Surfing Waves

Hopefully this might help people out, theres a few threads asking for workouts and i thought i could make thread (sticky?) to help you out. I'm a weightlifter/bodybuilding so i obvisously have different goals to you but this should give you an idea

The Workout
You'll need either acsess to a gym or home gym with free weights for this

The main muscles you'll be using for paddling are triceps, shoulders (deltoid) and back (mainly latismus dorsi)

For these i'd recommend
Dips - can be weighted once you progress to make it harder (tri's pecs)
Close grip bench press (tri's delts)
Bent over rows (back)
Dumbell Overhead press (shoulders)
Clap press up (This mimicks the popping up motion and helps explosiveness)
Pull ups (hands facing away from you) - This mimicks the paddling motion (Back and biceps)
You'll also want a strong core, this will help you in every sport you do really. Use a higher rep range for these, over 15 reps

Stiff-legged deadlift (lower back)
Crunches - weighted if possable (abs)
Dumbell side bends (obliques)


The above exersizes target the main muscles you'll be using but you'll also want to do some compoud lifts to bulk up your whole body
Squats, deadlifts and bench pressing will be good. You can also do calf raises for.. you guessed it - your calves

Your rep range should be 5-8 if you want to gain muscular size (So for surfing, probably not)
6-10 for strength (Yes, possably)
Over that is for endurance (Yep, You'll need endurance for surfing)

Basicly chose whats right for you, probably between 8-15 is good
Do 5 sets on compound lifts, and 3 sets for others

With these exersizes you'll can decide on your routine depending how many days a week you can workout, for begginers a full body workout 2-3 times a week is good. Do not overtrain!

For cardio do swimming, you probably know that! Loads of swimming...

Nutrition
As a surfer you probably won't want to take diet too seriously, add in 200-300 more calories than you usualy do once you start working out. The most important thing is to get enough protien. You want at least 1g of protien per lb of bodyweight. Good sources of protien are meat, dairy products and nuts. Drink some milk after you workout

You don't want to get too huge though, you board will sink!

You should notise some noob gains in your first month or so, it will also improve your performance in almost all sports, as well as getting the ladies


Hope that helps If you don't know what some of the exersizes are just google them. Visit bodybuilding.com for useful training info (Don't worry, it's not jsut for bodybuilders, and there's also a good teen section aswell)

If you need some advice just ask

This looks like a workout to be a bodybuilder, not a surfer. Dude most people know that swimming laps in a pool is the best way to train your body for surfing.

Thanks for that. Was going to ask what weight routines I should be doing for paddling muscles as my arms get tired way too quickly!

I definitely need to start building up my triceps

lateral pull downs.

dont forget to train your body so that everything is equally (ish) strong or you will suffer from injuries.

always cross train your body imo

Chris369 wrote:Thanks for that. Was going to ask what weight routines I should be doing for paddling muscles as my arms get tired way too quickly!

I definitely need to start building up my triceps

Tricep extentions
--done with free weights--one knee and one hand on bench, keeping back horizontal, free hand (with weight) upper arm parallel to back, slowly extend arm from bent to straight.
--done with machine (can be a lat bar or one with a rope)-- stand with arms at side and elbows at 90 degrees, then extend arms downward.

for triceps also you can do dips. Put your hands on a ledge behind you, fingers facing forward over the ledge. Straighten your legs out infront so your arms are taking the weight, bend your arms lowering your body and the straighten again. Try not to scrunch up your shoulders.

Kabazz wrote:The main muscles you'll be using for paddling are triceps, shoulders (deltoid) and back (mainly latismus dorsi)

Um... and ALL the others.
After a good days surf, every muscle I own, and a few I dont, ache.

Sar is right - cross-training is the only way to go.

Some gym work is obviously good, but you'd be better off going for a run and increasing your aerobic fitness.

Kelly Slaters got some beasty triceps, i guess he paddles almost everyday though...

What about a female-tailored workout? As much as I want to build up strength for surfing, I also want to avoid the "swimmer shoulders" that I see a lot of swimmers (both male and female) get. I want to keep my dancer physique as it would look very strange so have a swimmer's upper body while trying to do ballet.

So, is there any way to tone and strengthen for surfing, paddling, and swimming without bulking up? Or is there just no way to get around it?

I know what you mean about the swimmers shoulders - the guys look hot but from what I have seen the girls have big muscular but non-defined shoulders.

They really do swim a hell of a lot to look like that though, not something I think the rest of us really need to worry about. The book 'Surf Flex' has a workout in it for women, based on the generalisation that most women have a weak upper body. Its a good book, Ive read it all the way through and tried the exercises once.

Sar - I agree, it looks fantastic on the guys but I've seen some of the female swimmers around here and it makes me cringe.

Surf Flex...I'll have to see if any of the libraries around here carry it. I would check my school one, but they seem apt to only have books that were published in the 70s, nothing recent.

@ island bri; you will only bulk up if you change ur diet, continuously increase your weights etc. so if you just get a work out e.g. swiming a couple of times a week or a weekly gym session you should be fine. This depends though on how your body functions, i have high metabalism so it means that i can get away with eating whatever i want and not worry about putting on weight. also if i go the gym i get toned pretty quickly so it can also depend on how your body functions

One of the rubbish thing about flat spells, is that I get all restless and feeling like I need some exercise... so I go for a run... and run far too far far too fast.... ouch ouch ouch.... c'mon waves, come back, I need to stop running... *hobbles to a hot bath*

Because your mainly working your trapezius (back of your shoulders) aka swimmers shoulders.

So if you work your detoid aswell, you shoul be evened out
Well thats what iv been told anyway.

Do more backstroke in the pool instead of frontcrawl.

Brummie - Then I'll have nothing to worry about. The most weight I've ever gained was 10 pounds in 6 months. (Which took me from 100 to 110lbs. Big whoops) I have a hyperactive metabolism, but I've never worked out my upper body so we'll see how that goes.

Drowningbitbybit - Oh that just conjured a funny image.

Surfdaisy - Good point. Though out of curiousity, can you be considered a strong swimmer and still have a weak upper body? I noticed a funny little thing happen yesterday at the pool - I was swimming laps up against some of the swim team who were doing freestyle and I was on my back just swimming with my legs. I was going just about as fast as they were! It made a for an amusing scene for the lifeguards, so I was told.

Kabaz knows is stuff. Weight training is necessary to improve in all aspects of any sport. How you weight train will differ based on the sport. For surfing, you would weight train primarily for muscular endurance and maybe "explosivenes" such as when popping up. To train mainly for muscular endurance you would do more reps per set maybe around 12-20. As you build more muscle, the more sugars( energy) your muscles can store allowing u increase muscular stamina when paddling, surfing, etc. Just look at laird hamilton.

Ok people.

I know it sounds like selling, its not, its all here, the secret lies in this post.
Search no more. I spent ten years searching for the ultimate workout, the one that will give the power, agility and speed of the pros.

Its very simple and logical, in fact.
You just need to workout every muscular groups, without weights or any equipment, including hand and foot fingers!

Do all these simple exercises ill try to explain you bellow, easily and calmly and repeat them sometimes, as long as you feel confortable, this is suposed to put all your muscles in equilibrium so that, when you move in sports, all muscles that should be working, they work as they should, not too much, not too litlle.
The problem is that if you are not a natural athlete, you dont have all your main muscles activated, and there are those that are over activated and those that are under activated, resulting in an unbalanced and unefficent body moving.

Believe this, its no joke.

Start with your feet
Move your fingers till it hurts then stop.
Then, pull your foot up like you wanted to touch the leg.
Then push it forward to the max. Move only the foot, not the legs.
Notice that these simple exercises, contract hard one muscle and strech hard the opossite muscle at the same time and vice versa. They get balanced after some training.
Now pull your leg up like you wanted to touch your chest with your knee.
Do the oposite like you wanted to touch your back with your foot. Go around your abdomen also, to work the side muscles that make the connection with the andomen.

Now you hand fingers, move them till they hurt.
Now the arm.
Pull your hand like you wanted to touch in the shoulder with it, until the arm stops and you cannot pull no more.
Now push it forward untill your arm is completly straight.
Again, notice that one muscle contracts, the other stretches and vice versa.

Now you must rotate your arms all the ways you can around your torso, up, down, left, right. You must activate all the muscles of the upper torso with the move of your arms around it, in all directions possible. I give you an example, put your arm in front of your face and try to touch your spine with your hand. this will activate the chest. Do all directions until the move is stopped by the unabillity of the body to continue the move, like in stretching.

Hope you understood this part, simple to show, but hard to explain.

Now the head.
Be especial carefull with head, move it slowly in every directions, up down left right, again until the head cant move no more in the headed direction, like if you try to touch your chest with your jaw, eventually, depending on the elasticity of your muscles, it will eventually stop.

Hope you understood what i meant.

My fellow seekers of the phisique of the pros, im not kidding, this works.

Do this everyday, gently, for 15 minutes a day or more, as long as it feels right, dont force to much, for instance when you wake up, or do it after some running before the surf and see the results.

If you dont understand something (iam not a pro in english), let me know.

I have msn and webcam and i can show you how i do.

Try this and then post the results, let everyone know.

Manula wrote:Dont search no more.

I am in a very pedantic mood and that^^^^^ my friend is a double negative. You have told us all to carry on searching, I dont think you meant to do this? It's ok, just be more careful in future.

My natural language is not english...

its corrected, thanks for checking my english.