Surfers Cross-Train to Improve
Surfers cross train to enjoy more time in the water and support each technique. The most tiring part of surfing is the paddling. When you can’t paddle any longer, the session is finished.
Surfer Cross Training Exercises
There are three physical demands for excellent surfing: Flexibility, Stamina, and Strength.
Flexibility is important for two reasons. Surfing has a wide range of body movements from the ankles to the upper torso. In catching waves the body is moving down the face and then might need to carve right or left. During the run in pocket, riding up the face and ripping require balance, flexibility, and strength in all the muscles. Secondly, when surfers fall, they don’t want to get tweaked from tight muscles or weak joints.
Stamina is needed first for all the paddling. Paddling out to waves, catching waves, and returning to the waves is about paddling. There is aerobics and recovery. Some of the paddling might be anaerobic in which the effort consumes all your oxygen and you go into deficit. Paddling is the best preparation but out of the water running, biking, or treadmills help build endurance, peak load, and recovery.
Building Muscle Strength
Strength is needed in most every muscle. The feet must exert pressure on the board and the ankles have to support various rotation. The knees and quads exert pressure and must be supported by the hips, lower back, and abs which are the core muscles. The upper body often drives the tricks plus provide paddling power.
The 5 basic movement patterns of fitness are squats, lunges, pushes, pulls, and rotations. They can all be exercised in the gym and contribute to the strength needed for surfing. Building the core is served with dead lifts, squats, and military presses. The entire mid-section, posterior and anterior is the core. Pushing and pulling can be executed with cables, bench presses, pull downs, and seated rowing pulls.
Get Fit for All Activities
Why not use surfing as a motivation to get very fit with surf cross training or take your fitness to the water and use it to help your surfing. Once you are fit for surfing, you should be able to enjoy most sports.
For Surf Lessons in Oceanside, see the Home Page
The Perfect Start to Lose Weight and Get Fit
Free E-Book
You Have to Get Started to Find Your Happiness. Quick Start to Change your Lifestyle
See Surf Packages and PerfectBody.me meal plans.
