Surfing Waves

Hey question for everybody: I haven't been out in like 4 months because I'm a sissy about the cold....not cold water, cold air heh. I was just starting to get the hang of catching waves and popping up before I went on cold weather hiatus (started surfing last spring) and even had the nerve to go out during the hurricane swells in the late summer/fall (east coast USA lives for em!) and get a few waves.

Since it will be time to get back into the water in a month or 2 I started an exercise routine a few weeks ago: I jog for about a half hour 3-4 times a week, I do light weight/lot of reps upper body stuff like chest press, shoulder press, lat rowing and push-ups (aka press-ups to you UK folks), and when I'm sitting around at home I like to grab a couple of 5 lb weights and sort of do a paddling motion in the air with my arms. I'm currently up to 10 minutes at a time with that one before I tire out. That one and the push-ups I do every day, the other weights I do twice a week. My question is, do you suppose this is going to help me with being able to get longer sessions in early? Or should I still mentally prepare myself for tiring out quickly and having to cut sessions short in the beginning of the season? It's not really a big issue, just wanted to get some opinions and sort of ease my mind on this one....I'm already uptight enough about how rusty I'll probably be and how much floundering will be ahead of me before I get back into the groove.

Yeah, I know, swimming is the best substitute exercise for surfing, but unfortunately that's really not an option right now.

Thanks!
Den

well if your having short sessions now because you get tired then all of the exercise should help if you keep it going. Keep the exersize going even when your still surfing, and in the water when you begin to feel tired, try to surf throughit until your arms are dead. when i had been surfing for about a year i used to go down to the beach and surf from about 8-9 am till about 5-6pm with an hour break for lunch.

To be ohnist i dont realy do any exersize, my exersize if surfing, and when the surf is crap i play rugby, which is like amarican football but with no pads and alot more angry

surfing is my only exersize Mind you ive been feeling on the sore side been having overly long sessions

DZ what you're doing is great. It's a thousand times better than doing nothing, but I'd still expect to tire out the first few times...

The best thing you could do is skateboard on a 1/2 pipe. You need improve you coordination and balance because your a beginner.

Thats a good regime youve got going, builds up fitness and can see some aerobic work in there which will help towards stamina so you shouldn't have any problem when you get back in the water.

Medicine ball!

k I'm seriously considering the half pipe thing...if nothing else, it looks pretty fun and I guess I won't break anything if I wear pads/helmet and start on a small one. I wonder if I can get disability payment from my job if I do break something....

I have the luxury of being able to surf pretty much everyday so my fitness routine involves turning the sausages on the barbeque, lifting my beer to my mouth and getting down and dirty with my lady friend.

If however i didnt have this luxury, i would do a lot of running, push-ups and sit-ups. BUT - i wouldnt be trying to build up too much muscle mass - show me a surfer with massive arms/pecs. I think being fit is much better than being 'big'.

You could add tricep stuff to your routine... tri dips between two chairs or a better one if you can make some parallel bars about chest height(very good for the tris shoulders and chest all in one) the deeper you go the better for the chest and back of the shoulder. lots of reps and a little less weight is the way I would go as was metioned before. I have a cable rowing machine (with two handles)which I can lie on and it uses my body weight for resistance. You can copy the paddling motion one arm at a time and do heaps of other stuff too... I'll shut up now.

The exercise that seems most like paddling is to use a rubber tube with loops or handles at the ends for each hand. Put the middle of the tube around a door knob, bend over and paddle.

Don't forget to imagine that there's a 18 footer coming at you, and you have to paddle like mad to get to it before it breaks on you.

get a speed rope and start jumping. does wonders for conditioning as long as your legs can take it.