Surfing Waves

Surfing just once a week is really making me out of shape. I tried going to the swimming pool but it is too boring and I really hate it. It plays trick on my mind, I'm in water and yet I can't surf. Really frustrating.

I think watching surfing videos while I use a dumbbell would probably keep me motivated but have no idea what weight should I use? I was thinking 4KG might be just enough? Since its the endurance I need rather than the strength?

On another note, I had a melt down yesterday. I waited all week to go surfing. Took me 2 hours or more to drive 90 miles . Got there and the waves was not surfable. Then another 2 hours of traffic back home. I think it won't be long before I pack my stuff up and leave my job and family. They are worried about my mood swings and trying very hard to make me happy. But I can't find anything that I like anymore. Things that I use to love now hate

I hike up and down a hill for endurance. It's a paved road the goes up about 500 feet elevation over a 0.8 mile distance. I try to go at least 3 times a week. I do dumbbells mostly for strength to keep my shoulders from getting rotator cuff problems and give me more paddle powder for the takeoff. I surf whatever there is when I surf. I don't even consider not surfing unless it has been raining and the water is muddy. I take it as a challenge to learn to surf whatever there is. Once I get out of the water I always feel better for having surfed. Any waves I go out no waves and I paddle around or SUP. 4 kg would be a good weight for me I am currently doing close to that but I started with less weight. For endurance you need to get winded during exercise. If you just exercise for a long time it doesn't help that much unless you are getting (slightly) out of breath. You need cardiovascular conditioning to be in shape.

oldmansurfer wrote: For endurance you need to get winded during exercise. If you just exercise for a long time it doesn't help that much unless you are getting (slightly) out of breath. You need cardiovascular conditioning to be in shape.

Exactly right. Doing low intensity resistance exercise for a long time simply builds up lactic acid in the muscle until your muscle is tired. But it doesnt make the muscle stronger and it doesnt make your cardio system stronger. So there are no benefits (exception: you are an elite athlete regularly competing with very high lactic acid levels and want to build up a greater tolerance).

You would be much better off just doing bodyweight exercises (eg push ups, skipping, pull ups if you can, body weight squats, single leg squats, planks/variations. Etc, there are lots of them). Where these are hard (eg pull ups or maybe push ups) then they are good strength exercises; if you can do 15 or 20 reps (eg body squat, skipping) then you need to do them quickly so you are a bit out of breath. So if you have a 4kg weight, you could do really quick shoulder presses followed by bicep curls I guess, then repeat 6-8 times. Not that this is a particularly useful thing to do, I'm just not sure what else you can do with a 4kg dumbell!

So remember: to get any benefit you must either stress the muscle through weight (eg your max effort results in no more than 12 or so reps before you can do no more - so this is strength training, although within the rep range there are different variations depending on what you are exactly training for) or do it at a speed/rate that makes you breath hard (this is endurance). You can combine at times (boot camp or cross fit or circuit training style, or google 'escalating density training') but sitting in front of the TV with a 4kg weight is not one of those times!

There is a lot of evidence that endurance plus strength training is ideal for endurance athletes - not just endurance training alone (for strength athletes they dont need endurance so dont need to train).

So, dont get the 4kg dumbbell.

I feel your surfing pain. I had a bad session on the weekend and I'm still in a bad mood.

That's some good advice from DTC there and I would totally agree with doing lots of bodyweight style routines.

I've got another idea that will kill two birds with one stone.. take up kickboxing or try a class which will combine all of the above exercises with copious amounts of cardio AND will also allow you to take some of your mood out on the pads. Perhaps even give you something new to gain interest in when the waves are flat.

Often our warm ups are literally 15-20minutes long of non-stop high intensity cardio with a mixture of skipping, squats, lunges, sprawls (burpees), 50-100 star jumps, etc etc etc.
I went from struggling to paddle for more than 5mins to now being able to paddle effortlessly for over an hour.
The benefits it's had on my surfing ability to pop up instantly and be stable on the board through all the core and shoulder/chest routines is amazing.

You could take one of our warm ups to try at home?
Starts with 10minutes non-stop skipping ( as best as you can and slowly work towards no breaks or rests)
Then the following exercises:
20 star jumps, 20 split leg jumps or lunges, 20 squats, 20 sprawls (burpees), 20 steel claps (similar to a star jump but your arms swing infront of you clapping in the middle instead of going vertically like a star jump- keep your arms shoulder high to work your chest / shoulders).
End this exercise with a short 20-30m jog also involving some periods of side-steps on both sides.
As soon as you're finished that and back to where you started, start the whole exercise again immediately but with only 10 reps of everything. Now repeat with only 6 reps for everything.
Another single exercise that is good is doing 'tricept push ups'. These are push ups but down with your hands as close to the bottom of your chest and body as possible instead of being out wide infront of you. This will target you tri's instead of your chest and help give you pushing strength for popping up on the board.

We would usually follow this warm up with about 40mins of solid pad / bag work and the finish with more core work and stretching but the warm up in itself is pretty tiring and useful!

Hope this helps- if you're in NZ and or Auckland, I can give you the names of a couple of really good kickboxing gyms with mainly fitness based classes.

Don't call them dumb. Bells have feelings, too.

I have an old injury on my wrist and ankle so I can't do too much exercise. Sometimes if I push myself to hard then I start feeling the pain. I've seen a few doctors and they can't see anything wrong with my bones so it might just be the joints.

I used to be fairly fit surfing everyday for 1-2 hours. I don't get feel fatigue or sore muscles the second day. But last weekend I only paddle for an hour or more and I'm feeling worn out already. I need to bring my fitness level up again or when I go on surfing holidays I won't be able to surf everyday.

Sounds like maybe swimming would be good for you. They have waterproof MP3 players, maybe that would help keep it from being boring? I used to surf and then got so out of shape. When I decided I wanted to surf again even before I got a board I started doing exercises stretching and weights and did that for 6 months then got a board. I was also walking with my wife and a couple who were friends and our dogs but this was a leisurely pace and I didn't ever get winded. When I surfed I found that I panicked underwater when being held down by bigger waves something I never did since I was a kid. Then I started to SUP one day a week. I was fairly overweight and lost about 5 pounds just with that little bit more exercise so I thought I should start pushing it on the hikes more so I started going on my own and seeing how fast I could do it in. Now I am in much better cardiovascular shape and I no longer panic underwater. I started with 1 pound weights then 2 pounds then 3 then 5 then 8 pound dumbbells. Recently my wife bought me this dumbbell set that you can adjust the weight from 5 to 25 pounds. I just switched to 15 pounds recently so I lied when I said it was a round 4 kg more like 8 kg but I am not so good with the metric system. The motivational force for this whole getting healthier drive I have is being able to go surfing. If not for that I would never be able to stick it out. I hope you can find a way to keep surfing.

Having a wrist injury is a pain (huh, pun!) because it does limit your activites. I found that any pushing exercises (push ups etc) made it worse, but pulling exercises (pull ups, rows) were ok. However, pulling exercises all require some equipment so it can be hard.

As Old Man says, maybe you just need to make swimming more interesting. I hear you as to how boring it is, I'm the same. However, waterproof players are a good start; also just mix up the session. So instead of swimming 25 laps or whatever, swim 10 laps, then do 5x 50m laps at 3/4 pace with a rest at the end of each. Then do 5x 25m full pace then 25m slow. Rest. Use swim fins (flippers), or leg supports or those big hand paddle things for a few laps. Swim 40m normally then the last 10m without breathing. Try and stretch the non breathing to 15m then 20m. Have enough variation and the session is over.

Think about your other endurance (heavy breathing...) options. If you have an ankle injury then high impact may be out, so you are left with things like cycling (may not be feasible) , rowing is excellent but you need a machine etc. So just consider what you can do and then do it!

dtc wrote:Having a wrist injury is a pain (huh, pun!) because it does limit your activites. I found that any pushing exercises (push ups etc) made it worse, but pulling exercises (pull ups, rows) were ok. However, pulling exercises all require some equipment so it can be hard.

As Old Man says, maybe you just need to make swimming more interesting. I hear you as to how boring it is, I'm the same. However, waterproof players are a good start; also just mix up the session. So instead of swimming 25 laps or whatever, swim 10 laps, then do 5x 50m laps at 3/4 pace with a rest at the end of each. Then do 5x 25m full pace then 25m slow. Rest. Use swim fins (flippers), or leg supports or those big hand paddle things for a few laps. Swim 40m normally then the last 10m without breathing. Try and stretch the non breathing to 15m then 20m. Have enough variation and the session is over.

Think about your other endurance (heavy breathing...) options. If you have an ankle injury then high impact may be out, so you are left with things like cycling (may not be feasible) , rowing is excellent but you need a machine etc. So just consider what you can do and then do it!

I honestly don't know what's wrong with my wrist. If I do too much pushups then my joints swells up. Lucky that doing popup doesn't really affect it that much. I think subconsciously I put weight on my working wrist when I popup. Was goofy leg in the beginning but I switched to regular due to ankle injury.

I surf longboard so I don't normally get out of breath. But I'm useless and I can't hold my breathe very long. If I do front stroke I can normally swim for around 100m before I have to stop and catch my breathe. However, give me a board and I'll beat most of the locals on paddling speed and endurance.

Hence why I think just getting dumbbells and training up my biceps and forceps should do the trick. As long as I surf around 3-4 ft waves, I won't get held down too long if I do wipeout.