Why Bodyboarding Might Make You a Better Surfer

How Bodyboarding Can Improve Your Surfing

Bodyboarding does not always get the respect that surfing does. Some surfers see it as a beginner activity or a less serious version of riding waves. But if you look closely, bodyboarding can actually improve many parts of your surfing and is neither inferior nor less fun than surfing. 

Bodyboarding actually teaches wave reading, timing, and positioning which are all skills that translate over to surfing. It lets you practice certain skills in places where surfing would be harder or more dangerous. Some of the best tube riders I know also spend heaps of time bodyboarding; that is not a coincidence.

Here are a few ways bodyboarding can actually help your surfing.

1. It Teaches the Basics of Wave Riding

Bodyboarding is a great way to learn the foundations of surfing. When you ride a bodyboard, you focus on the most important part of surfing: understanding the wave. You learn how waves move across the sandbar, you learn where they break first, and you learn how to position yourself to catch them.

Here, timing becomes clearer too. Because you are lying down, you can focus on feeling when the wave picks you up instead of worrying about popping up. This is why bodyboarding can be helpful for beginner surfers. It allows you to experience wave riding without needing to master the pop-up right away. When bodyboarding, you can learn how waves behave before adding the extra step of standing up. That foundation makes the transition to surfing much easier. 

2. You Can Practice in a Less Critical Environment

One of the biggest benefits of bodyboarding is where you can do it. Bodyboarding works well in shorebreak waves close to the sand. These waves are often too steep or short for normal surfing, but they are perfect for riding on a bodyboard. Because you are lying down instead of standing, the risk is also lower. If you wipe out, you are already close to the water and so the impact is usually less harsh than falling from a standing position. These factors add up to create a good environment for experimenting.

You can try taking off later, you can test different angles, and you can push yourself without worrying as much about a heavy fall. A lower risk factor means more attempts, which means more waves and more learning.

3. It Helps With Barrel Riding

Bodyboarding is also one of the best ways to specifically learn about tubes and barrels. Many shorebreak waves form short, hollow barrels. These waves are difficult to surf standing up, but they are perfect for bodyboarding. 

When you ride a bodyboard, you are lower, smaller, and more stable on the wave. That makes it easier to fit inside tight barrels. And so, this set up gives you the chance to practice reading when a wave is about to tube and how to get into them. You start to notice how the lip throws over and how the section forms in a consistent and less critical environment. 

You also learn how to position yourself deeper in the pocket and stay close to the wave face while catching tubes bodyboarding. These are all the same skills needed to get barreled while surfing. 

A Tool for Better Surfing

Bodyboarding does not replace surfing, but it can be a useful tool to help your surfing. And let’s face it, it’s also a fun alternative. 

Bodyboarding lets you practice wave riding in a safer setting, it helps beginners learn how waves work, and it also gives surfers a way to study waves, barrels, and steep sections without as much risk to their bodies or their boards. At the end of the day, you’re gathering more wave knowledge, and the more time you spend riding waves in any form, the more comfortable you become in the ocean, and that confidence carries over when you step back onto a surfboard.

Enter the Basis Paddle Trainer.

I've gone months without surfing and rolled up to pumping swell and surfed 3 hr sessions, multiple times a day, day after day after day, by using the Basis Paddle Trainer.

Train anytime, anywhere, so you can catch more waves and have more fun.

Unlike elastic resistance bands, swimming in the pool, or funky gym workouts these things actually work.

Shipping globally now! www.surfbasis.com

For a deep dive customer testimonial from one of our early beta testers check out: