mine was or. Really what a good one look like.

I'm so glad that that particular surf coach picked it up so early on and after that, 'cause my background is in personal training and and and movement development. I spent hours in the gym after that developing the strength and mobility to be able to do a fast and smooth popup on dry land. And that is the one thing that has changed my surfing the most.

Maybe aside from reading the ocean better. That pop up getting that. It just does wonders for your confidence 'cause getting to your feet fast and smooth. If you can do that, you have so much more. Trust in yourself to paddle into waves and to get to your feet with good timing. Getting your front leg underneath your chest and transferring that body weight from your ribs to your hands to your front foot, whilst still looking at the wave and keeping the board planing through the water at.

With without bouncing or wobbling. It's really, really hard to do, and it's a very specific movement skill that that needs to be developed. Now. Most great surfers started very young and their bodies could do it when they were young, and as they grew they sort of maintained that skill. But I, like many of other people out there, started late in life.

I was already fully grown before I started surfing, and I had to develop that movement skill. I've also trained a lot of adult beginners to develop that movement skill on dry land, and I cannot stress how important it is. The good news is that you can develop a good popup on dry land. It's not easy, but it is simple.

How do you do that? Let's start by understanding a little bit more about what the popup is. When you're surfing, you are, you're paddling, so most of your body weight is going through the center of the board through your chest. Now, as you feel the wave start to pick you up and and your board speed change, then you transfer that body weight from your chest to your hands and then onto your front foot.

Now it's a little more nuanced than that, but that's basically what it is. How do we train this? Or more specifically, how do we develop the ability to do this movement with control and agility? I would start by lying on the floor and lie down on your stomach as if you're paddling a surfboard, most of your body weight going through your ribs, and then bring your hands close to your chest and start to do a pushup.

And then as you get to the top of the pushup, you bring your front leg forward so that your foot is in between your hands and you transfer the body weight. From your hands into your front foot. This is the point where most people get caught out. They simply cannot do it because they don't have the strength and mobility.

There's not enough room. For that leg to fit into that space, that distance between your chest and your hands or the floor, if there's not enough room for your leg to fit there. And what you'll have to do is push hard and fast off the floor. Then your hands leave the floor, and that leg lands in between your hands, which was.

The mistake that a lot of people do on a surfboard. So there's a split second or even longer, where the center of the surfboard isn't controlled by you. The best way to develop the movement is actually in reverse. So if you think of another exercise like, like a chin up, the best way to develop strength for a chin up if you can't do one, is to do it eccentrically or in reverse.

You hold yourself at the top of the chin up and let yourself down really slowly. So the exercise that I recommend for improving your. Popup here is actually to do it in reverse. So you start by standing in your surf stance, you transfer the body weight all the way to your front foot, and then you slowly drop your hands down next to the front foot and slowly begin to transfer all your body weight from your foot into your hands, keeping that distance between your chest and the floor as big as possible, ideally, so you can actually lift the foot up off the floor so all your body weight is in your hands.

But the foot remains in the same place. And then slowly take your foot back into the pushup position, and then lower yourself down into the bottom of a pushup where you're in that prone paddling position. The goal is to be able to transfer your body weight from your front foot, to your hands, to your chest, in a nice, smooth, slow, and controlled way.

There is a free PDF on the homepage of surf mastery.com, called the five Best Exercises for Surfing, which goes into detail on this particular exercise as well as some other ones that compliment it. So go ahead and have a look at that. And on that note, do you know what's even harder is getting to the point where you actually need to do a popup.

So reading the ocean, choosing the right waves, predicting the. Where waves are going to break and reading how the water's moving, and then paddling into the wave, all that stuff that happens before you actually do the popup, which is about 99% of your time in the water. That's actually the hardest part in surfing, and it's also what my course is all about.

I have released a mini course that teaches all of that stuff. What happens between when the surfboard is under your arm and under your feet? The 99% of surfing that is done before we stand up. I have a course that goes into the details of all of that stuff, including exercises to, to complement the popup and also your standing position, which is essentially the finishing position of your popup.

Most other courses out there are focused on what do you do once you're standing up? Well. Let's break it down on how to get there. Go to the surf mastery.com homepage and you can go ahead and check out more details on that course, and of course, jump on board. This is basically the course that I wish I had when I started surfing.

Thanks for tuning into the podcast. Until next time, keep surfing.

The Surf Mastery Podcast:

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced

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