Indo Boarding to Improve Your Surfing
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 3:46 pmIndo Board training is insanely helpful for your surfing. Whether you surf everyday or only once a month, it allows you to practice fundamental balance skills as well as increase muscle and joint strength and joint mobility throughout your entire body. I don’t provide many tips as far as skills on Surf Shape, but this is one of the few where skills are built-in to the workout. Not only that, but Indo Boarding increases your body’s ability to move and flex into surfing positions that you can’t get with other exercises.
I highly recommend it! It's fun and never really feels like you're actually training or working out.
I literally Indo Board everyday, sometimes it’s only 5 minutes and other times 30+ minutes at a time. The key is to be consistent with it so your body becomes used to the movements and muscles groups used, effectively increasing your mobility, strength, balance, and flexibility all-in-one exercise.
If you don’t have an Indo Board yet there are two different types of Indo Boards, the Indo Board Pro and the regular Indo Board. The Pro is much larger and more ideal for surf training in my opinion because it allows you to have a wider stance. If you’re going to shell out the cash, might as well get the larger model so you don’t have to upgrade later when your skills increase and the small one gets boring. This comes from experience because I had the normal Indo Board and had to upgrade to the Pro after I got bored with it.
Basic Indo Board Exercises/Skills
Indo Board Squats:
This is exactly what you think it would be… Set your feet exactly like you are doing a squat on the ground, and, while keeping your balance and the barrel halfway between your feet, do a regular squat. The goal here is to keep your form and maintain your balance. There’s no rushing this exercise and it can take some time to master.
Section Balancing:
What this means is that you segment your board into different sections with a permanent marker or piece of tape, anything so you can see the segments while you’re riding. You can find an example of a sectioned board here: http://www.surf-shape.com/2016/06/indo- ... r-surfing/. The goal is to keep point of contact, where the barrel touches the bottom of the board, in each section for an allotted time while maintaining your normal riding stance (knees slightly bent, etc.). I typically go with 30 seconds in each section; following by general balancing (rest), repeat with the all sections of the board. Spend as much time on each section of the board as you want.
Add more sections to increase the difficulty.
I suggest starting with 3 sections because it can easily be changed to 5 sections later on.
Divide into smaller sections to increase the difficulty.
Barrel stance:
This one is straightforward. Crouch into your typical barrel stance and hold, trying to keep the indo barrel still, then come out of your barrel stance into your normal riding stance, repeat. Again, I recommend holding for 30 seconds. Make sure you do this switch too.
Try crouching lower than you normally would on a wave. This helps to loosen your joints and muscles beyond the norm so your body can more easily get into the positions you require for your surfing.
70-30 technique:
Balance with knees bent like you are riding so that you have about 70% of your weight on one foot and 30% on the other. Keep the barrel still and hold this stance for 30 seconds. Come out of the stance into your regular riding stance (rest), then switch legs and hold for another 30 seconds. Repeat.
70-30 Squats:
This last one is simply a combination of the Indo Board Squats and the 70-30 technique. Balance like the 70-30 technique, and do squats while balancing and keeping the barrel still. This will resemble a lateral lunge without the side-step.
If you have any questions about the exercises above, shoot me an email: garrett@surf-shape.com.
I highly recommend it! It's fun and never really feels like you're actually training or working out.
I literally Indo Board everyday, sometimes it’s only 5 minutes and other times 30+ minutes at a time. The key is to be consistent with it so your body becomes used to the movements and muscles groups used, effectively increasing your mobility, strength, balance, and flexibility all-in-one exercise.
If you don’t have an Indo Board yet there are two different types of Indo Boards, the Indo Board Pro and the regular Indo Board. The Pro is much larger and more ideal for surf training in my opinion because it allows you to have a wider stance. If you’re going to shell out the cash, might as well get the larger model so you don’t have to upgrade later when your skills increase and the small one gets boring. This comes from experience because I had the normal Indo Board and had to upgrade to the Pro after I got bored with it.
Basic Indo Board Exercises/Skills
Indo Board Squats:
This is exactly what you think it would be… Set your feet exactly like you are doing a squat on the ground, and, while keeping your balance and the barrel halfway between your feet, do a regular squat. The goal here is to keep your form and maintain your balance. There’s no rushing this exercise and it can take some time to master.
Section Balancing:
What this means is that you segment your board into different sections with a permanent marker or piece of tape, anything so you can see the segments while you’re riding. You can find an example of a sectioned board here: http://www.surf-shape.com/2016/06/indo- ... r-surfing/. The goal is to keep point of contact, where the barrel touches the bottom of the board, in each section for an allotted time while maintaining your normal riding stance (knees slightly bent, etc.). I typically go with 30 seconds in each section; following by general balancing (rest), repeat with the all sections of the board. Spend as much time on each section of the board as you want.
Add more sections to increase the difficulty.
I suggest starting with 3 sections because it can easily be changed to 5 sections later on.
Divide into smaller sections to increase the difficulty.
Barrel stance:
This one is straightforward. Crouch into your typical barrel stance and hold, trying to keep the indo barrel still, then come out of your barrel stance into your normal riding stance, repeat. Again, I recommend holding for 30 seconds. Make sure you do this switch too.
Try crouching lower than you normally would on a wave. This helps to loosen your joints and muscles beyond the norm so your body can more easily get into the positions you require for your surfing.
70-30 technique:
Balance with knees bent like you are riding so that you have about 70% of your weight on one foot and 30% on the other. Keep the barrel still and hold this stance for 30 seconds. Come out of the stance into your regular riding stance (rest), then switch legs and hold for another 30 seconds. Repeat.
70-30 Squats:
This last one is simply a combination of the Indo Board Squats and the 70-30 technique. Balance like the 70-30 technique, and do squats while balancing and keeping the barrel still. This will resemble a lateral lunge without the side-step.
If you have any questions about the exercises above, shoot me an email: garrett@surf-shape.com.