NUTRITION

Nutrition is vitally important to staying in the water, remaining injury-free, maintaining energy levels and  being healthy. A balanced diet is the perfect choice for surfers. Here are a few tips to keep you healthy, energetic and fueled for the next four-hour surf session:

1. Eat real whole foods: fruits, vegetables, meats;
Remove processed foods from your diet

2. Drink clean water and stay hydrated;
Soda, sports drinks, and artificially flavored liquids do absolutely nothing to help you stay healthy
For a re-hydrating drink, squeeze some lemon, lime or orange into clean water and add a pinch of salt

3. Eat well-balanced meals;
Consume a protein, carbohydrate, and fat at every meal

4. Try not to smash alcohol five nights per week;

5. In post surf, aim to replenish your muscle glycogen stores (energy), with some quality fruit and also aid muscle repair with a protein intake;

6. Eat less food made of white flour or processed flours;

7. Buy local, fresh and organic, if you've got the spare cash;
Support your local farmers and community, and eat way less pesticides

8. Eat breakfast;
Before your surf, eat a piece of fruit and some nuts, or some type of small meal. Most people are uncomfortable surfing on a full stomach, but even a small amount of food will help fuel your surf. On flat surfing days, eat a quality breakfast or protein, fruit/veggies and fat, and reduce your consumption of breads and cereals, which offer minimal nutrition

9. Eat quality fats and limit your consumption of processed vegetable oils;
Quality fats and oils are organic olive oils, avocados, coconut oils, grass-fed butter and ghee. Quality saturated fat is important for nervous system function, vitamin uptake, hormone pathways, immune system function and overall health

10. Learn to cook;
Buy a slow cooker, get a few recipe books and learn how to cook. Realize that improving your nutrition is one of the fastest and easiest ways to hugely impact your health. Change your relationship with food, and recognize that what you're eating is providing you with the building blocks for your life

SURF FITNESS RESOURCES

Watch surf fitness exercises that you can do at home.
Learn how to prevent cramps in surfing.
Try the best yoga poses for surfers.
Discover the most common injuries in surfing.
Check the complete physical guidelines for the average surfer.
Discover the professional surf fitness program by Surf Strength Coach.

SURFING WARM-UP

Benefits of a Warm-Up

Increased mobility and flexibility of the body and joints
Reduced muscle stiffness
Increased heart rate, improved blood circulation and oxygen delivery to muscles
Nervous system activation and excitation of joint stabilizing muscles
Stimulates the respiratory systems
Increased speed of muscle contraction allowing for faster reactive movements

Your warm-up should consist of movements and mobility drills that replicate some of the movements in surfing. Slow, long hold stretches have been shown to actually "shut-off" muscles and decrease their contraction times.

The key to a quality surf training warm-up is to use movements to increase the heart rate, release tight tissues, lubricate joints and excite the nervous system.

Surf Training Warm-up Movements

Breathing Squats:  squat movement, with exhale as body moves down, inhale as body comes up through squat movement and extend arms towards sky;

Single Leg Upper Body Rotations:  stand on one leg with knee slightly bent and hip pushed backwards; arms placed in front of body, rotate from side to side slowly; control the movement and remain balanced on single leg.

T-Rotation Pushups: begin in pushup position; rotate one arm towards the sky, while simultaneously rotating the body onto one side; you are now balanced on one hand, with the other hand/arm extended towards sky; rotate back into pushup position and repeat on the other side.
 
Warrior Lunge: begin in basic standing position, lunge forward into a lunge position, extend arms to sky, push up off front foot and back into starting position; to advance the movement, you would repeat the prior movement and then add a side bend in either or both directions;

Butt Drops: reach towards sky, bend forward to touch toes; drop butt towards heels as you raise chest to face forwards; elbows are inside of the knees and push the knees outwards; lower the butt as lower as possible and keep chest as tall as possible; hold this position for one inhale/exhale and then raise butt back towards sky, as head and chest move back towards ground; stretch the hamstrings; repeat the movement;

Bent Shoulder Circles: keeping a straight back, with lightly bent knees, bend the torso forward; get to an angle where you begin to feel a light stretch in your hamstrings; bring the arms out to the sides into a T-position; perform small arm circles for 30 reps, in each direction;

Jumping Jacks or Star Jumps

Standing Knee Hugs: stand with your spine tall and erect; bring one knee towards your chest, place hands around knee and pull knee towards stomach/chest; bring knee as high as possible without rounding the back;

Now that you're warmed up, joints are mobile and you're ready to hop into that paddle-out, or get into a some good surf training workouts.

SURF TRAINING WORKOUTS

While nothing can truly replicate what our bodies are required to do in the water during a surf session, you can strengthen the basic required movements and physical demands of surfing.

Even just a few days a month of quality exercises can have a tremendous benefit on your strength, speed, endurance in the surf, and will help to keep you injury-free in the surf.

Full Body Movements

Surfing is a highly dynamic sport that demands our body move in three dimensional space, so you need to train your body to become strong and efficient in movements, not in isolation.

Dumbbell curls and calf raises are not going to benefit your surfing. For quality surf training, you want to use full body movements that require integration of muscles and develop full body strength.

Kettlebell Swings
Back Squats or Front Squats
Dead Lifts
Single Leg Dead Lifts
Lunges and Multi-directional Lunges
Plyometric Hops
Single Arm Cable Pushes and Pulls
Overhead Presses and Single Arm Overhead Presses
Medicine Ball Chops
Sprints
Cable Chops
Pushup Variations
Pull-Ups/Chin-Ups

Balance and Single Leg Surf Training

Balance is exceptionally important for anyone looking to improve their surfing. A quality training program will challenge your balance demands, so that you not only have quicker reaction times, but also are able to dynamically stabilize your joints.

Another aspect of training that will not only improve your balance, but also help to keep your lower body injury free, is single leg movements.

Balance Drills

Single Leg Balance Drills such as hopping, closed eye balance while standing on a pillow, or upper body rotations;
Single Leg Balance with upper body medicine ball tosses;
Single Leg Cable Push or Pulls
Exercises on top of a Balance Board or Indo Board

Single Leg Exercises

Bulgarian Split Squats
Lunges
Single Leg Dead Lifts
Ice Skater Squats
Single Leg Box Squats

SURF CORE TRAINING

Core training has received loads of hype in the last few years, and there are unfortunately a lot of misconceptions. What is true is that a strong core is essential for, not only staying pain-free, but being able to surf with speed and power.

It is necessary to understand that the "core" is much more than your abs. Core is comprised of many muscles throughout your trunk that help to stabilize and transmit movement and power throughout your body.

It is important to train the core in integration, not isolated movements such as a crunch that has zero carryover to surfing. Medicine balls, cables, exercise bands, and stability balls are excellent tools for high quality core surf training.

Supine Lateral Ball Rolls
Stability Ball Jack-Knife
Medicine Ball Chops
Cable Chops
Paloff Press
Horse Stance or Bird Dogs
Stability Ball Rollouts

SHOULDERS AND UPPER BACK

Paddling can be one of the most exhausting aspects of surfing. Strong shoulders, a durable upper back, and a powerful core are essential to strong paddling.

Some extra training for the shoulder and upper back complex can help you build a stronger, durable, and pain-free upper body.

Some extra training focus on the shoulder girdle and the often injured rotator cuff is generally a good idea for surfers. Try these regular exercises:

Dumbbell Bent Rows
Cable Face Pulls
Shoulder A,T,Y's
Straight Arm Cable Pull Downs
Suspension Training Tricep Pushes
Shoulder Scarecrows
Rotator Cuff External Rotations
Body Blade Exercises

ENDURANCE

Surfing for extended periods of time, sessions in heavier breaks and point break currents require full body endurance. Surf training should also include some type of endurance training that will prepare your body for extended periods of energy production.

One of the best methods is interval training. Since surfing requires bouts of explosive energy output, combined with long duration lower energy output such as casual paddling, it's important to train both attributes.

Intervals combine high energy explosive output, with longer slower duration energy output.  A running interval example would be as follows: warm-up, light jog for five minutes, 30-second to 60-second sprints, return to light jog for five minutes, repeat sprint and continue that cycle.

Intervals can be incorporated into nearly any exercise format. Try these regular endurance exercises:

Workout Circuits
Jump Rope
Row Machine Intervals
Boxing
Jogging Intervals
Swimming

With a combination of those exercises, you can truly prepare your body for what surfing demands.  Quality surf training is simply keeping your body prepared for that next big round of swell, keeping your body healthy to withstand injury and staying fit, so you can remain active and keep on surfing.