Photo: Gershon Borlai
Popping up from a prone position to standing on your feet happens in the blink of an eye. You have the wave rumbling behind you and just a few moments to get up and moving. If you don’t get this part right – the pop up – you will miss out on the entire wave. You can use this drill to pop up more often.
You can use this drill to make your pop up more consistent:
You can do the chicken wing exercise at home. Repeat it, practice it, drill every day until you catch every wave you want to catch. It’s simply the first movement in the pop up motion, only you won’t continue on to your feet. By focusing on just this first movement, you can drill the proper mechanics and give your pop up a solid foundation.
To help master this, I created a simple cheat sheet that you can download here to track your pop up progress. It includes this drill and four others that will build your pop up foundation.
Do the drill in this sequence:
-Lie on the floor on your stomach.
-Mimic a paddle stroke, arching your upper body.
-Position your hand by your lower ribs.
-Make sure your elbows are pointing upward (this is the chicken wings position).
-Lift/push the upper body to a cobra position.
Making sure you do the drill the right way
-Position your hand by your lower ribs.
-Push yourself away from the ground through the palms.
-Pull your shoulders back (close the scapula).
-Squeeze your glutes during the push.
-If you find this too easy, place your palms as narrow as it’s possible to keep those elbows close to the torso during the cobra push (basically, you are practicing a narrow push up).
Typical mistakes include:
-Hands (palms) should be below the shoulder (correct chicken wing position). If they are in front of your shoulder, you in the “Superman position.” Spoiler alert, you don’t want to be in the Superman position. you will nose dive when this happens.
-You don’t push through the palms
Let me know if this helped you, or what you want me to cover next by emailing me at gershon@boostyoursurf.com.
Yours,
