The importance of paddling to surfing performance: Insights from elite athletes,coaches,and performance support practitioners

Abstract

Although paddling has been widely studied, there remains a limited understanding of how a surfer's paddling ability directly influences their wave-riding performance. Using an ecological approach, this study examined the importance of paddling to surfing performance from the perspective of elite Australian athletes, coaches, and performance support practitioners. Ten elite Australian surfing coaches, ten elite Australian surfing athletes, and eight performance support practitioners completed semi-structured interviews. This approach underscores the significance of incorporating experiential knowledge from coaches, athletes, and performance support practitioners, particularly in surfing where the nature of high-performance sport requires a multi-disciplinary approach and highlights the potential value of qualitatively exploring expert perspectives. Findings showed that all participants agree that paddling is an integral aspect of surfing performance despite not being directly scored in competition. The ecological dynamics approach provided a framework for understanding the function of paddling as a tool that enables surfers to exploit the affordances of the environment and support positive performance outcomes under highly variable conditions. The findings highlight the complexities of the performer-environment relationship in surfing and draw attention to the potential for improvements in surfing performance that may be elicited by enhancing a surfer's paddling ability. This study contributes to a growing body of sports science literature investigating paddling performance in surfers and underscores the importance of paddling to surfing performance.

Keywords

Aquatic sport decision making ecological dynamics skill development wave-riding performance

Introduction

The sport of surfing is a popular recreational activity around the world and is a recent addition to the Olympic Games in 2021.¹ The addition to the Olympic Games and the increasing popularity in competitive events e.g. Championship Tour (CT) and Qualifying Series (QS) have led to an increased interest in research examining performance in surfing. Surfing is a multifaceted and highly complex skill that has several interacting components. One of these components that is crucial to performance is paddling. Paddling accounts for 42.6–51.4% of time spent during both competitive and recreational surfing sessions.^2,3 As such, paddling has been the focus of numerous research studies investigating the metabolic and movement demands of surfing^2,4–9 despite paddling having no direct influence on the judging criteria of wave-riding performance during competition.¹⁰

Previous evidence has demonstrated a significant correlation exists between paddling performance in a controlled environment, as determined by 15 minute sprint paddling time and peak velocity and 400 minute paddling time in a pool, and surfing competition level.^11,12 It has also been suggested that sprint paddling plays a crucial role in enabling surfers to attain an optimal position in the water, thereby enhancing the chances of successful wave entries and subsequent high-scoring manoeuvres.^1,12,13 However, it is important to note that the majority of this research has been completed on male athletes only, and there is a current paucity in the research surrounding the paddling ability of female athletes.

A belief exists that women lack the paddling speed required for a vertical take-off over a shallow reef.^14,15 As such, surfing events for women have been held in smaller and often substandard surf conditions, with some locations for men's events deemed too dangerous for women.³ Indeed, studies comparing sex-related differences in paddling performance have consistently shown that female surfers have reduced paddling speed compared to their male counterparts.^13,16 However, the assumption that women are consequently unable to navigate challenging waves, including waves of consequence – powerful, fast-moving, and often have a steep and/or barrelling wave profile – has been recently challenged.^14,15 In 2022, a sex-equality movement brought equality in the number and location of men's and women's Word Surf League events¹⁷ whereby women will compete at one of the world's most extreme waves of consequence, Teahupo’o, Tahiti, for the first time since 2006. Teahupo’o has been announced as the location at which surfing will be held during the 2024 Paris Olympics,¹⁸ thus highlighting a pressing need to explore how to best prepare athletes for success in these conditions.

To better understand the role of paddling in supporting superior wave-riding, it is important to consider the relationship between the surfer and their environment. As highlighted earlier, surfing is a highly complex skill, in part, because the ocean inherently serves as a live and ever-changing environment in which surfers are constantly required to make decisions, assess risks, take chances, and transition between movements. This concept is outlined in the ecological dynamics framework – a theoretical framework explaining performance as a result of the continual interaction between an athlete's action capabilities and the individual, environmental, and task constraints.¹⁹

As the environment surfers perform in is constantly changing and no two waves are ever the same, the opportunities for action (i.e. affordances²⁰) in surfing are highly unstable. More experienced athletes may be better attuned to affordances and better able to perceive and react to perturbations in their environment – a process known as perception–action coupling.^21,22

Despite a belief that paddling performance is crucial to surfing performance, there has been little research that has explored this in detail. Due to the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between the surfer and the ocean environment, the experience of elite surfers and coaches lends itself to a unique understanding of how surfers interact with their environment to support positive performance outcomes and specifically how paddling contributes to this performance.²³ Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore and understand the importance of paddling to overall surfing performance via the perspectives of elite athletes, coaches, and practitioners through semi-structured interviews.

Methods and methodology

Qualitative methodological approach

The authors adopt a critical realist ontology, which recognises that the forces impacting social phenomena, such as the influence of paddling on surfing performance, cannot be directly measured. Instead, these forces are socially constructed through the interactions of individuals and their environment.²⁴ In this context, a constructivist methodology is employed, which focuses on understanding human experiences while acknowledging the existence of the real world.²⁵ Additionally, the co-construction of meaning suggests that data should not be viewed as a tangible entity within the research process. Rather, data emerge because of the researcher's position, perspectives, and interactions, contributing to the development of the knowledge through interpretation.

Participants

Ten elite Australian athletes (five men and five women), ten Australian surfing coaches (nine men and one woman), and eight performance support practitioners (practitioners; six strength and conditioning coaches, one physiotherapist and one psychologist) voluntarily participated in the study. Purposeful (criterion-based) sampling was employed to ensure key informants from high-performance surfing were recruited to address the research question most appropriately.^25,26 To be eligible, athletes had to be currently or have had experience competing on the World Surf League World Championship Tour (WCT) and/or Challenger Series (CS) within 12 months of the study. Coaches and practitioners had to have experience working with athletes at this competition level. Participant demographics are explained in Table 1. Athletes have been classified as ‘elite/international level’ as per the guidelines outlined by Mackay and colleagues.²⁷

Table 1.

Athlete, coach, and practitioner characteristics.

Group	Age		Experience		Gender
Group	Range	Mean	Range	Mean	Gender
Athletes	21–45	27.7 ± 8.7 y	15 Feb	5.6 ± 4.2 y	5 M, 5 W
Coaches	36–61	43.7 ± 8.5 y	15 May	8.3 ± 3.6 y	9 M, 1 W
Practitioners	32–59	41 ± 8.7 y	2 Aug	6.9 ± 2.9 y	7 M, 1 W

Participants were recruited by responding to information flyers posted at the Surfing Australia High-Performance Centre, as well as through snowball sampling. The Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee approved this study, and written informed consent was obtained from each participant prior to data collection.

Data collection

Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted in person or online were used to explore the participants’ perspectives on the importance of paddling to surfing performance. The interview guide was divided into two sections starting with introductory questions on the participants’ demographics, surfing background, and experiences. Section two comprised questions relating to paddling and its importance to surfing overall (e.g. When thinking about surfing overall, do you believe paddling is important to performance? If so, how?) and sprint paddling and its importance to performance in waves of consequence (e.g. Do you believe sprint paddling is important to performance when surfing waves of consequence? If so, how is it important?). This was followed by questions aimed to elicit more specific information relating to any experiences participants may have had that further highlighted their perceptions of the importance of paddling to surfing performance. For example, coaches and practitioners were asked, ‘When thinking about your athletes, has there ever been a time when you feel their paddling ability has really helped them perform or let them down?’ Athletes were asked the same questions but in relation to their own performance (e.g. Have you ever felt that your paddling ability has either helped your performance or let you down?). Probing questions were used throughout the interviews to stimulate further elaboration and ensure responses were fully understood.^27,28 Therefore, interviews allowed flexibility to pursue responses beyond the scope of the specific questions.^28,29

The interview guide was developed by LM and DC and was reviewed by an independent expert in the field of interview methods. The guide was piloted with a non-elite coach and a non-elite athlete to assess the interview flow and appropriateness of the questions to answer the topic areas. Feedback from the pilot interviews was positive, and no adjustments were made to the interview sequence, content topics, and questions. Interviews were audio-recorded and lasted between 27 and 110 minutes (M = 54.6 minutes).

Data analysis

Interview data were analysed inductively using reflexive thematic analysis.³⁰ The first step began with familiarisation, whereby the lead author transcribed the interviews verbatim and made brief notes of prompted ideas related to the research aims. Stages two and three comprised organising data to identify patterned responses, generating initial codes and collating them to develop preliminary categories. These were shared with two co-authors who acted as ‘critical friends’^31,32 to challenge the first author's interpretations and encourage further reflection. This reflexive process helped confirm certain units’ coding and facilitated the process of condensing codes to categories and then refining themes. NVivo software (Version 12, QRS, Australia) was used to manage and code data using an iterative and interpretive analysis process, with movement back and forth between phases as necessary. In stage four, categories were then collated into themes; ongoing analysis and discussion used the principles of ecological dynamics to assist with the refinement, definition, and naming of each theme (see Table 2 for example, coding). Stages five and six comprised finalising the names and definitions of each theme as well as generating an accompanying narrative describing each theme in the context of the research aims.³³ Rigour was addressed through reflexivity throughout the data collection and analysis process by keeping an audit trail.³⁴

Table 2.

Example of interview coding.

Example meaning unit	Example code	Example sub-theme	Theme
As in having enough velocity paddling in to be able to safely stand up quickly without nose diving because if you take off too late, if you don’t have enough speed paddling in you take off with the lip and it's a lot harder to control your board so your nose might, you might be able to angle but you can’t recover your surfboard and you might nosedive.	Avoid nose-diving	It sets up the entire wave	Navigating the Environment
So, that's obviously another massive part of paddling is to position yourself in the right spot.	Positioning for catching the wave	It sets up the entire wave	Navigating the Environment
I don’t know, boys are probably like bigger, built differently, built bigger, like probably gives you an advantage that. I’ll probably paddle the same speed as most of the girls but like all the boys paddle way faster than me.	Men have larger muscle mass compared to the women	Sex differences	Physical Ability
So, yeah, definitely in paddle battles, like so getting to out the back quicker to get priority, the better paddler you are, the better you are likely to win that battle.	Winning and losing paddle battles		Competitive Advantage
Well, you have to paddle to catch a wave, that's the first and foremost; and even you’ll see in just general sessions people that can paddle better will catch more waves.	Enables wave-catching	Skill development	Navigating the Environment

Findings

Twenty-seven of 28 participants believed that paddling was important to surfing performance overall:

It's critical. It's probably one of the most overlooked, most important aspects of surfing. (Athlete M1)

All coaches and practitioners agreed that paddling is important to surfing performance, with some participants emphasising it as one of the highest up in regard to surfing (Practitioner 6).

Themes

Three key interrelated themes identified through the thematic analysis were navigating the environment, physical ability, and competitive advantage (Figure 1). The supporting subthemes are discussed and illustrated using representative quotes to demonstrate how elite athletes, coaches, and practitioners perceive paddling to be important to surfing performance.

Figure 1.

How paddling contributes to surfing performance from the perspectives at elite athletes, coaches and performance support practitioners.

Navigating the environment

Surfers must consider and successfully navigate many environmental factors to perform well in the ever-changing ocean conditions. Athletes compete in a variety of different wave types (e.g. reef, beach, and point breaks) that are influenced by swell size and direction, reef shape and sandbar formation, tides, and wind speed and direction.³⁵ Participants reported that paddling is critical in navigating these elements:

The ocean's always moving, whether it's the tide or conditions or something, so you kind of have to be ready and whether it's going out from the break, you’re surfing Kirra, and you want to go out and use the reverse current to your advantage and go out wide, you know, that's good because you’re out wide and you’re working with the ocean rather than other people struggling in there, then I’m on the next good wave. So, like you can go out there and maximise your time, like the efficiency of your session. (Athlete M1)

Participants reported that, once surfers enter the ‘line-up’ (the area of the ocean where the surfer waits for incoming waves), they paddle to a location which they believe is the best possible position to catch a wave (known as ‘positioning’). Due to the unstable environmental factors previously mentioned, waves commonly break in different locations. Therefore, athletes use their paddling ability to constantly reposition themselves in the line-up to where they believe is the best location for catching incoming waves. Participants reported that this is especially critical in beach break conditions, whereby faster sprint paddlers are at an advantage in being able to get to incoming waves quickly:

If you’re on a shifty beach break and you see a wave coming down the beach, you need to have the paddle power to get to it. (Athlete W2)

Participants talked about the importance of paddling when facing strong currents, often referred to as ‘rips’ or ‘water moving’. Currents can push surfers away from the wave, making it difficult to catch. By continuously paddling, surfers can overcome the current and position themselves to catch the wave. One athlete referred to a specific competition location where this is critical to performance:

As soon as the event got announced, I’ve had so many people say to me like ‘Well, make sure you work on your paddling because the rip's pretty intense and you’re only out there for 30 minutes and you’ve got to get two good waves. You can’t afford to be spending 20 minutes stuck paddling in a rip.’ (Athlete W5).

It sets up the entire wave

While athletes are not scored on their paddling ability, many participants emphasised how it contributes significantly to wave-riding:

I always sort of look at it and I think people tend to just focus on the wave riding component, but to me it's as, if not more important. Obviously, in sort of different ways. Like obviously the wave riding is where you get scored, but the paddling obviously underpins that. (Practitioner 4)

Participants spoke about the importance of ‘wave entry’ or the ‘take-off’ which refers to the process of the surfer paddling and catching the wave and popping up on their surfboard to commence riding the wave. When an athlete has greater paddling capabilities, it makes wave entry easier; whether you want to get in early, you want to get up late, you want to, you know, however you want to enter the wave (Coach 2).

To optimise the take-off, having the sprint paddling ability to get onto waves quickly enables the surfer to be in the right position on the wave as early as possible. This was a dominant feature when referring to surfing waves of consequence:

It allows you to get onto the wave at the angle that you want. So, being able to get on quicker is an advantage when it's a wave of consequence. (Coach 2)

When surfing waves of consequence, a surfer's sprint paddling ability can be the difference between navigating the take-off successfully and being at risk of a serious wipe-out:

You need to kind of get that paddle speed otherwise you’ll end up like stuck up in the lip a lot of the time and ‘cause it's a big wave, it's a very vertical or beyond vertical take-off, so you’re sort of, the more you can get down and it creates a less steep take off, like a bit easier take off. So, yeah, you’ll see people who aren’t good sprint paddlers get hung up in the lip generally a bit more often than those who are good paddlers. (Coach 1)

Possessing the ability to execute a powerful and/or high-risk first manoeuvre is advantageous for obtaining a high wave score in a competition. This requires a surfer to generate speed as early as possible on the wave to execute the manoeuvre successfully. According to participants, fast sprint paddling contributes significantly to this as it is going to give you a lot more speed for that first turn. (Coach 7)

It creates opportunities

A strong paddling ability provides surfers with greater opportunities to catch waves when the conditions are challenging. When the swell size is large but inconsistent, waves will often break in different locations, whereby surfers could be sitting on the inside (i.e. too far in) and at risk of a heavy wave breaking on top of them. Participants reported that weaker paddlers will often sit further out in caution of this. However, this can be detrimental for smaller incoming waves whereby they may miss the wave due to sitting too far out. Stronger paddlers have the freedom, somewhat, to be out of position for the incoming wave yet still possess the capability to catch it:

You see some people who can paddle a wave down, they just for some reason they’ve just got such good strength and good technique, they can mow a wave down. (Coach 9)

Fast sprint paddlers have the confidence to sit right near the ‘impact zone’ (where the waves break) and can quickly react and position themselves to successfully catch and ride heavier waves:

You see some of the guys and they don’t even look like they paddle, just drop in late and pull up and it's just like ‘Oh’, they’re that comfortable in that situation that they have the time to react right and whatever else. (Coach 6)

Skill development

Paddling is required to get out into the line-up, position yourself to catch a wave, and successfully catch waves. Participants agreed that being a better paddler enables faster performance improvements in surfing. One athlete put it simply:

Well, you have to paddle to catch a wave, that's the first and foremost; and even you’ll see, in just general sessions, people that can paddle better will catch more waves. If you can catch more waves, you can improve more quickly. (Athlete M5)

One coach reported that strong paddling is essential for generating speed, a critical component of improving surfing performance:

You’re getting speed which everyone wants. Speed's one of the best things in surfing. So, you’re just accelerating your chance of getting better at surfing quicker or you’ll just have more, potentially have a better trajectory with growth. (Coach 3)

Physical ability

When participants were asked to provide their perspectives on how paddling influences surfing performance, they commonly referred to the various physical and physiological qualities required to be a strong paddler that would, in turn, positively impact surfing performance. When surfing in strong currents or when competing at locations where the waves are long, surfers can spend significant amounts of time paddling continuously or completing intermittent, long-duration paddling efforts. Without superior aerobic endurance, the onset of fatigue may impact performance:

So, your heart rate's always a lot higher and you’re paddling… so, once you catch a wave, you paddle back to the peak. So, the faster you paddle back out, the more chance you have of catching the wave. So, if you can paddle quickly without getting too fatigued, because if you’re too fatigued, you’re not going to be able to surf that well, so I feel paddle fitness is a big one, especially when the surf's bigger. Longer paddle back out, like Jeffreys Bay, Bells, where there's no jet ski assist or if you’re getting flogged, like to have that endurance paddle. (Coach 1)

When talking about paddling into waves of consequence, participants recalled watching athletes who perform well in those conditions and their ability to perform very short explosive sprint efforts to catch the wave. Often, it only takes three strokes, boom, boom, boom and laying down hard (Practitioner 3) to get into heavier reef break waves.

They also communicated the need to be paddle fit for competition as during heats, your intensity is a lot higher than a typical freesurf (Coach 1). One participant was more specific indicating the need to have superior anaerobic endurance to perform repeat-sprint paddling efforts during competition:

The more that I see more competitions and paddle battles and priority and understand more about how the comps are run and then with an understanding of waves of consequence, yeah, I can understand repeat sprint ability and then working at lactate levels, and I get a good understanding of that now. (Practitioner 2)

The influence of sex-related differences

Participants noted distinctive behaviours among male and female athletes, such as variations in wave-catching tendencies likely attributed to differences in paddling ability. According to participants, these differences are likely influenced by sex-related variations in physique, strength, anthropometrics, and equipment, contributing to the general observation that men tend to paddle faster than women:

I think obviously men are probably, you know, their DNA is built, have more strength, so they probably have more speed, and the muscles are bigger, the science to me, it probably makes sense that they paddle faster in general. (Coach 10)

One of the female athletes described the physical advantages that men have, in combination with riding surfboards of larger volume, as the reason why she believes men are faster paddlers than women:

So I guess it's like having a wider frame and longer arms, like you look at the way Owen Wright paddles and he’ll paddle probably like, you know, like he just, his wingspan, he just moves so much water so he's going quicker and obviously as well, on the bigger boards, you know, like girls will ride small boards for our weight, so yeah, then we’re obviously moving through the water as fast because the board's smaller. (AthleteW3)

Another female athlete recalled her experiences in free surfing sessions and how women are more likely to miss waves as compared to men:

I find that if there's a guy paddling for a wave, I won’t even try to paddle for it just in case he might miss it because you know that he's not going to miss it because so many times they’ll be paddling for a wave and I’ll be like ‘Oh, he might not get onto that’ and every time they manage to just somehow get onto these waves. Whereas if it's a female on the inside of me paddling for it, I’ll always like paddle just in case because there is more of a possibility that she’ll miss it and then I can go. (Athlete W5)

Nonetheless, participants highlighted that paddling is a really good growth area for women (Coach 2), and despite the sex differences in paddling ability described by participants, most participants agreed that paddling was of equal importance to surfing performance for both men and women athletes:

I think it's equally both, equally beneficial for both. I don’t think its gender biased in any way. (Athlete W2)

Competitive advantage

Participants reported that an athlete's paddling ability can have a direct impact on their competition performance. For example, athletes who are faster sprint paddlers have the freedom to ‘sit deeper in the lineup’ (i.e. closer to where the wave will start to break). Sitting in this position requires greater speed generation during the sprint paddle and take-off to ride the wave successfully. In the case of barrelling waves, taking off on the wave from a deeper position can result in more barrel time and higher wave scores. Athletes with a lower sprint paddling ability are not afforded this opportunity:

There was a handful of those athletes where just like at Pipe, at Chopes, like more so at Chopes, less so at Pipe just due to the nature of the wave, but just where like they just can’t, like you just can’t sit as deep, which is obviously going to impact scoring potential. (Practitioner 4)

Paddling can also provide a competitive advantage in obtaining, holding, and regaining priority in a heat. Priority refers to the order in which athletes take turns in catching waves during a heat, and the athlete with priority has the right to catch the next incoming wave. When an athlete does not have priority, they could use their sprint paddling ability to get away from their competitors and catch waves under priority:

Let's say you don’t have priority, you want someone to try and sit next to you and you want to sit as far away as possible but if you see a wave that you can paddle there in time and if you’ve got two metres of space, that person might not be able to get there in time. So, that's where it can kind of, yeah, in that gamesmanship, like or if you pretend you’re not interested in a wave and you can hold that uninterested sitting for as long as possible before someone else is, they’re trying to use priority on you and then you go ‘Bang’ and catch a wave that if you weren’t a fast paddler, you wouldn’t be able to do that. (Coach 1)

When two athletes catch concurrent waves in a competitive heat, this often leads to a ‘paddle battle’ which refers to a sprint paddle race between two athletes back to the line-up. The athlete who returns to the line-up first will gain priority and has the right of way for the next incoming wave. This can be critical to the competition outcome, and strong paddlers are at an advantage:

I’ve had plenty of times where I’ve been able to out-paddle people and get priority and then that's played a massive part in a juncture down the heat and times when I’ve been out-paddled and have the guy got priority on me and taken the wave that I needed to progress. (Athlete M5)

Decision-making

A surfer's paddling ability will directly affect their decision-making during competition. If they are a strong sprint paddler, they may choose to sit deeper in the line-up than their competitor, or if they have great aerobic endurance, they can sustain continuous paddling against currents and decide to then turn around and sprint into a wave if another wave comes (Athlete W2). Participants reported that athletes often use their paddling ability tactically against their competitors:

When you’re sitting there waiting for the wave and when the wave comes or when you see it and it's coming like to try and use your, if you’re a better paddler, use that to your advantage to like get into a better position than the other competitor or to block them or to take them out of position. (Coach 3)

It is well-established that the best athletes seem to have more time for decision-making in highly stressful situations in a competition.³⁶ When it comes to paddling and surfing performance, participants agreed with this notion, indicating that a good paddling ability enables more time for decision-making:

I’m up, I’m looking at the wave, I’m just waiting for it to do its thing so that I can react. I’m paddling, head down, taking the drop, ‘Oh shit, it's closed out, oh, I’m over’ kind of thing. So, just the time difference that a good paddler has. (Coach 6)

Discussion

The aim of this study was to explore and understand the importance of paddling to surfing performance, and its role in promoting superior wave-riding. Elite surfers, coaches, and performance support staff agreed that paddling is an integral aspect of surfing performance despite not directly being scored in a competition. The results highlight the complexities of the performer–environment relationship in surfing and situate paddling as a tool that enables surfers to exploit affordances and achieve positive performance outcomes under variable conditions. These findings contribute to the growing body of sports science literature exploring paddling performance in surfers, suggesting the possibility of enhancements in surfing performance through improvements in a surfer's paddling ability.

Navigating the environment

Opportunities for action may be scaled relative to an individual's action capability.³⁷ Although waves will often break in different locations, the opportunity to catch a wave is only present between the time the surfer perceives where the wave will break and the wave breaking. The present findings suggest that a highly developed paddling ability widens a surfer's action landscape during the competition. This may be achieved via surfers utilising their paddling ability to position themselves closer to where they anticipate waves will break and improve their ability to react to perturbations in their environment. The scaling of affordances has been reported in other extreme sports, such as climbing, whereby climbers who display a greater maximal reach and grasp have more opportunities for action (i.e. a broader landscape of affordances).³⁷ This is reflected in the present findings, as a surfer's perception of whether a wave is ‘catchable’ (i.e. an opportunity for action) appears to be linked to their paddling ability.

Stronger paddlers may act closer to their maximal action capability than weaker paddlers. This conflicts with other findings suggesting that novice and expert performers scale their actions to a similar extent, regardless of their maximal action capability.³⁷ Climbers of varying skill levels reportedly act at a similar ratio of their action capability due to risk inherent in extreme environments.³⁷ This finding, however, does not consider the possible interaction of confidence in high-risk situations. A strong paddling ability is believed by those interviewed to provide surfers with greater confidence in dangerous conditions and consequently, these surfers may be more comfortable to act closer to their maximal action capability. This may benefit overall surfing performance by further broadening the athlete's action landscape. However, further research investigating whether these behavioural skill level differences that exist in surfing would be necessary to support this notion.

Previous research has highlighted the ability to adapt to dynamic environmental constraints as a key indicator of expert performance.²³ The environmental constraints encountered by surfers are innately unstable, and consequently, the role of paddling during wave entry appears to shift in accordance with unique wave properties. When surfing waves of consequence, weaker paddlers may experience difficulties in navigating the steep, challenging take-off posed by these conditions and be at risk of a dangerous wipe-out. Alternatively, in smaller conditions, paddling may impact surfing performance by improving speed generation during wave entry and subsequently enhance the surfer's ability to perform a high-scoring first manoeuvre. Therefore, it seems plausible that the interaction between the environmental constraints and the action capability of the surfer plays an important role in determining both safety and success during competition.

The reported advantage in positioning and wave entry gained via a strong paddling ability is suggested to influence skill development and progression in surfing. This finding is supported by the ecological dynamics framework, explaining that during skill acquisition athletes should be provided with opportunities to explore their environment.³⁸ This may foster learning by providing information regarding the outcome of an action relative to the circumstance under which it was performed and resultingly nurture the performer's attunement to affordances.³⁹ The role of paddling in skill development provides a rationale for improving paddling efficiency, potentially enabling surfers to catch more challenging waves. Future research could explore the relationship between paddling proficiency and a surfer's ability to catch various different waves, including waves of consequence.

Physical ability

Paddling ability appears to have several functions in promoting superior surfing performance. Participants highlighted the influence of various physical and physiological qualities on paddling ability such as muscle mass, limb length, strength and power, and aerobic and anaerobic capacities. This provides evidence to support the scaling of affordances relative to one's action capability which are dynamic in nature and constantly change over time.⁴⁰ Participants indicated that the onset of fatigue may negatively influence the surfer's ability to maintain and adjust their positioning and wave entry. Research in other sports has supported this notion whereby a reduction in the performance of technical actions is observed following bouts of high-intensity activity.^41,42 Looking beyond the performance of technical actions specifically, fatigue also influences an individual's perception of affordances.⁴³ That is to say that the fatigue state may influence both the physical ability to perform an action (to catch a wave) and the perception of what activities are possible in the current moment (can I catch this wave).

Participants observed a general perception that male surfers tend to exhibit faster paddling speeds compared to female counterparts, a characteristic likely influenced by sex-related differences in physique, strength, and anthropometrics. This observation aligns with existing literature investigating sex disparities in both sprint and endurance paddling performance perceived.^13,15 This study's findings shed light on how paddling ability may affect surfing performance, particularly by constraining opportunities for wave-catching. However, the authors recognise the importance of acknowledging individual differences among athletes. It is crucial to avoid over-generalisation and to tailor interventions based on an athlete's specific abilities and needs. Considering the pivotal role of paddling in skill development, interventions aimed at enhancing paddling ability may still be beneficial for certain individuals, providing more opportunities for action, such as effectively catching waves, and contributing to an overall enhancement of surfing performance. Further exploration and research are warranted to better understand the nuanced effects of interventions within the surfing community.

Moreover, the perception of poor paddling in female surfers may negatively influence opportunities for wave-riding in female surfers. Other surfers may be more likely to try to catch a wave that a female surfer is paddling for due to the perceived likelihood that she will miss the wave. This belief may hinder skill progression of female surfers by further restricting opportunities for action amongst the cohort. While there is no known research that has explored the potential barriers for women in surfing, this notion is in alignment with previous female athlete development research,⁴⁴ highlighting the need to create a sporting environment that provides and promotes accessibility for women that will, in turn, enable greater participation, skill development, and elite female athletic performance.

Competitive advantage

Participants indicated that an athlete's paddling ability can influence their decision-making during competition. This aligns with existing research suggesting that sporting expertise is associated with a performer becoming more highly attuned to the affordances available to them.²³ The decision to start paddling to catch a specific wave or the decision to paddle into a new position based on the conditions is influenced by the interaction of the constraints and the performer's action capabilities available at the current moment in time. As a result of poor paddling performance, a surfer who is physically unable to catch a certain wave (e.g. a wave of consequence), therefore would likely not consider it in their decision-making process. Alternatively, a strong paddling ability would increase the number of affordances that can be acted upon by the surfer, thus giving them a competitive advantage.

Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that a strong paddling ability provides a tactical advantage during competition. Stronger paddlers are perceived to be afforded more opportunities for action than their opponents during the competition. Notably, the priority rule provides an external constraint upon affordances available to each surfer in the heat. Therefore, stronger paddlers may be able to use this rule to their advantage. Authors have previously alluded to the role of paddling in determining the surfer's ability to gain priority during a paddle battle.¹³ Whilst the present study supports this finding, it also provides novel insights into decision-making and the tactical role of paddling to influence affordances once a priority has been established. The interactions between performers are known as inter-personal synergies.⁴⁵ The influence of these relationships on sporting performance has previously been explored through an ecological dynamics lens in combat sports, with expert behaviour being characterised

by the ability to act and react relative to their opponent.⁴⁵ In surfing, the surfer negotiates their interactions with their opponent using paddling. Participants indicated this to be evident in the surfer's behaviours by trying to block their opponent or take them out of position.

Conclusion

The current study sought to understand the perspectives of athletes, coaches, and support staff to explore the importance of paddling to surfing performance. We found that despite the varied roles and experiences of the participants, nearly all the participants reported that paddling was an important component of surfing performance and that this is often overlooked. Several key themes emerged that were discussed through an ecological dynamics perspective. These themes provided insight into potential considerations for improving paddling performance. Future research could focus on implementing strength, technical and/or physiological interventions to enhance paddling performance in women athletes. Considering the findings of this study, enhancing the paddling ability of women surfers may provide greater affordances with respect to wave-riding and, in turn, accelerate skill development, as well as elicit greater confidence and competitive advantage during competition.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS), the Australian Institute of Sport, and Surfing Australia under QAS Grant #152.

ORCID iDs

Luke A MacDonald

Daniel Chalkley

Clare L Minahan

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