Improving your surfing from home is a reality, due to the global pandemic situation, our daily routine has changed.
For those of us who practice sports, it is vitally important to maintain good physical condition. Surf schools or surfcamps can help you improve your technique, as well as your physical condition.
They are the best option when it comes to getting started in surfing. If you prefer to do it on your own, it is essential that you follow a routine designed for surfers, with exercises that help you gain strength, avoid injuries and prepare your body so that you can enjoy the waves to the fullest.
In this article, we are going to talk about 7 exercises that will help you to improving your surfing from home:
1. Burpees
This exercise is comprehensive, that is, it works on strength, coordination and endurance. In doing so, we activate most of the muscles in the body.
With it we strengthen: Triceps, quadriceps, pectorals, shoulders, calves, hamstrings, glutes and abs.
How to do them: Standing, you must do a squat until you touch the ground with both hands. Then you push your legs back to get into push-up form.
You do the flexion and we undo everything done until we are standing again. Finishing with a jump, as high as you can.
2. Planks: traditional and lateral.
This exercise will help us develop greater strength in the core. The traditional plank helps to work the abdominal muscles by strengthening the area.
The side plank helps both the abdominal area and the lumbar area. Both of extreme importance when it comes to surfing.
How to do them: To perform a traditional plank, you must create a straight line with your body, from head to heels.
You should rest on the ground on the balls of your feet and your elbows and forearms. The exercise consists of tensing the muscles of the abdominal area for a few seconds.
You can do up to 8 sets of 60 seconds, with a 20-second rest between each set. The lateral plank consists of stretching on the sides, with the knees straight and supporting the weight on the elbow and the forearm.
Then you should lift your hips until you form a straight line with your body. Remember to tighten the abdominal area.
Raise your arm and hold in this position for 30 seconds. You can repeat the exercise up to 3 times on each side.
Also you can add intensity to it by lifting the leg and arm, simulating a star. You will feel your whole body working.
3. Duckdiving PushUp
This bending exercise consists of simulating the movement we make when we want to go under the waves.
It will work the back area, providing strength and flexibility.
How to do it: You must separate your legs and place both hands on the sides of the head. Lift your glutes and gradually flex your spine.
From the cervical region, through the thoracic to the lumbar area. You should end up with your torso up and your buttocks close to the ground.
4. Apnea:
Another of the exercises to improve your surfing from home consists of working apnea. Knowing how to hold and control your breath underwater is a vital aspect for surfing.
There are 3 apnea exercises that will help you improve your respiratory capacity: static, dynamic and water apnea.
Static apnea consists of holding your breath for 1 minute 8 consecutive times. With a 1 minute break between each exercise.
Rest time can be progressively reduced as you progress through exercise. You should do it only 1 time a day, sitting in a chair.
The dynamic apnea is done after you overcome the static without any problem. You should walk at a moderate pace while doing the same routine of 1 minute of holding your breath / 1 minute of pause (With progressive decrease).
Apnea in water is the last phase, starting with a static routine floating face down on the water.
The dynamic routine would be performed by walking along the bottom of the pool.
5. Trunk rotation with medicine ball:
This exercise will help you strengthen the shoulder area, improving your position when performing maneuvers and turns on the board.
In turn, it helps increase the strength of the Core.
How to do it: You will need a companion, since this person must mark with his hand the position to which you have to reach with the ball.
The ideal is to know how to do it without moving your feet off the ground. You just have to rotate the trunk.
6. Balance exercises: Static and dynamic
These exercises will help you improve the stability and strengthening of the joints. In this way, we will avoid injuries when we are surfing.
That is the purpose of the “Proprioceptive” exercises, those that work on self and body awareness.
A training routine that incorporates somatosensory exercises can help us improve our performance. Providing greater stability in the joints of the lower limb.
How to do them: Standing, perform a series of forward-backward swings. With the limbs make figures and shapes in the air.
Stretch your body and contort its shapes. In this way you will generate awareness of your height, the amplitude of your movements and improve the conception of your body.
7. Plyometry
Plyometric exercises are as simple as doing several jump squats in a row. They will help you improve leg power, which will increase strength.
How to do them: In a squat position, do several jumps constantly, you can increase the intensity by adding boxes or fences.
This series of 7 exercises will help you in your way to improving your surfing from home.
This will help you maintain good physical condition, until we can return to the sea and stand out on the waves.
One last tip: Yoga is the ideal complement for surfers, you must already know all its benefits (both physical and emotional).