Many new beginner surfers fall in love with the sport and want to know how to improve your surfing. The beginner after a lesson has been shown the fundamentals. They learn that timing and rhythm are the secrets to catching and riding waves.
The process is a sequence with several steps. Beginners rarely understand the necessary steps nor do they understand the necessity of getting each step in the right order. These two facts are what keep them from progressing.
The Fundamentals of Improving Your Surfing
My beginner lessons try to instill the timing and rhythm for catching waves and riding the surfboard. I give students a count I say they must say out loud while catching waves and follow with their body to get on the surfboard. The count has them timing the wave properly, catching it, and then patiently and smoothly putting their body in the upright position on the surfboard.
Many students find that they don’t have the smoothness because their body is not working properly for surfing. The first students are missing is flexibility. Whereas, many can touch their toes to the floor without bending their knees, they may not have flexibility in their hamstrings, buttocks and lower back or spine.
Students that are lean usually have the power to weight ratio surfers say is necessary to lift your body off the surfboard. This means push your upper body off the board to start and then get the lower body to pop into the correct position on the surfboard. Overweight students generally fail in these two requirements. They cannot get their lower body off the surfboard into a standing position.
Stamina is the ability to paddle hard to catch waves and recover to ride some more. Conditioned muscles are necessary for both as the muscles need the glucose they store for fuel for power and recovery. Sedentary people have not been exercising and the glucose passes the muscles directly to fat. Building muscle creates receptors that start absorbing and storing the glucose we get from carbohydrates.
Exercising the full body and practicing the fundamentals of popping up are supportive of improving your surfing. The basic exercises could be push ups, planks, burpies, dead lifts, and squats. Then add an aerobics program to build the ability to exert effort and recover. Building everything together is what a professional surfer does on a daily basis. It follows that a new surfer should engage in the same activities to progress their own surfing.
Return to the Home Page
Learn More
Get the Learn to Surf Guide Course in Kindle, Paperback or Audio
A great 29 page course on the fundamentals of catching waves, doing beginner and advanced pop ups, riding real waves, how to do maneuvers on real waves, which surfboards to ride, and how to progress. Great for lesson preparation, after lesson review, or learning on your own.
Kindle price $2.99 on Amazon. Paperback price $6.95 on Amazon. Audio download price $7.95
Overweight People Can Surf
To read a great book for getting in shape to surf or getting in better surfing shape, read my new book Overweight People Can Surf, a Health, Fitness, Nutrition, and Surfing Adventure
Description:
Get healthy and fit to surf or set a goal of surfing to improve weight, fitness, nutrition, and health. This guide by a surf instructor/health coach/personal trainer gives the short version of how to lose weight, get strong, build stamina, develop nutrition, and learn to surf. Surfing is a lifestyle enjoyed by millions and so is fitness. Fitness creates opportunities to enjoy life through lots of different kinds of recreation. No need to stand on the sidelines while others are having a great time. Start your program to health with easy steps and progress at your own pace. That is the secret to maintaining a lifestyle. Do it at your pace. This book will start you on the path.
Buy the E book on Amazon for $5.99
Buy the Paperback on Amazon for $7.99
Seniors Get Fit to Surf
Description:
Seniors often ask if it is too late to learn to surf. Age is functional not chronological. If people have been exercising and maintaining body strength, surfing can be accomplished. If people have not been exercising, then getting in shape to surf could be a life changing move. Learn how to develop strength, flexibility, and stamina to learn surfing. If you are in surf shape, you could pursue most any recreation.
Buy the E-book on Amazon for $5.99
Buy the Paperback on Amazon for $7.99
