Written by Sam Moylan
Surfing is a great form of exercise that is accessible to a wide range of fitness levels and ages. It involves anything from cruising on a longboard to ripping on a shortboard while immersed in the beautiful ocean.
Surfing has a variety of elements to it. Firstly, there is the muscular work involved – the upper body pulling to paddle, pushing to duckdive and to get yourself to your feet, the leg and trunk work to move yourself on the wave. Secondly, there is the balance and control to keep you on your feet while riding the wave.
Considering this it is important to warm up before you get out into the surf, to ensure your body is ready to perform all of the tasks required of it while surfing.
Below I will outline 4 easy exercises to complete to get yourself ready to shred.
1. Spinal twist: with this movement we are loosely rotating our upper body, letting the arms swing with the trunk, getting us limber to be ready to rotate while turning on the wave.
2. Spinal roll down/up: here we are working on segmentally rolling down into a forward fold, rolling back up and pushing the chest out, readying the body for our transition up to standing.
3. Deep squat: aiming to get as low as possible into the squat position, ideally keeping the heels down but it is ok to lift them if required. Once down in the squat we will add some rotations side to side as shown and finally some side to side movements to get nice and comfortable in our pop up position.
4. Upward dog to downward dog: practicing the transition from lying, to pushing the chest up, to pushing back into a position where the legs can be brought forward. Doing a few each way here to prepare the spine and legs for both extension and flexion loads. To finish off you can practice stepping your front foot forward a few times, just as you would when popping up!
