Surfing and training

[surferpup]

Hey peeps!
I was wondering if any of you have a 'training program' you stick to to get you fit for surfing.
I started surfing jus a few weeks back, and at the moment I am just practising paddling out, catching waves (im nearly standing now too!!!).
Obviously you need to be fit to keep up with the waves n that. I go to the gym twice a week and play footbal once a week. I'm finding that the gym is boring and i cant push myself anymore because i dont have the interest. The gym doesnt really do much for surfing either i suppose?!
so.... i was just wondering any of you have like a program you follow, or if you do any specific training. I really enjoy surfing and if i can get to train like a surfer then il be chuffed!

[Sar]

Hey Jodie,

Glad you've been getting out there. I have a big issues with fitness, being a smoker a drinker and have 12 hours behind a desk everyday, I have back problems and I HATE the gym - soooo boring - I am, needless to say, very weak on my upper body stength.

A lot of people seem to recommend yoga (there are dvd's of yoga especially for surf fitness) and swimming which makes perfect sense in terms of paddling. For the pop-ups Ive been practicing them on my living room floor but there seems to be a general consensus that paddling is everything!! Also, apperently your weight should be on you stomach (with you shoulders lifted off the board) when paddling on your board so abs and lower back work sounds sensible.

This may help....

https://surfing-waves.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6491
Im aiming to go for the swimming to help ease the 'smokers lungs' that I have inflicted upon myself. The more efficient you make your muscles at working with the oxygen you provide the better - swimming is very good at this.

I know the ideas of fitness, I just dont necessarily practice them

...anyone of the more experienced surfer please do feel free to correct anything I have said though - Im not even standing up yet so hardly in a place to give advice!

Type 'fitness' into the search for the forum and it brings up loads!

[GowerCharger]

surf as often as you can, and be pro-active, dont just sit waiting for waves and dont come out when you start to feel tired
Ive been surfing gennith a lot recently and it has sideshore current which can be really strong on occasion, its funny watching people drift past every now and again while your paddlign to stay on the peak against the current, those are the days when fitness really makes the difference.

I dont care much for gyms, i have free membership of one but have never been. I have some free weights at home which i use, and if i cant get surfing due to flat spells or work then i put in the laps at the pool (i find that much less boring than running on a machine). As long as your doing something to keep on top of your cardiovascular fitness thats the main thing even if its not directly cross-training for surfing.

I also do breath-holding exercises, not that theyre essential fro uk waves i just like to know if i do get held down for a few seconds that i wont panic cos i know i can hold my breath for a few minutes.

[dondiemand]

Yoga, i think, is the best exercise outside the water.

[cj]

Alright Bro, Usually I charge for this, but:

The Surgeon General and the American Heart Association recommends 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity on most, if not all days of the week, and the American College of Sports Medicine Concurs.

In other words, the most important exercise that you can do is Cardio. Hands down. It increases the enzymes in your cells, increases your oxidation, decreases Catacholomines, etc, etc, etc, and most importantly, it increases your VO2max.

You should go jogging/running (since you already surf, you have an upper body cardio work out by paddling) every other day (at least) for 30-40 minutes.

You want to get your heart beating at (220 - your age) Multiplied by .7-.9 , Depending on how fit you are to start with. This is called your target heart rate. For example, I am 27, so (220-27=193) Multiplied by 80% excertion is about 154 beats per minute.

Second, is stretching. You should stretch before you run, but it is better to jog for a few minutes before stretching, stop, stretch, then continue your run, and stretch after your workout.

Third most important is resistance training, you probably over trained when you went to the gym and got bored with it, a lot of guys do 3-4 sets of every exercise thinking they are getting more results from it (only if you have enough muscle mass to NEED to do that many sets, picture ARNOLD).

You should do 2 sets if you are a young healthy male, of each exercise.

Dynamic exercises are best, those are the exercises that require more than one muscle to perform the movement, like squats, bench press, dead lift, things like that. Although doing a couple isolated exercises will be a benefit too, but you don't want to build your workout around them, or you will chance injury down the road (injury from sports, not during your weight training session)

You should lift weights at least 2-3 times a week.

Before you lift weights, do a short cardio session (about 3-5 minutes) and stretch out a little (this is your warm up.)

When you are lifting weights, you always want to be aware of PROPER posture, whether standing up or sitting down while performing a movement.

Also, you want to perform the movement to the FULL range or motion, although shorter movements do stimulate growth, but we are not trying to look like Arnold, we want to be strong and flexible with great endurance so we can paddle for big waves, and be flexible enough to not die when they throw us to the bottom.

Preferably, after your workout, do a short cardio workout, like 5-10 minutes, and then stretch (this is your cool down)

And then, to make your training specific to a sport, all you have to do, is regularly practice that sport or activity.

This is the recommended way of working out.

That will be $55 / hour.

[Hopupu]

I don't agree with the yoga bit. It's utterly useless in terms of surfing. It only makes you more limber and prone to back injuries.

Obviously surfing is the best training for surfing, but other then that:

- swimming: use pullbouys so you can focus on armstrenght. Your legs aren't gonna help you when surfing / interval training helps you improve alot (eg. swimming 4x25 and building up with different speeds, swimming different strokes 4x24, ...) / underwater swimming so you are comfortable with that / try breathing out through your noise while tumbling and swimming backwards (helps reducing the amount of ocean water entering noise when bailing )

- press-ups and that exercise that improves triceps alot (I don't remember the name, it's turning your back to a chair and pressing up and down with your feet on the ground). also just practising push-ups on the floor.

(Oh yeah, I wouldn't stretch since it highly contraversial and is said to increase chances of injury, instead I would try shoulder strenghting excersises)

[cj]

(Oh yeah, I wouldn't stretch since it highly contraversial and is said to increase changes of injury, instead I would try shoulder strenghting excersises)[/quote]

Stretching is NOT controversial. I have heard a lot of personal trainers in reputable gyms even say this, it is a myth.

Ask ANY sports med Doctor, or physical therapist, etc.

This is what I do, trust me, stretching is one of the best things that you can do, but you should stretch after warming your muscles up with light intensity, short duration, cardiovascular exercises.

Yoga DOES NOT make your back more prone to injury, Having weak abdominal muscles makes your back prone to injury. The people who get injuries when they are doing yoga, get them because they didn't believe in stretching.

Females should stretch, and perform resistance training so that they can ward of the very high potential of osteoarthritis, osteporosis, and stretching is even good for rheumatoid arthritis.

As far as the actual muscles themselves go, the muscles are composed of tiny little contractile protiens calls Actinin, and Myosin. The actinin are covered by a webbing called troponin (the goal here is for the muscle to FLEX the myosin ((which looks has a suctions cup thing on the end of it)) must grab the Actinin, BUT the troponin ((the webbing)) is in the way, so what happens is.

The neuron (for short) sends a message up to the central nervous system letting it know that it is having a force placed on it, OR the central nervous system might have just sent a message to the neuron (depends on why the muscle needs to flex) and then the neuron releases acetylcholine which causes the muscles to go through a bunch of stuff, and then this triggers a release of calcium (bla bla bla) and the calcium binds to the troponin which causes it to move out of the way, so that the mysin head can grab onto the actinin (this is known as the sliding filament theory, but it is not a theory, it is a fact, they just call it a theory because there are still a couple questionable unknowns, but anyone who knows anything about medicine, physiology, kineseology etc. knows that everything is considered a theory, because there are always supposed unknowns.)

If you don't move this entire unit through the entire range of motion, it will start to develop a lack of enzyme, and serious ability not to oxidize, etc. There also will be compromises to the neuromuscular pathways, this is why lazy people tend to store a whole bunch of glycogin ni thier muscles, which turns to fat while they are laying around talking about how exercise is bad for you.

This is how the muscle works, there is NOTHING controversial about stretching, except that someone a long time ago probably said that there was, and now a handful of people believe it. Keep in mind, almost 99% of the stuff you see or hear about on TV, through muscle mags, etc. is B.S.

People are manipulating those who are not educated on the matter in order to make money. They have been doing it since the days of snake oil sales men.

I use to bench press well over 500 lbs. (I benched 620 in a sanctioned touch and go meet). I weighed 245 lbs, solid, and was insanely muscular. I all but quit lifting weights because I wanted to get back down to being smaller and get more into endurance and agility sports, which I did very well. I have been working out since I was 5 ( from the time I was 5-11 years old I studied martial arts, everyday, personally I wish I wouldn't have) then when I turned 11 I started lifting weights, it wasn't until last year when I went to work as a personal trainer that I realized, that I didn't know anything about working out. I knew how to do it, but I didn't know WHAT I was doing, and all the other trainers had 4 years degree's etc. so I started really studying it (I spent 4 hours yesterday reading the ACSM exercise prescription book, this is part of my daily routine) and then I realized that there are a lot of trainers out there, with 4 year degrees that STILL don't really know how it all works. We had this debate when I worked at Gold's Gym, is stretching good or bad, when should you do it, etc... It is all in black and white and prescribed to by all of the upstanding medical community. Stretching is AWSOME as long as you do not hyperextend your muscles, and it is better to warm the cardiovascular system up with a light, short duration warm up before stretching.

Sorry to be so passionate abou this, but I suggested that he do stretches and then you said that he shouldn't, and I really do know this stuff. Although I probably mispelled a lot of the terms.

[GowerCharger]

i would say that warming up through movement is more important than streching, not to say that you shouldnt stretch at all but a light jog will do much better.
When i lift i dont do any stretches just warm up sets with low weight, which is pretty close to stretching i guess as yoiur using full ROM but it gets you warmed up for the movement your going to do by doing that exact movement. The problem with stretching is a lot of people will just stretch out till it hurts and think its doing them good, whereas stretching a cold muscle in that way can and will cause damage. As is often the case with excercise things, injuries can occur from people doing something incorrectly (bad form etc.)
I see a few people doing stretches dwon the beach before their going surfing, but most of them seem to concentrate on doing lots of different stretches with their legs, then run in and start paddling like mad without doing anything to warm up their rotator cuffs, which are used in paddling, easily damaged, and can be a major problem if they become damaged (you will know about this already if you used to bench press a lot- weightlifters tend to be very aware of the potential of shoulder and rotator cuff problems)

[Hopupu]

Yeah, warm-up and cool-down are the key words to anyone training seriously.

As for stretching, well there are 2 different point of views (and not only personal trainers are saying this, anyone googling "stretching" and "bad" can read this). I swam competition for 10 years and never stretched. I just did my warm-up laps and I was fine and never got any injury (I must admit I did light stretching after a heavy training or race). I saw tuns of guys stretching like mad and getting injured.

I wouldn't say stretching is good or bad, but I wouldn't advise it. Especially if you don't know what you are doing, you can get injured (which is a fact).

Of course I respect your point of view cj and obviously stretching helps you as you seem to know lot's about it.

[cj]

well Jodie, we have two different points of view on here, so I guess you are going to have to decide for yourself.

Personally, I go with the position stands of the American College of Sports Medicine, but the truth is, when it comes down to the what is good and what is bad for someone, it is so specific to that person, that none of use can really answer, just provide guidence.

I personally think that stretching is awsome, if done right, and I do agree that stretching can cause injury if done wrong, that is why in my original post I said to warm up your cardiovascular system (in the process warming up your muscles) before stretching them. If you don't warm up, you could put yourself at risk of a myocardial infraction as time goes on, because the stroke volume may be too great for your left ventricle to keep up, or a number of other reasons.

Again, just like when I use to work out real heavy, everyone had thier own point of view of how to do it, but I sure wish I would have listened to the guys that favored the published medical findings.

[Sar]

with regards to the stretching, the little exercise that I do I have noticed that if I dont stretch, my muscles ache badly afterwards and the recovery time is much longer. I have heard that you really shouldnt stretch cold muscles but I have always found that a light stretch afterward pays dividends. I think its when people overstretch that the damage is done - dont bounce into the stretch and dont push your muscles too far.

[cj]

I think its when people overstretch that the damage is done - dont bounce into the stretch and dont push your muscles too far.[/quote]

That is exactly what I think. Just stretch the muscle through its entire range of motion, if it won't go past a certain point on its own, you shouldn't force it, that is when you are causing the damage when it comes to stretching.

[trails surfing]

i have a very complex training program that i try to do on a daily basis. it's surf surf surf and more surf. it's been working really well for me and my surfing has really improved with this training program.

[surferpup]

thanks.. that helps alot!!
To be honest, i'v found if i dont stretch then my muscles will ache a bit the next day. A light jog does help though too... it's like you sead, just don't over do it!
Guess il be in the swimming pool for the next couple of weeks, change from the gym i suppose! I dont mind running on the beach in the colder weather though.. odd! lol
I think surf n snow's method would work well though hehe!!

[sal]

[quote="trip"]I don't agree with the yoga bit. It's utterly useless in terms of surfing. It only makes you more limber...quote]

Yoga does make you more limber...which helps immensely with popping up...it also helps with body tone (esp. strengthening abs), balance, and focus...

how can this be useless in terms of surfing?



As you may have guessed, I do like my yoga!