Foiling v SUP surfing and stress on the body

Thank you for your reply. I have read on the forums and spoke to a couple of guys who SUP but went to foil and said the same thing about the differences and the adjustment going back to SUP.

The amount of strain foiling causes on your body very much depends on the type of foiling you're doing and how your doing it. I find sup foiling puts a lot more strain on my body than winging, particularly paddling hard on short boards and pumping hard to link waves. In comparison to sup surfing I think sup foiling is definitely harder on the body. Your generally on a shorter board pushing harder and then once your up your pumping and working harder. I find it puts strain on my back and hips, knees seem to not be bothered by it. You could mitigate this a bit by opting for a longer narrower downwind style board. Definitely don't let that put you off as sup foiling can be amazing, I almost never sup surf as I get so many more waves, longer more dynamic rides and overall fun out of sup foiling than sup surfing. Winging on the other hand I find to be easier on the body in comparison to both sup foiling and sup surfing. It's a great full body workout because you're really working both your arms and legs but it's quite low impact (mostly). It also doesn't put as much strain on your back as sup padding.
Definitely the huge range of gear can be confusing for a newbie. There's a lot of options but you don't necessarily need a huge amount of gear to enjoy it. As a SUP guy you can get a board that works well for sup foil and wing and have a setup that covers an absolutely huge range of conditions and locations both wind and wave powered.

My foil journey started with winging and that's awesome but if winds not your thing that's cool.
I sup surf and still love it and initially when I saw sup foiling I though ok but the day I saw Foil Drive catch waves 200m further out I'm going yes that's looks fun. I got a second hand assist plus but with the integrated mast (no messing around taping cables) and need to get mount location as far forward but not to the point you're rubbing your back foot. Gen 2 awesome but couldn't justify the expense. I will sit way out and wait for the set, pull the trigger and turn on to the wave then hips back to get the prop out the water and let go of the trigger - that's when it's awesome gliding fast up in the air on the wave
Returning to sup surf your first bottom turn is hopeless but second wave your surf felling is back - gouging turns into the wave and hitting the lip.
My local we have a reef but its too shallow to foil so Ill sup surf or when waves are really good.
My next spot the wave is longer and sometime fatter and ideal for foil drive, it can be busy but go out through the crowd once and kick off before coming back in. Your wave count is high and like back country snowboarding - foiling feels like riding powder and only riding with other foil drivers and maybe a few sup foilers on long downwind boards - don't be that person riding through the pack giving foiling a bad name!
Do research and buy second hand - enjoy

Hi, I am 69 and sup and sup foil, and now with foildrive. I first moved to suping to increase my wave count and time on waves. My move to sup foiling was more for the challenge but the number of waves and distance keeps me there. I found at first supfoiling was harder on the body, but you quickly get fit for it and develop skills to make it easier. It does take a bit to get your balance back moving between the 2 disciplines but I have friends that don't seem to have any difficulty.
The move to foildrive just increased time and distance to a whole new level and opened up waves that I could never have caught otherwise. Again there are the downsides of weight and extra drag of the pod. I can't say now that I notice the weight so much and you naturally learn to ride a little higher on the foil where the pod has no drag. An average session for me is about 40 waves with somewhere between 6km and 8km total on waves, and mostly cutting out before the break and boardies. Sup foiling gave me around half that distance and mostly had me surfing the break so I was always looking for breaks with few or no surfers.
I still love suping but there really is something about flying above the waves, the speed and the distance. Addicted!

Go for it!!!

I am 63yo and was an avid sup surfer for years, I now pretty much only sup foil and love it.

I feel regular sup foil surfing is not that hard on the body at all and I enjoy the fact I can get enjoyment in much smaller conditions (so can avoid getting flogged by the big sets) and can avoid the crowds more.

I also downwind on sup foil and do some flatwater paddle ups etc, this starts to get a bit tougher on shoulders and legs etc as you have to put in a lot more effort to get on foil.

I actually enjoy the workout though and will be avoiding a foil drive unless I really have to as I get older, as I believe in use it or lose it.

I do find that where I used to be able to catch waves that no one else could I am now regularly competing with foil drives so it may get harder and harder to get waves but I do find most of the foil drive crew respect the fact that I am still just paddling and allow me to get a few.

So in summary sup foil surfing is not really much different than sup surfing unless you start pumping a lot to get back out or link waves.
That is not necessary though and you can just paddle as you would on a sup and when paddling back out I stand in a more parallel stance and paddle on both sides anyway pretty much the same as sup surfing.

A lot of the stress on the body comes from all the work you have to do to pay for the gear.
Also the amount of stress depends on how user friendly or otherwise the days conditions are.