It sounds dreamy, right? Surfing all day, every day, tropical paradise, not a care in the world! An endless surf trip. However, such a lifestyle is much more difficult and less fun than it may seem. Surprisingly, there is such a thing as too much surfing. For most of us, surfing is a fun pastime, and it should be exactly that. Still, when surfing starts negatively affecting other areas of your life, such as your career, family, and relationships, you must ask yourself some serious questions.
In contrast, feeling like you don’t surf enough and stagnating can also take the fun out of surfing. If you can only surf a handful of times in a month and take one surf trip a year, being able to surf how you want to surf is tricky and frustrating. But whether you wish to improve or just enjoy surfing, there must be a perfect balance.
A balance between surfing enough to satisfy your appetite and still having time to thrive in your personal and professional life. This article explores this balance. We dive into all the aspects involved with achieving a healthy relationship with surfing and establishing a surf frequency to suit you. There is no one answer to finding the ideal amount of surfing; it’s all down to you.
Table of Contents
The Benefits & Risks of Surfing Daily
It’s tricky weighing up the benefits and risks of surfing every day. And while surfing all day every day sounds amazing, it takes a massive toll on your body! (Let’s face it, we’re not all John Florence and can’t all surf for ten hours daily). However, surfing as much as possible has both positives and negatives.
Benefits
Progress
The best way to get better at surfing is to surf as much as possible. You can do all the out-of-water training in the world, eat healthily, and watch every surf movie ever made, but unless you’re in the water surfing, there is nothing you can do to 100% replicate surfing. Therefore, progression will be limited. You only have to look at the best surfer you know and see how much time they spend in the water. Chances are the best surfers you know are out there at any chance they get!
The more waves you surf, the more you expose yourself to different conditions, familiarise yourself with equipment and gather more surfing/ocean reference points. Everything you notice, whether it be how a wave breaks to where to push through a turn, are all references that build up the more your surf.
You’ll develop stronger muscle memory when performing maneuvers through sheer repetition, and the more you surf, the more opportunity you’ll have to practice such maneuvers.
Enjoyment
Let’s face it, we surfers are a greedy bunch, and the more waves we can catch, the happier we are. We’re all guilty of it, taking waves off inferior surfers, getting “one more” wave, and staying out for another 2 hours; it’s part of our nature! While this may seem selfish, the more water time and barrel vision you can clock up significantly affect surfing enjoyment; just imagine it, two weeks straight of getting barreled every day–euphoria.
Risks
Injury
If you’re not super fit, surfing every day all of a sudden can easily lead to overexertion and injury. You can’t go from sitting at a desk for 8 hours per day to surfing all day and expect your body to say, yep, that’s ok; I feel great! Just think back to your last surf trip; you’ll know first-hand how sore and tired you feel after that first day. Surfing with sore and tight muscles only takes a tweak in an awkward position to blow out a knee or twist an ankle.
Being Surfed Out
If you’ve ever been on a surf trip for ten days or more, you know how hard it is to surf all day for that long. It doesn’t matter how good the waves are or even how much your surf; surfing for more than 5 hours a day is hard, let alone for consecutive days! Even the world’s best need rest days. Surfing too much can also majorly affect your surf motivation, leading to passing up sessions you would have previously been frothing for.
So while this is one of the better surf frequency issues, you can surf too much. And surfing as much as possible (as a long-term goal) isn’t necessarily ideal either. For example, if you got paid to surf, whether creating content (like me) or surfing professionally, going surfing can feel like a full-time job, which is a strange feeling because it’s the best job in the world, right? But if you add finances and pressure to anything, it can feel more of a chore than a fun past time.
So how do you do it? How do you strike that perfect balance between surf, rest, family, and your professional life? How do you combine these aspects to achieve a healthy life and a good relationship with surfing? Let’s find out!
Surfing for Optimal Progression
Whether you’re surfing for enjoyment or progression, there are a few considerations that will affect how much you progress in surfing. Water time, conditions, equipment, and enjoyment are the main ingredients for facilitating surf progression.
Water Time
I know I said above that getting surfed out can be detrimental to your surfing, but the fact remains the more time yous end surfing, the better you get. However, randomly surfing and repeating the same mistakes and bad habits will stagnate your surfing, resulting in the opposite effect. Instead, you want to combine lots of water time with focused sessions, where you consciously go out and work on specific maneuvers. Add in some video analysis coaching, and you have fast-tracked surf progression.
Fitness
Knowing your fitness level is massive in finding your optimum amount of surfing. And if you want to improve, it’s in your interest to get fit in and out of the water. If you can’t make it for a surf, do a strength and conditioning session or cardio class instead! Become aware of how your body feels after one session, two sessions, or even after a week of intense surfing. Knowing this gives you a reference point into how much time you should spend surfing without pushing it and risking injury.
Conditions
Regarding progression, I’m a huge fan of surfing in all conditions, all types of waves, at all sizes, it’s an attitude that shapes you into a surfer that can surf anything, and that’s ultimately what a good surfer is! There’s a saying I like in surfing; There are no such things as bad waves, only a bad attitude, and the wrong equipment. Try and surf in all conditions and gather as many reference points as possible.
Finding Your Frequency & Tips for Finding It
I get it, not everyone wants to sacrifice their entire life to improve their surfing incrementally, and that’s ok; surfing is about fun. And although fun and surf progression are intrinsically linked (I hate to break it to you, but JJF is probably having more fun than you), If you’re happy with where you’re at, then finding your frequency is more about balancing surfing with the other amazing things in your life, than surfing as much as possible!
What You Want From Surfing
Ask yourself seriously, what do you want from surfing? Do you just want to enjoy the feeling o riding nice waves, or do you want to surf as radically as possible, get tubes, compete, or both? Do you need to surf every day, or are you happy with one after-work splash per week?
Establishing this is the first step in finding your surf frequency balance. If you want to improve, surf as much as possible; if not, then surf whenever you want; although you might be rusty if you haven’t surfed for a while, you never truly forget how to surf, and no one is telling you when or how you need to surf! That’s the beauty of it.
Listen to Your Body
It doesn’t matter what your surfing goals are; listening to how your body feels means you will recover properly and minimize your risk of injury. For example, let’s say you’re surfed out, you’ve surfed pumping waves for ten days straight, and today, the wind comes up, and the waves are terrible; you feel like you should go out because you want to improve, but you’re tired and feel super sore. Skipping this session refuels your surf stoke but allows you to recover, do something else, and have time to do other things. No point risking injury in this situation!
On the other hand, if you’re not feeling fit, your last surf completely took it out of you, leaving you exhausted and sore for days. It’s essential to know that forcing another surf the next day can be counterproductive, and if you want to get fitter and surf more often, it should be a gradual process.
Family Life
You want to have a great family life and enjoy surfing simultaneously. So finding a surf frequency where you can still surf enough and spend quality time with friends and family is super important. The last thing you want is your obsession with surf to affect your family and romantic relationships. Trust me, I know because I’ve had to finish relationships because of surfing and traveling.
Professional Life
If you’re guilty (like me) of skipping work because the surf’s pumping, then you’ll know firsthand how bad you might feel walking into the office the next day and that it’s not great for your long-term career trajectory, particularly if your boss finds out! You want to find a good amount of surfing without impacting your professional life. While it sounds fantastic, surfing every morning before work and entering the office soaking wet and tired isn’t the best look! But then again, this also comes down to your job.
Other Passions
Surf conditions aren’t always good; waves are average most of the time. But if you’ve got several other passions you can dive into when it’s small and onshore, you’re still winning–not twiddling your thumbs, waiting for the waves to get good again!
Summary
So there we have it, the factors you need to consider in finding the right surf frequency balance. Ultimately, it comes down to what you want out of surfing. Whether you want to maximize your progression trajectory or just get in the water now and again, it’s down to you! But I think if you can surf as much as possible, have a great career, and have a family who also loves surfing, then you’ve completed the surf frequency game, and it should be you writing this article, not me!
