Land exercises to improve surfing

[surfcomp]

Ive been surfing for about 9 months, you could still call me a beginner. This fall I'm moving to college and the nearest breaks are going to require a bit more effort on my part to get to. In the meantime, I want to improve my surf on land. I was looking for anything that could improve balance, stamina, paddling power, etc. Anything that will help when I'm out surfing!

I do have access to UCLA's pools and gyms(which also has a rockwall if that would help any). I was also thinking of an Indo board but I'm not sure if its a good investment.

Anyone have specific routines and exercises they do when you're out of the water?

It really depends on your experience and level of surfing. As a beginner who is struggling to stand up on your board, a simple exercise I completed when I was learning, was to do the following:

Lie on the ground face down as if you were on your surfboard

Do 3 strokes as if you were paddling

Place your hands directly below your shoulders and raise your upper body

Push up and spring to your feet, with your front foot forward and body balanced

Do this 10 times morning and night for two weeks. After this you will be springing up to your feet on your board like a champ. It worked for me 42 years ago and worked for all my kids when I was teaching them to surf.

Now to improve your balance, I suggest doing 10 of the following:

Standing arms out stretched like you are on your board

If goofy raise your right leg, bent at the knee

Rotate your upper body anti-clockwise in a quick action

Then repeat the exercise rotating clockwise 10 times

What this exercise does is force you to counter balance your body's centre of gravity to a neutral position while maintaining the all important power turn. Without these fluid motion/skills your surfing will remain static, do this repeatedly until your surfing is dynamic.

Hope these things help.

Greg Gillespie
Founder of Surfcomp and maker of the very first set of thruster fins for Simon Anderson.
http://surfcomp.net http://surfboardsfins.com.au

[oldmansurfer]

Hey Greg that's a nice writeup there. One question, Why place your arms by your shoulders for practicing popups? Is that for a longboard or any board?

[Art]

Now to improve your balance, I suggest doing 10 of the following:

Standing arms out stretched like you are on your board

If goofy raise your right leg, bent at the knee

Rotate your upper body anti-clockwise in a quick action

Then repeat the exercise rotating clockwise 10 times

Great advice. Just to be clear, so does that mean for natural footer, raise your left leg(therefore balancing on your back leg) and then rotate?

[jaffa1949]

I suggest you to take an expert's advice. You can go through the internet search. There are many websites available on the internet which can be very useful to you.

[Big H]

I’m not fancy.....push-ups, pull ups, dips, leg raises when hanklving from the pull-up bar, sit-ups and ride my carvers (surf skateboards with special trucks). And I stretch. I also walk around 3mi a day during the course of working.