A cubic meter of water weighs 1000kg (2204 lbs or 1.2 tons).  Watch how many cubic meters of water fall on these guys heads over and over in this video.  How can they take it?

These are Surfline’s greatest wipe outs of 2011 and they’re vicious.  Everyone survived, but a few got some solid injuries.  It’s kinda gross when the first guy talks about sticking his finger into his open wound up to the knuckles…

The bigger question is:  how do they survive these falls?

It clearly comes down to years of training and a plethora of similarly violent wipe outs that prep these guys to take hits like this.

If you or I paddled out there and took a shot like these.  We would not be telling our grandkids about it.

 “That really hurt!  I’m going to have lump there you idiot!” – Austin Powers