Summer it’s here and at least around Lisbon, Portugal that means: less and weaker waves, crowd beaches and less time to surf. At the day I’m writing this article have been 3 weeks since the last time I went for a surf session, and it wasn’t a great day… So this last couple weeks I started to do some exercises I’ve learned during the COVID quarantine.
Training for surfing can be tricky – we exercise on land to perform in the water, trying to imitate our movements on the surfboard. But this simple exercises that you can do at home will hopefully improve your surf. If not, at least you have been distracted from the fact you’re not surfing ;)
OVERHEAD WALKING LUNGE
This will help stabilize you self in bigger waves and give you more spring in top turns, whilst isolating the shoulders to hope strengthen them whilst engaging the core .
IMPROVE: STABILIZE IN BIGGER WAVES
WORKS: LEGS FLEXIBILITY + POWER QUADRICEPS
PRONE SWIMMER
This exercise as a very similar movement to paddling but its main focus is on the lower back muscles stabilizing you when paddling as well as core maintaining your balanced position on the board.
IMPROVE: PADDLING
CLAP PUSH UP
No need to tell you what this will do for your surf :)
PLANKING
Planking is extremely hard to do for more than a few seconds and fires up every muscle in your body.
IMPROVE: SURF ENDURANCE AND TECHNIQUE
SQUATS
Squats are a crucial surfing exercise. A full-body workout that will help ankles, knees, hips, and spine support a heavy load when surfing, and they need to be as strong as hell.
IMPROVE: GETTING ON YOUR SURFBOARD AND STAY THERE
ARM CIRCLES
Finish with this simple and relaxing exercise that will help you to improve surf paddling