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Keeping fit during a break
In the life of a surfer, there are always periods of stagnation.
Sooner or later, the time will come when you will not be able to surf or do other exercises for any reason.
Often, this reason is busy workdays or inappropriate weather conditions for muscle exercises in the water. But during such interruptions, you should not be depressed and lose the working condition of your body muscles.
You should always encourage yourself with the thought that, in a while, the time will come and you will begin to catch the waves again. And while you are on break, remember about your body fitness and do some exercises.
You need to maintain your body and muscles in order to be able to return to your favorite occupation at any time.
Even if you were suddenly accompanied by setbacks, you should remember that the time will come and you will be back, so be prepared in body and spirit.
As in most sports, success in surfing is not possible without sufficient body muscle strength.
When you need to row on a wave, the broadest muscles of the back, triceps, and biceps, deltas, trapezes, and also the rectus and oblique muscles of the abdomen begin to work.
Before you stand on the surfboard, all these muscles need to be thoroughly heated.
Next, you need to wait for the suitable wave and climb onto the surfboard, that is, quickly raise the upper body. Here, the pectoral muscles of your body are already involved as well as the same muscles of deltas, triceps, and biceps.
So, we get on the surfboard and try to stay on the wave. The muscles of the lower body exercise in the work: thighs, calves, and buttocks.
The thigh muscles of the body play a crucial role when moving on the surfboard, that is why these muscles must be sufficiently pumped and hardy for various turns and cuts.
We have talked with a professional in surfing, with a man who already teaches others the exercises and skills of behavior on the water, Dan Mori.
He told us about how to overcome crisis moments in terms of surfing and how to support your body muscles by some exercises until the next ride.
During the conversation, we found out that there are main parts of the body, the condition of which should be paid special attention to while doing exercises.
In order not to lose the power of rowing during a break, you should strengthen the upper shoulder girdle and, in general, the entire upper body muscles by certain exercises.
It is also necessary to remember the great power of your legs because they are your key tool on the waves.
Your body endurance will determine the quantity and quality of time spent on the water. In order to improve the body endurance, you need to engage in exercises for the development of heart muscles.
The overall strength of the body, in turn, is achieved through strength exercises so do not forget about power exercises for different groups of muscles.
Below, we have put together basic exercises to help your body keep fit during your surfing break.
Squats with a turn below
This exercise is designed to work out the lower body and leg muscles.
In this exercise, the body turns that you make when squatting will contribute to your flexibility and agility during the ride.
If you do these exercises slowly, feeling the tension of your legs, you can be sure that your legs will withstand a significant load when you return to the surfboard.
First, you need the space and ball between your back and the wall. Leaning against the ball, you slowly move down while changing the distance between the legs.
So, you can exercise the maximum number of body muscles on the legs.
When you enter the turning state, put the body in such a position as if you were doing a maneuver or turning on the water.
You should lean forward a little while adjusting the center of your body strength and gravity with the ball.
This exercise will help you in directions and maintain your balance.
To correctly do this exercise, you must monitor the position of the entire body. Your knees should be bent and your shoulders kept pointing down.
When you complete a full squat, then linger at the bottom after the exercise for a few seconds, so you can achieve the maximum effect of this exercise for the muscles.
The main condition for exercise fulfillment is to do everything smoothly and imagine that you are on the wave. This exercise should simulate your ride, otherwise, the body muscle efforts will not make sense.
When you again find yourself on the water, you will realize that you make too abrupt movements and cannot use the acquired skills.
If you already feel confident in exercises with your own weight, training muscles with weights is not superfluous. A great option would be such a basic exercise in the gym as a bench press.
This exercise helps to pump the pectoral muscles of your body as well as the muscles of the arms.
We have already talked about the important role of legs and strong hips so you should definitely include squats with a barbell on your chest in your body muscle exercises.
This exercise will not only help to fully work out the thigh muscles but also strengthen the buttocks.
Walking with equipment
To complete this task, you will need either a cheap foam surfboard or just your old board. In fact, anything that you do not mind will go.
In such periods, when you cannot surf, you can take your surfboard with you for a walk and train your hand muscles in this way.
For an hour, you can walk with the surfboard and keep the shoulders and their joints, back, and arm muscles in shape.
Due to such a load exercise, your rides in the future will become longer and more productive. You can leave the rest of the surfers behind.
So, you can choose a place and do the exercise on it along the shore. You can lift and roll back along the coast while you enjoy the beautiful views.
During this exercise, you will experience almost the same emotions as with a full surfing lesson since your brain perceives emotional memory and projects it on your body muscles.
We use different options for such exercises where you can speed up or slow down periodically, have a conversation with someone, or concentrate on completing the exercise and your emotions.
Rope jumping
On average, the duration of one surf session is about two hours. This is a lot so the body must be ready for prolonged physical activity.
The stamina of the body is very well developed by the circular cardio exercises which alternate calm pace and explosive body effort.
Actually, this is what happens on the waves – you swim at a calm pace, adjust your place on the lineup, and then, when you see a suitable wave, you activate all your forces of the body to catch it.
These are a marathon mode and a sprint mode.
Also, most beginners complain that rowing really hurts their hands.
This is understandable because, for the most part, their muscles rest in everyday life but here, you need to work two hours without stopping. And the point is not that the muscles are weak. In general, rowing does not require extra body effort.
The muscles of hands are just not used to a long monotonous exercise.
Here, I always give an analogy with walking: if you walk for many hours in a row, your legs will not hurt but just at some point, your body will be completely tired.
The same thing will happen with your hands when you develop their endurance – they will not hurt separately from the whole body – just at some point in riding, you will feel that you are tired.
So, for the hand muscles, there is a super simulation exercise – a skipping-rope known to everyone since childhood.
This is a good warming up cardio and an ideal monotonous load on the biceps and triceps.
Good surf-oriented training will be a repetition of 5 to 10 cycles: 1-2 minutes of skipping plus 2-3 exercises for the whole body.
Main body strength
As we see, the muscle load that we get during surfing involves almost all the muscles.
An important element is an exercise with your own body weight.
Be sure to use pull-ups that well exercise your muscles and push-ups from the floor because this is the exercise that surfers need to perform before standing on the surfboard.
This includes ordinary squats as well as twisting muscles on the press. Do not forget to do the usual bar.
If you can hold out for 30 seconds, it’s already good progress. So then, increase your time gradually.
Your body muscles work with any movement on the surfboard even if you are just balancing.
Increasing and maintaining the muscles of the whole body and body endurance will save you from possible traumatic situations and will make your surfing longer and smoother.
Power muscle training is a great option for you to increase your muscle strength. Engage in intervals and strong body muscles will not keep you waiting.
A separate and very important element is endurance. In addition to the above exercises, it will help to improve by swimming in the pool, jumping the rope, interval training on a rowing machine, and running.
An important weapon of a surfer is stretching. The more often you work on it, the more effective your water exercises will be.
Yoga is an excellent assistant in this matter as well.
Often, such exercises to strengthen muscles and increase the strength of your body are carried out in fitness centers.
Our hero gives lessons to strengthen your body and you can get a discount if you tell the employees that you are reading our resource.
