The Surfer’s Guide To Backside Top Turns

How to do a backside top turn: a guide for intermediate surfers

The backside top turn is a critical maneuver for redirecting your speed and maintaining control when riding on your backhand. To execute a backside top turn effectively, you first need to master the basics: maintaining a functional stance, pumping your board for speed, executing strong bottom turns, and distributing your weight efficiently while navigating the wave face. Mastering backside top turns broadens your ability to adapt to any wave, enhancing your overall versatility and enjoyment. This guide outlines the essentials and provides actionable tips to improve your technique.

What Sets Intermediate Surfers Apart from Advanced Surfers?

Advanced surfers perform dynamic maneuvers on their backhand with power, accuracy, and fluidity, seamlessly connecting sections of the wave. For intermediate surfers, the backside top turn often presents challenges due to inconsistencies in stance and body positioning. A functional stance—centered, flexible, and responsive—is essential for executing smooth and controlled backside maneuvers. It enables precise weight shifts, strong rail engagement, and efficient upper-body rotation, all of which are critical for a clean top turn. Without this solid foundation, it becomes difficult to generate the speed, balance, and flow required to transition seamlessly into your next move.

What are the challenges associated with backside top turns verses frontside top turns

While the frontside top turn offers a more intuitive and natural feel due to the open stance and visibility, the backside top turn demands stronger rotation, more effective rail engagement, and a deliberate approach to timing. Due to physiological differences, surfing on your backhand is more challenging. Surfing frontside, you have a three-way movement involving the foot, ankle, and knee, allowing for greater range of motion and control. In contrast, backhand surfing generally allows only two-way movement, focusing more on the ankle and foot, making it harder to generate speed and fluidity without refined technique and timing.

• While the principles of timing, weight distribution, and wave positioning remain similar to the frontside top turn, the backside variation requires more deliberate head, shoulder, and torso rotation to stay connected with the wave’s energy. As your body is facing away from the wave, the required movements are more challenging and less intuitive. 
• Visibility is more limited compared to frontside surfing as the surfer must actively turn their head and shoulders to read the wave. This requires more anticipation and a sharper sense of wave-reading skills. 
• The turn relies on using the heelside rail to drive up the face, which requires a more forceful commitment given you are driving with your heels instead of your toes. Correct weight distribution and balance are critical to avoid bogging or sliding out. 
• The leading arm must extend deliberately toward the lip for balance and direction, while the trailing arm pulls back more aggressively to initiate rotation. The movement requires a stronger head and torso rotation to compensate for the closed position.
• Timing is more critical since the rotation must overcome the restricted stance. 

The Fundamentals of a backside top turn

Every great backside top turn starts with a powerful bottom turn. The speed and control you generate during the bottom turn create the foundation for a precise and dynamic manoeuvre. While variations exist depending on the wave and your speed, we’ll focus on the core fundamentals:

1. Drive Through the Bottom Turn – Engage your heelside rail during the bottom turn and aim to approach the lip of the wave with speed and power. Keep your head turned toward your target throughout to maintain focus and alignment.
   
2. Lift & Open- As you ride up the wave face, keep your weight on your back foot to drive the board upward while partially decompressing. Swing your leading arm and look towards the lip to aid in opening your shoulders to drive up the wave face. Spot the section where you’ll initiate your rotation.
   
3. Rotation – Just before reaching the top of the wave or as high as you are able to travel, rotate your body in a toeside carve or slide, leading with swinging your trailing arm up. Use this movement to guide your head, shoulders, and hips through the rotation.
   
4. Finish Forward – As your rotation loses momentum, compress while shifting your body weight and arms forward, allowing you to slide back down the face with speed and control.

Key Points for precise turns

Where you place your turn and how much speed you have is critical for a smooth top turn. First, the closer you are able to place your turn to the breaking lip, the more lively your turns will become. But you can still develop your top turns even if you cannot get to the top of the wave yet. Second, adequate speed is essential. Without it, you risk falling off or bogging your rail before finishing the turn. Focus on generating speed through a solid bottom turn and efficient drive up the wave to carry you through the rotation smoothly. Lifting your leading arm and opening your shoulders are key to maintaining speed as you drive up the wave.

Adapting to Each Wave

Wave size and power combined with the speed you are able to generate affect the type of top turn you can complete. Adapting to these factors takes practice, but over time you’ll learn to vary your technique.

As a general rule, the closer you perform your turn to the breaking lip, the more impressive it will be. With sufficient speed and precise placement at the top of the wave, you’ll feel the smooth control of a well-executed top turn. Mastering the backside top turn takes practice and patience, but every attempt brings you closer to unlocking the true flow and freedom of dynamic surfing.