Sorry I wasn’t clear enough on the precise thumbs-down angle on my post. It’s more like Trucker says where the index finger touches the water first. Actually, I rotate my hands during the full movement in the water. When my hand is just leaving the water after a stroke, the palm is facing the rails. This sets up for a very relaxed return on the stroke with the elbows low. This is all about efficiency; the less energy you expend paddling around, the more you’ll have for catching waves. Digging straight down with the fingertips is a slight improvement over flat-handed, but is just as inefficient. Back to the subject of gloves, put a pair of webs on and compare paddling flat-handed/digging fingers-down with rotating the hands.
Hmm… I’m going to disagree on the low elbows. All swimming technique states that high elbows is always better. But, the elbow must be higher than the hand. Your elbow joint should be completely relaxed with your forearm hanging loosely, hand perpendicular to the body.
The high elbow (this entire arm position) does two things:
a) reduces strain on the shoulder by reducing the total force on the joint
b) shifts all the work to the big muscles in the back.
Low elbows mean your arm must stick out over the water–a big old lever pushing on your shoulder and using way too much strength throughout the arm. Also, it introduces a turning motion into your stroke which is just plain old wasted energy.
I’m no physiologist or swim coach. But I’ve got a ruined shoulder (not from surfing) so I pay attention…
Don’t overreach. Put your hand in the water where it’s comfortable, not as far ahead as you can stretch.
Don’t overdip. Your hand doesn’t need to go deep to be powerful. If your elbows are underwater, you’re reaching too deep.
Don’t overstroke. Once your hand passes 90 degrees down, just relax it and let the forward progress & your hand’s own flotation bring it up & out of the water. You don’t get any power from pushing past 90 anyway.
Keep your cadence quick. By taking shorter, shallower strokes, you’re alternating your hands faster without using any extra energy. This means you’re not only going faster, but also straighter and more balanced. More like 2 people paddling a canoe than one person paddling a kayak.
Relax on the recovery strokes. Relax your back, stomach, and shoulders. Tension robs energy.
Go easy to go fast. Webs are the opposite of all this.
And you guys do an “S” shaped stroke, with the hand going under the board, right? Most poor paddlers I see don’t get their arm in very deep and paddle next to the board. Sometimes this is because their boards are too damn wide and they simply can’t reach in any more, but othertimes it’s just poor technique.
Oh no!
Short fast strokes are very bad for you! Not only that, they are SLOOOOW!
Long, smooth strokes. Then, the water will do the work for you.
And, yes, you do get a lot of power during the last 1/3 of the stroke. Swimmers refer to the last 1/3 as “power through.”
A proper stroke has three parts–the catch, the pull and the power through. Surfers should use a minimized “S” stroke, not too deep.
Lets move this to a thread purely on paddling!
Not to be a jerk, but I know there is a lot of conflicting advice out there. I’d be glad to put all my info online…as long as none of you use this to snake me (I surf the cliffs, blacks, swamis, ob jetty, ponto, etc. prefer the cliffs in the winter).
Anyway, there is a BIG difference between the proper technique and everything else–the proof is in the pudding–you’ll have longer sessions with more waves, bigger waves and deeper take offs.
You want to know how bad most surfers are at swimming? Watch a surfer when he loses his board! He’ll probably try to walk in.
Trucker - I know what you’re getting at. I’m not advocating chopping / windmilling / spazzing out at all. And most of the techniques I mentioned were exaggerated…
Since the thread started with discussion about webs, I was trying to counter the argument for these things with some comments about not overreaching, overstraining, and generally overthinking the paddling stroke.
I didn’t say to pull your hand out of the last third of the stroke, but to relax it a bit which finishes a full stroke but also helps smooth the recovery stroke. Sorry if the exaggeration to make a point was unnecessary, but the web things are a training aid to be used to swim a small part of a workout, not to surf with for hours on end. I think its a big mistake to use them for surfing and also a big one to alter a comfortable stroke in favor of the way you have to paddle with (basically) weights on your hands.
Yeah, I did say I’m not a swim coach. But I have spent a lot of years in pools…being coached. 
edit: One big & important diffence between paddling a surfboard & swimming - the glide between strokes. Fast strokes are generally bad because the fast recovery actually puts the brakes on the forward momentum a board develops on its own, under a paddler. So make those recovery strokes as efficient (quick, but not fast?) as you can, without making them effect the forward, straight-line progress of the board’s path…
I’ve used these aquaclaws some.
They give a lot more thrust without the weight of the full webbed gloves.
They also help with gripping a board for ducking .
But they do wear out my arms faster, and if I use them for a few sessions in a row I feel weak when I go without.
Still, they are useful for when I try to ride my smallest board and want to focus on learning to ride waves vs. just catching them.
Also good for extra paddle power when struggling to get my minigun outside on a big beach break day.
Sounds like a lot of strokes in this thread…maybe we should name it billy and the beaters?Herb
I once could see…and now am blind!
oddly enough I ran across these today and remembered this thread… these were at one time webbed gloves, but I had cut the “web” parts out from between all the fingers. As I recall I had to restitch some of the seams too.
I get it . Sick joke fairmont. Karma will get you. Maybe thats what i’ll need