A statement that would land you a good slap a couple years ago, now days it’s a compliment!
Recently I got some positive feedback on my blog from the kind people at Girls Making Waves, complimenting my blog and sharing it for me.
With the gruelling qualifying tour for the ladies about to get underway they have asked me to, run a short post on some training techniques and guidelines to ensure the girls stay at the top of their game whilst chasing down those valuable points.
Despite the slump in girls surfing that South Africa is currently going through, with the lack of events, on which to build a competitive foundation, or the exposure the girls in the past had, there are still a hand full of girls who are determined to put South Africa back on the map as a force to be reckoned with in the world of women’s professional surfing.
Last year August I had the privilege of sitting in on ladies high performance camp at the Sport Science Institute of South Africa which was put on by Surfing South Africa, as an up and coming sport scientist and professional surfing judge it was great to see my two passions working together. The girls saws sport psychologist, dieticians, biokineticists and exercise sciences. It was great to see how involved the girls got and how eager they were to learn and I realised just how serious these girls take their surfing, and was surprised to see how many of the girls actually do cross train and keep themselves in shape.
Gone are the days on the beach bum/pot head stereotype that surfer carried for so long, surfers are now acknowledged as real athletes, Kelly Slater recently won the laureus Action Sportsperson for the 4th time, just to prove it.
Like any sport you need to have a solid cardiovascular base fitness, this is achieved through endurance work outs (running, swimming, cycling, skipping ect.), it is important to maintain you cardiovascular fitness especially for the bigger breaks, where you are going to be paddling excessively or having to run around at beach breaks with strong rip currents, every minute you spend paddling or running around it time out of your heat where you could be scoring points.
This type of training also increases leg strength which adds power to your surfing helping you drive through the difficult sections, and you don’t need a gym to do this type of training all you need is a good pair of trainers or a skipping rope and some motivation. 30 - 40 minutes per day .
For surfing ideally you don’t want to be carrying excessive weight, so your cardiovascular training will elevate your metabolism, burning excess fat and increasing lean body mass, another way to burn off the extra fat, is muscular endurance type exercises using your body weight, push ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges and pull-ups, using you body weight so as not to “bulk out” you can tone up and increase you muscular endurance, allowing your muscles to work consistently for longer without fatigue e.g. those 2-4 hour sessions. These work outs can be done in 4- 6 sets with 10 -15 rep’s.
Flexibility is key in surfing; a good stretch goes a long way, a good 5 – 10 minute dynamic stretch before surfing will leave your body more supple and less prone to injuries.
video blog on dynamic stretching I did a while back http://alternatesportssolutions.blogspot.com/2010/03/dynamic-stretching-techniques-for.html
And finally core strength is one of the most crucial aspects to good surfing, this it helps in adjusting body positioning , to ensure that you keep you centre of gravity over you base of support whilst surfing , and keeping you on your board even through the big turns.
Core exercises that can be done on the go: Bridges, planks, side bridges, fury rows and many more.
So whilst on the road you can still train the major areas, even though you are nowhere near a gym.
· Cardiovascular Fitness
· Muscular strength and endurance
· Flexibility
· Core Strength
As a travelling judge I know how hard it can be to eat healthy whilst travelling, after a long day of travelling or being down at the event a quick take away seems so much simpler, but that’s were discipline comes into play, no one ever said it was easy.
Follow my new series of blog based on nutrition for health and performance for a better guideline, on health eating.
The fitter you are the less likely you are to injure yourself, and we all know you can’t compete at the top of your game unless you are both mentally and physically prepared and you can’t achieve one without the other.
We got some great talent giving the tour a full go this year with dedication and hard work, I think we will be seeing another South African on the Women’s World Tour soon.
Keep an eye out for our Saffa’s on tour this year, you can follower there campaigns on www.aspworldtour.com
Or like the Girls Making Waves page on http://www.facebook.com/GirlsMakingWaves?ref=ts
Pictured: Sarah Baum and Bianca Buitendag, two of South Africa's most talented hopefuls to qualify this year.
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