Two Important Requirements to be a Good Beginner Surfer
Surfing is more technical and more tiring than anyone expects. There are Two Important Requirements to Be a Good Beginner Surfer. There are indeed a lot of requisites to advance and I have several books that outline those steps. But two items stand out.
First, a person has to be a good learner. It is amazing how many people cannot coordinate their brain and body to follow an instruction. Whereas most people can execute the beginner pop up on dry land, they fall apart in the water. It is a function of how much physical activity a person engages in, but also how much learning they engage in where the body has to learn new moves.
Who Makes a Good Beginner Surfer
An active 14 year old girl can be a great student. She is dancing, playing soccer, maybe doing gymnastics or volleyball. Her brain is constantly demanding her body learn new moves. An inactive child or teen can be terrible students. It is great they want to learn something new, but their years of inactivity haven’t taught their body and brain to learn together. It might be called coordination.
A second is how a person can handle their body weight. Surfers talk about the power to weight ratio. Do they have the power/strength to lift their body off the surfboard. It is much more difficult in the water than on dry land. Dry land gives the board support so almost any fumbling can get a person standing up, but in the water, the fumbling doesn’t work. Doing a pop up begins with an upper body push up and then moving a foot under the butt and standing on one foot for a few seconds while the body rises and the front foot moves to its spot.
Lean is the preferable weight of surfers, but normal weight also works. Overweight becomes a challenge and obese is just about impossible. Check your weight on the Body Mass Index calculator. My height and weight at 5’10” and 164 pounds is midway between too light and overweight so in the middle of normal weight. The lighter you get, the easier it is to execute surf techniques beginning with the pop up in the water.
More Requirements for Handling Body Weight
Part of handling body weight is strength and flexibility. A person that has gained weight has probably stopped exercising so their ability to handle their weight has decreased. The two best exercises for surfing are push ups and squats. I do 40-50 pushups every morning and about 60 squats without weight. This gives me the upper body strength to snap my body off the board and the flexibility to get my feet under my body. These exercises build core strength which is also important.
A final criteria that is important for enjoying longer surf sessions is stamina. Surfing is tiring. Can you swim for an hour? A swimmer told me an hour of swimming in the ocean is not as tiring as an hour of surfing. You get to rest in between surf rides, but the glucose in the muscle gets used up and when it is gone, an untrained body doesn’t burn fat for fuel. Training builds a bigger reserve of glucose in the muscles and trains the body to use fat when the glucose is gone. Glucose is made by the liver from carbohydrates.
This assumes the surfer has a good nutrition program to fuel the body and support recovery. A balance of macronutrients and micronutrients support body health, strength, and stamina. Learning to surf is a full body and full brain exercise. Having both operating at optimum supports learning to surf.
Read Other Posts:
Beginner Surfers Learn on Soft Tops
5 Steps to Improve Surfing Performance
3 Ways to Catch Real Surfing Waves
Training to Ride the Surfing Short Board
Short Board Surfing Techniques
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