Strength Training For Surfing

There’s no doubt that surfing is a physically demanding sport, and surfers need the strength, endurance, balance, and stability to tackle the toughest waves. Even the best surfers need to work on their surfing skills and techniques, which aren’t limited to the water. So what can surfers do to crush their competition? They can do strength training.

Strength training for surfing do include lifting, not to bulk up but to increase surfers’ strength. Strength training benefits surfers in many ways; it helps improve muscular endurance and strengthens their core, making them more capable of handling challenging waves.

 Many surfers incorporate strength training into their daily routine, and this doesn’t just involve lifting weights but includes a series of exercises to strengthen their muscles so they can surf better. But what other benefits does strength training have for surfers?

The Benefits Of Strength Training For Surfers

Strength training has been around for a while, but only recently has it become even more popular with surfers. While surfing may look easy, it requires a lot of physical strength. Surfing requires you to use a lot of muscle groups to paddle, keep you balanced, and help you navigate through the waves.

When you think of surfing, you wouldn’t believe that it uses almost every muscle in your body, but it does. Along with activating numerous muscle groups, surfing also requires mobility, strength, and coordination, all of which can be improved with strength training.

A few more benefits of using strength training include:

Increased Confidence In The Water

When surfers adopt a strength training routine, their body changes. They gain muscle tone, perform better and confidently handle challenging situations while surfing.

Professional surfers know that it’s not just about talent but about adopting a few techniques to help enhance their skills and help them reach their peak physical performance.

Strength training can be challenging, and surfers may hit their mental walls when they train. However, if they have the strength to continue, they’ll be more confident in their abilities and may take more significant risks, and are more likely to win.

According to a study by Newcastle University, strength training with weights makes your nervous system more robust, making you perform better. This is especially beneficial for surfers who experience the fight or flight feeling when faced with a massive wave.

More Endurance And Energy

Surfing is an endurance sport, and surfers must sustain between 2 and 4 hours of activity. When riding the waves, surfers are faced with the unpredictability of the ocean, and with one swift wave can be wiped off their board. Having endurance and energy can help keep them going.

So how does strength training give surfers more endurance and energy? When strength training is performed correctly, it improves muscle strength through a method of resistance, such as weights. More muscle strength and tone increase endurance, and surfers can keep going without feeling burnt out.

Increased Power

Strength training increases the power of your muscles, which allows better speed while on your board.

The more force applied during surfing through movements like paddling and bottom turns, the better your agility, pace, and refinement through each move.

Improved Stability And Balance

Strength training can also include exercises that help with balance and stability. When surfing, these exercises develop sensory feedback, help improve posture and create a greater sense of awareness.

Some exercises for improved stability and balance are overhead walking lunges, knee tucks, and alternating overhead presses. In addition, any strength training exercise that works your core or requires you to balance is a great exercise to improve your stability and help you balance better.

Stability and balance are essential in surfing. Without balance, surfers won’t be able to stand up on their surfboards or stay standing as they ride the waves. Stability keeps surfers grounded to their board, and lots of core exercises are needed to increase stability.

Prevents Injury

Surfers want to prevent injuries. Unfortunately, injuries take time to heal, which means more time away from surfing. There are two main ways surfers can get hurt, and that’s from turns and paddling when surfing.

The turns can injure a surfer’s back and hips, while injuries from paddling affect the neck, lower back, and shoulders. Paddling puts an increased amount of pressure on your neck, back, and shoulders. If these muscles are weak or you have a weak core, it will be more challenging to paddle and easier to get injured.

Strength training helps prevent injuries by strengthening those muscles that help you paddle and make turns. The single-leg squat and body saw planks are beneficial exercises to help strengthen these muscles.

Increased Paddle Endurance

Surfers spend most of their time paddling, and the muscles used to paddle, like the shoulders, back, and arms, often take the strain from being overworked, which can lead to muscle fatigue. Therefore, to increase paddle endurance, surfers need to adopt a few compound exercises focusing on strengthening these muscles.

Compound exercises to work these muscles include pull-ups, squats, and push-ups. As the back, shoulder, and arm muscles become stronger, they are able to work together to paddle more efficiently and for a longer period of time.

Best Exercises For Strength Training For Surfing

Surfing requires the perfect balance of strength and endurance. Surfing also places an intense demand on a surfer’s core strength, leg muscles, and cardiovascular system. Strength training not only strengthens these muscles but has additional benefits, such as improving the quality of sleep, protecting joints, and increasing bone density.

A few of the most beneficial strength training exercises for surfing include:

Inverted Rows

Inverted rows have numerous benefits, including strengthening your back muscles and correcting muscle imbalances. You can add many variations to this strength training exercise, like bending your knees, elevating your feet, and adding a few weights for resistance.

Inverted rows are great for building your back muscles. Incorporating this into a strength training routine will help surfers strengthen and develop their rear deltoids, the muscles used to paddle.

Burpees And Burpee Box Jumps

Burpees work your whole body and are one of those workouts that are great for your cardiovascular system and endurance. Since surfers are already in good shape, they could incorporate a strength training exercise that is one-up from a burpee, and that is burpee box jumps.

Burpee box jumps work on the pop-up movement surfers use when standing on their boards. This is a strenuous exercise but works on lower body strength, muscle memory, and overall fitness.

Squats

Squats help surfers get onto their board and stay balanced while riding the waves. Adding squats to a strength training routine will increase endurance and help improve posture. As you progress with squats, you can do a few squat variations and add some weights for resistance.

Rowing

Rowing works on your arms, core, legs, and cardiovascular system. Rowing is also a low-impact activity that doesn’t harm your joints.

If you’re looking to increase your endurance when surfing, this is probably one of the best exercises you can use.

Push Ups

Push-ups don’t only improve your arm muscles but also strengthen your core. Push-ups are also great for increasing shoulder stability and simultaneously working on several muscle groups. Push-ups will help surfers paddle better, make getting onto the board much easier, and help prevent shoulder injuries.

Pull-Ups

Much like push-ups, pull-ups are an excellent exercise to tone, increase your fitness level, and add strength to your upper body. Pull-ups are also a great exercise because they won’t necessarily make you bulk up but will help your endurance. Pull-ups also have a similar movement style to that of paddling, which will work the same muscle groups.

Mountain Climbers

Mountain climbing is a bodyweight exercise that works the abdominal muscles, hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, deltoids, and other muscle groups. If you’re looking to boost your surfing performance and crush the competition, then this is one of those exercises that you can’t skip.

Russian Twists

Russian twists are an excellent rotational move that works the oblique muscles, increases core strength, and also works the lower body but on a smaller scale.

Russian twists help prepare you for the movements on your surfboard. As a result, you’ll be able to move with more agility and improve your overall fitness.

Romanian Deadlift

Romanian deadlifts increase lower body strength, prevent injury and provide increased flexibility. The Romanian deadlift primarily focuses on the leg muscles and takes the strain off the back muscles.

You could also do single-leg Romanian deadlifts to get the most value out of Romanian deadlifts. This exercise will isolate the muscles in each leg, increasing strength and balance, giving surfers more power in their turns, and helping with their drop-ins.

Plank

Planking works every muscle in your body. You need the correct form to get the most out of planking. The plank position should be held for as long as manageable, increasing the amount of time in intervals until you can hold the position for much longer.

The plank strengthens your core, one of the most important muscles used while surfing, and helps keep a centered and stable position on the surfboard. The core also supports all other muscles, and with a strong core, injuries to the back muscles are avoided.

 

How Often Should Surfers Do Strength Training?

Surfers spend lots of time surfing but also focus on working out and nutrition to stay fit. Many professional athletes strength train for 2, 3, or 5 days a week, but this depends on their schedule and goals.

Surfers can adopt a strength training routine that is used three days a week. The quality of exercise and the different types of exercises all play a vital role in determining how many days a week surfers need to train for.

Surfers will focus most of their time on surfing, which will be more important than complementary exercises like strength training. Surfers need to spend a reasonable amount of time in the water to improve their surfing skills and get better at surfing.

It doesn’t make sense to train hard at surfing and then train harder with strength training, this will only lead to injuries, and there will be no recovery time after surfing or after strength training sessions.

There needs to be a balance between surf training and strength training.

Setting Goals

Specific exercises in a strength training routine will work on different muscles. Before starting any strength training routine, surfers must determine their goals. For example, is it to paddle faster, more efficiently, and for longer periods? Or is it to work on strength and mobility while surfing?

Once a surfer has their goal, they can focus on reaching that goal. In addition to strength training, a few beneficial types of exercise include Yoga for flexibility and mobility and to reduce muscle imbalances. Cardio exercises like cycling, running, and swimming for heart and lung health, and calisthenics like circuit training or HIIT workouts for improving fitness.

Tabata workouts are another great way to get cardio in your workout routine. Tabata workouts can take 4 or 5 minutes and are made up of 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. These exercises are highly effective and are a form of high-intensity interval training. So, a Tabata workout is perfect if you’ve had a couple of long days surfing and want a quick workout.

Strength training helps you get stronger when you’re catching waves and ducking and diving. Whether you’re strength training twice a week or three times a week, the goal of strength training isn’t to bulk up or build muscle but to work on endurance and strength to surf better.

Conclusion

Surfers use strength training to enhance their performance when surfing. A strength training routine is complimented by using weights. When surfers use weights, their goal is to strengthen their muscles and increase their endurance. Lifting weights and a strength training routine can help surfers compete better and have the strength to surf for extended periods.