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Fibrous half-domed lumps of thickened skin and overgrown connective tissue, located just below a surfer's kneecaps or on the bony ridge of the feet, and sometimes on the joints of the toes; caused by the friction and pressure of knee-paddling a surfboard. An early mention came in Doc Ball's 1946 book California Surfriders, in a caption for a photo showing a group of surfers at San Onofre:

Back from the wars, these boys return to their favorite haunts, and they are here shown cashing in on some of the October surf. We understand that the members of the surfing clan caused a good deal of headache for [Army] service medical officers who were confronted with the problem of "surfing knobs,” those huge bumps found on the knees and feet of inveterate surfers. It was the opinion of some doctors that they had perhaps discovered a new disease!

Surfer's knots were a widely reported malady in the 1960s, during the later stages of the original longboard era. Mostly painless and not prone to infection, surfer's knots were in fact regarded as a status symbol, with a surfer's commitment and dedication to the sport measured in direct proportion to the height and circumference of his knots.

The American Medical Association did a study on surfer's knots in 1965, while 

 magazine reported on a San Diego doctor who cut into a golf-ball-size knot, discovered "cords of pearly white material," and was paying $15 per surgically removed specimen. 

 also noted that the knots were unrelated to "housemaid's knee," a form of bursitis, and that the growths would retract and disappear entirely within four to six months, once the surfer gave up knee-paddling. Surfers meanwhile discovered that foot knots, if big enough, would prevent an army recruit from fitting into standard-issue GI boots, and thus could be used to prevent a tour of duty in Vietnam. In the army induction scene from Warner Brothers' 1978 surf film 

, a cane- wielding surfer takes a whack at his friend's knot in order to bring it up to the appropriately disqualifying size.

Surfer's knots vanished in the late '60s with the introduction of the prone-paddle-only shortboard, then reappeared about 15 years later—in far less numbers—as the longboard again became popular. 

Surfer's knots are also known as surfer's knobs and surf bumps.

surfer's knots

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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