The Journey Towards Having More FUN Surfing

By Gretchen Reynolds

When we start to lift weights, our muscles do not strengthen and change at first, but our nervous systems do, according to a fascinating new study in animals of the cellular effects of resistance training. The study, which involved monkeys performing the equivalent of multiple one-armed pullups, suggests that strength training is more physiologically intricate than most of us might have imagined and that our conception of what constitutes strength might be too narrow.

Those of us who join a gym — or, because of the current pandemic restrictions and concerns, take up body-weight training at home — may feel some initial disappointment when our muscles do not rapidly bulge with added bulk. In fact, certain people, including some women and most preadolescent children, add little obvious muscle mass, no matter how long they lift.

But almost everyone who starts weight training soon becomes able to generate more muscular force, meaning...

After a lot of inactivity, the shoulder tend to deteriorate faster than the rest of our body simply because we aren't reaching over our heads in our daily lives all that much.  

With my foot injury, and now this shelter-in-place, I've been quite inactive, in my entire body!  But I'm slowly rehabbing the foot now (thank you to Jim and Shane).  And I'm almost ready to get back in the water.  

But before I do, I conduct these exercises to bring my shoulder back to a general baseline strength and mobility.  ESPECIALLY before any dryland paddling since dryland paddling is harsher on the shoulders than in-water paddling or swimming.  It's much easier for us to make technique mistakes when dryland paddling for fitness than it is paddling around in the lineup.  Often times we get so into the workout that we end up pushing down or pulling too soon which engages those tiny little rotator cuff muscles too much.  

There's a quite...

Stuck at home?  I put together eight different paddling technique drills and exercises that you can do while you are stuck on land.  

The first four exercises are drills to enhance paddling technique while the second four exercises are designed to help you maintain and improve your fitness and mobility:

There are many other dryland drills shown in the Paddling Technique Level 1 Online Course.  

Improving your paddling technique first and foremost comes from understanding how to move through water efficiently and effectively.  Then you will understand why it's important to work these drills and exercises - to what end.  

When you can understand why something works the way it does, you are then able to adapt to the variety of scenarios we come across as surfers - different board designs, different wave sizes, different ocean conditions, etc.  The "why" is so critically important.  

Be sure to find out some of the "why" in the ...

There is no way you are doing this. It's the #1 technique to improve your next surf, and I never see anyone doing it.

Sometimes, you just have to mix it up with your surfing workout.  This day was our second time out trying to dial in the right wake.  While we were working on that, we took a few cracks at it.  

By the end, my legs were toast!  Funny how a few dozen bottom turns and off the tops will wear you out.  

When we talk about building long term strength and muscle memory, it's all about repeating a motion (correctly) over an extended period of time until our brain skips a step.  When learning something new, the brain takes two steps to get the body to react.  Over time, through perfect repetition, it reduces that to one step.  

This is most likely a human adaptation for survival - the brain is realizing that the things we do repetitively might be important so it tries to speed it up.  

Unfortunately, with surfing, we get few chances to repeat a motion.  That's why workouts like this, skateboarding, snowboarding, and other similar...

How many of you have a hard time getting motivated to go work out, when the workout is so monotonous?  We'd so much rather just go surf, or skate, or do anything but work out.  

XSWIM Workouts mix up that monotony of a normal workout.  And just sometimes we need that extra motivation.  

We need that extra motivation to affect change.  And the only way to get your blood pumping with the competitive fire within yourself is to challenge yourself.  Put yourself in uncomfortable situations and do the best you can to overcome that feeling.  

It is only in the defeat of the things you are uncomfortable with do you grow.  Sometimes you overcome it right off the bat.  And sometimes it takes time.  But you can't grow without trying. 

Challenge Equals Change...

This is one of the most innovative duck dive workouts I've seen.  After trying it a few times, it's really a lot of fun.  Go ahead, try it out!  

Someone asked me the other day what my favorite workout in the program is.  I really enjoy the XFIT advanced workouts, but I had to answer with one of the first workouts I created just because of a swim set that I love so much.

I named the swim set "All You Can Eat 50s" and you can find it in the Test workouts (#2 of 5).  We start with a solid warm up of swimming with core work in between swim sets (crunches, scissors, heel ups, bicycle crunches, and elbow plank).  Then we get into a combined Endurance and Agility section - the All You Can Eat 50s set.  Here's how it works so you can try it on your own (be sure to warm up / warm down and do not add any additional rest once you have started the set):

1. 1x50 free, SPRINT, timed, rest = 1/2 of your timed lap (e.g. if swim time was 0:40, then rest is 0:20).  The time + your rest becomes your interval for the next 4x50s (e.g. interval = 0:60)