Why You Should Surf Bigger Boards

We understand there is a dominant attitude among surfers, especially shortboard surfers, that surfing smaller and smaller boards is the best thing for improving your surfing. On one hand, this is true. A smaller board will improve your fitness, will help keep you in the most critical section of the wave, and help you perform more radical maneuvers. So we are not saying one should not ride a small board at all - after all, many of us a part of the Degree 33 family are shortboarders at heart. 

A one-track-mind focused on chippy shortboards, however, drastically undermines the surprising benefits of riding bigger boards... and not just for beginners, but for those of all skill levels.

The way we are defining a "bigger boards" is anything is the midlength to longboard realm. These boards usually span from 6'6 to 10'0 or bigger. The size of the board is relative for skill level. A 6'6 might be a big board for a short boarder, but to a beginner this board is very small.

Here are some of the benefits of riding bigger boards for each respective skill level: 

Beginner: 

For all new surfers, a big board is not just suggested, but required. We recommend going with a board that is at least 3ft taller than your height. Anything smaller does not have enough stability to allow you to adequately learn the fundamentals of surfing. 

Surfing a small board actually has long term damaging effects to a beginner surfer. When I first learned how to surf at 5 years old, I started on a 9ft board and I found surfing to be incredibly fun and rewarding. My pop up was solid after some practice and my stance was balanced. When I wanted to get my first board a few weeks later, I got a board that was a very advanced high performance shortboard. I could not pop up adequately so I began the habit of popping up with my knees first before getting to my feet. This lasted for years, and even though eventually I grew out of the knee pop up, I still had a slight delay in my pop up. My back foot would get planted first before my front foot. Once I was about 12 or 13, I could carve, turn, off the lip, etc., but I was hindered from taking off on steeper faster waves because of this delay. This hindrance was eventually pointed out to me by the surf coach of my middle school surf team, and we traced it all back to riding a board too small when I was learning. It look about 6 months to a year to fix my pop up issue. 

All of this could have been avoided if I took my time with the fundamentals. If I would have kept riding a bigger board, I would continue the proper pop up until this would have become muscle memory from the start. From this baseline, then I could start working my way down to smaller boards. 

Additionally, surfing a bigger board as a beginner has amazing benefits for eventually learning how to turn. This point was first argued by legend big wave surfer Laird Hamilton. According to Laird, surfing a big board as a beginner teaches you control the board well, and push into your turns with flow. This is the same effect of swinging a heavier bat before moving to a lighter one. If you can swing the heavy bat with power, you will be able to crush a ball with the lighter bat. The same concept applies with surfboards. A surfer who begins surfing on bigger boards, and learns to turn well on these boards will inevitably become more of a power surfer on smaller boards. 

Last, a big board will help the newer surfer get their wave count up. It has been said that in order to become an expert in something, one must practice for 10,000 hours - arguably more for surfing. If you are not catching enough waves, you are not getting any practice to improve. Thus, a board with more volume helps you gain paddle momentum to catch as many waves as you can. 

If you are a newer surfer in search of a great board to help you improve quickly, we highly recommend our Ultimate longboard. This is an all around longboard that is great for beginners, but also is a board that you can surfer when you become an advanced surfer. This board comes in epoxy, poly, and hybrid epoxysoft versions. Because it's safety and durability features, we recommend opting for the hybrid epoxy soft version. This is a high quality epoxy board, with a soft, yoga mat deck on top of the board. This helps you to avoid injuries, and no wax is required for these. 

Intermediate:

Intermediate surfers can become a bit over confident in their surf abilities after mastering the fundamentals on a big board, so they go to a board that is much smaller than what they should be riding. We've seen this happen many times here at the Degree 33 shop. A surfer in insistent that they are ready for one our our high performance shortboards, so they buy one only to return the board for something bigger. Fortunately we have a 33-day ride it guarantee so they can return the board for full purchase credit, but for many who do not purchase from us they are stuck. This causes the rider to try to learn on the shortboard - often causing much frustration. 

For the intermediate surfer, the perfect board for you is a midlength. A midlength is any board between the 6'6-8ft range. If you are more on the advanced intermediate side, a board in the 6'6 to 7'2 range will work great for you, but if you are still beginner intermediate, 7'2 to 8'2 is a better fit.

Surfing a board at these size is ideal for a plethora of reasons. First, the board is small enough to challenge you to pop up a bit quicker and take off on waves a bit later than a longboard, but not so much of a challenge that you become discouraged to give up. This also applies to paddling. Paddling a midlength is more difficult than a longboard, so your paddle strength will increase, but it is not as difficult as paddling on a shortboard. This, in turn, will help you still be able to catch a lot of waves.

Second, surfing midlengths will help you learn proper technique in your turning. Compared with a shortboard, a midlength forces you to draw out your turns with flow. This gives you more time to make sure you arms, legs, hips, etc are working together to perform a well-executed turn. All of this amounts to good style and flow (the ability to connect each individual turn to the next turn). It can even be argued that bad style among many shortboards is due to the fact that they skipped the midlength stage. Their arms usually flail around without control, and their legs and hips are not in sync. All of this could be avoided if they went back to the midlength, focused on control and flow, and took the time to master proper turning technique. 

Third, riding a midlength as an intermediate surfer help you to navigate where the power section of the wave is. On a longboard, one could easily ride in the slower part of the wave without having to turn back to the steepest part of the waves, but on the midlength this does not apply. If the power section is moving forward, you will be forced to learn how to pump down the line with speed. If the power section is behind you, you will need to learn how to perform a cutback. If you are riding in the power pocket, you can learn to perform a snap or off the lip, or even tuck into the tube for a barrel ride. This keeps you on your toes, and forces you to learn how to make quick decisions to maximize the quality of your rides. 

If you are an intermediate surfer, we have some amazing user friendly options within our Degree 33 line up. Our two bestsellers are The Poacher and The Easy Rider. The Poacher is an egg shape board with a thruster fin set up. The wide nose helps with paddling, while the narrower tail helps you maneuver with precision. The Easy Rider is a long fish shape that carries tons of down the line speed, and is great for learning how to carve with flow. 

Advanced:

Arguably the biggest set back among advanced surfers in that they can get embarrassed riding bigger boards. They can assume, as I once did, that bigger boards are only for newer surfers, so they fail to see the benefits of riding a bigger board. As an advanced surfer myself who has been surfing for 20 years, I only recently started riding bigger boards again, and I can confidently say that is has caused me to become a much more well-rounded surfer. Here are a few reasons why riding bigger boards is great for advanced surfers from first hand experience. 

First, style and flow will generally increase when riding a bigger board. After years of riding only shortboard, one can become so focused on radical maneuvers, that the basics of connecting one turn to the next without pumping or hopping is forgotten. For me, this fixed the problem of the "two state" bottom turn or cutback in place of smoother arcing maneuvers. 

Additionally, I found that surfing two radically different types of boards creates a contrast which helps you to see surfing with new eyes. After riding a 5'10 shortboard for the entire winter, I jumped out our 10ft Ultimate longboard. Riding the shortboard trained my eye to look for the lip of the wave to perform various maneuvers, but riding the longboard helped me to see the wave is a largely different way. Everything slows down, and the goal is to stay in the pocket of the way to achieve a great sensation called trim. From this point, I was able to learn how to cross step and noseride, which are both considered advanced longboard tricks. 

Third, riding different boards helped me to find new surf spots. When you are only riding niche boards, you are limited to niche spots, but when you have a quiver of different kinds of boards, you also have more options for where you can surf. No longer do you have to be stuck to the crowded surf spot, but now you can go try other waves that you might not be able to ride on a shortboard, but are perfect for a longboard or a midlength. All of this revitalizes stoke of surfing even on the bad days. 

Last, riding different boards helped me to appreciate surfing as a whole - it's history and diversity. I learned the appeal of riding different boards. I learned how peaceful riding a longboard is on a small, glassy day, and I learned how exciting and fun it is to race down the line on a midlength before pushing hard into a down carve. 

If you are an advanced surfer, we have a range of advanced midlengths and longboards which are certainly worth considering. The first is over Over Easy. This is a high performance poly construction only board that is incredibly versatile. Whether the waves are 2 ft or 12 ft, this board can be ridden with great comfortability and performance. The second advanced midlength option is the Speed Egg. This is a performance egg shape board that can be ridden as a quad or a thruster, and is designed to offer all the best qualities of a midlength, while still being able to turn like your shortboard. 

As for longboard, the Ultimate longboard is any of our three constructions is an ideal option for getting into the basics of longboard surfing. If eventually you want longer noserides, then check out our Classic noserider.

Conclusion

Do not get wrapped up into the notion that tiny boards is always the way to go. Riding bigger boards is growing in traction in recent years across surf culture and for good reason!

If you would like personal assistance in finding the right board for you, give us a call at (800)-920-2363 or email us at surf@degree33.com