You may have heard that surfing has two parts: wave catching and surfing. If you’ve tried surfing or are an experienced surfer, you likely understand how those two ideas are distinct. Everything leading up to catching a wave and standing up involves different muscle groups than those used for riding a wave. Catching a wave requires shoulder and back strength for paddling, while riding the wave requires core and leg strength. This is why surfing conditions your body to be strong all around, not to mention the endurance training that paddling provides. But you don’t get to practice riding waves unless you can properly catch them. Being in good paddling shape is a requirement for improving your wave riding. So, your paddling muscles get in shape first, and the lower body follows. This is the natural progression of getting into ‘surfing shape’.

As your body gets into surfing shape, you’ll begin to be able to turn your focus more to the surfing part, rather than the paddling. But what does ‘surfing shape’ actually mean? One of the things I began to notice as I became a more competent surfer is that there is a specific body shape that good surfers tend to have. This seems to be a result of strengthening muscles used in surfing, but not others. Any unused muscles only weigh down a surfer and make it harder to paddle. So, it’s optimal to be strong where it matters and not where it doesn’t. Indeed, if you look at talented surfers, you tend to see the same general body shape. It looks something like this:

(pics of pros).

The shoulders are back and strong, the spine is straight, the core is tight, and the pelvis is not angled forward. Anterior pelvic tilt, it turns out, is a super common problem. If you want to read more, I found this article helpful: Anterior Pelvic Tilt. The upright pelvis position turns the legs slightly outwards so the toes point slightly outwards too. Note there are no big biceps or pecs, which is ironic given that those two muscle groups are generally seen as an indicator of strength, and strength training junkies love to focus on them. Personally I think those surfers above look in great shape, without having much of either. It’s a good example of how fitness should not only be judged by the bench press. But I digress. It seems like those physical characteristics describe most advanced surfers, meaning that the body shape is the most optimal one for what the body has to do in surfing. So if we can set it as a goal, it should only help. 

As any physiotherapist will tell you, it is not all about strengthening those muscles that need to be strong, it is equally about stretching out the opposite muscles that must be loose. A popular thing to hear is that flexibility helps with surfing. I have heard many people rave about how yoga has made them a better surfer. This is not completely accurate; flexibility helps in certain parts of the body. Yoga is good training for surfing because it strengthens and stretches most muscle groups in the body, thereby hitting the ones important for surfing in the process. Blindly aiming to become more flexible all around is definitely not a bad thing for overall physical health, but you can get more surfing related benefits by focusing those efforts on targeted parts of the body. Indeed, there are many great surfers who are not overall very flexible.

pics of pros stretching

It seems to be about being flexible in key areas, and strong in other key areas, like the pros above. This is what the average surfer can work towards.

For paddling, check these out: link paddling workouts, then summarize

For surfing, check these out: link hip flexibility and leg workouts, then summarize

Link surfstrength coach, mick fanning training

There are ways of making training more fun than just doing bland exercises. I have experimented with three; martial arts, skateboarding, and yoga, and found them all to be lots of fun in their own right. So get creative and see how you can optimize your body for surfing!

As a bonus, it seems like once one’s body has the surfer shape, one is able to take time off of surfing and come back without having fallen too far backwards. Disclaimer – this is from personal experience. But it has been clear that as I have become a better surfer, I’m able to take more time off without taking as many steps backward as I used to. Even just a year ago, as I write this, taking three or four days off would set me back what felt like way too much. Now, I can take a week off and pick up much closer to where I left off when I get back in the water. It seems to me that the only logical explanation for this is that as one’s body transforms more and more into the surfers body, it is able to keep its shape for longer. In other words, the body is conditioned in a form that is adapted best for surfing, rather than other things we might do in life. As we surf and train more towards this body shape, it becomes better conditioned, and can hold its form for longer. This results in huge surfing benefits, because you start to be able to pick up closer to where you left off after the previous session. 

When people start surfing as kids, they never have to worry about this, because their body grows into the surfer’s form. But as people who started later, which is probably why you are reading this, our body grew into its adult shape while adapting to whatever it is we were doing at the time. Now it is our task to morph it into the surfers body (you kids out there, these tips can still be helpful for you too!). Of course, it’s easier for some than others. You might know people who can go a month without surfing only to get back in the water and paddle circles around you. Or you might be that person! If you are, you might wonder why some of your friends never seem to have any paddle strength. Some of it is as the old saying goes – some got it some ain’t – (“it” being the surfer’s body) but in this case those who ain’t are actually capable of getting it. It just takes some work, which, lucky for us, can be super rewarding. So check out all those exercises above.

And, most importantly, surf as much as you can! 

Crosstraining for surfers link