My Interview with Surfer Life

Surfer Life Interview – The Top Points

I recently go the chance to do an interview with Surfer Life.com. I think it went ok, but I tend to ramble, and go off topic, and then ramble a bit more.

As soon as I finished the interview I thought there were a few things I wanted to, or should have stressed, but instead rambled.

Here are some cohesive thoughts. I’m sure you’ll get something good that you can apply to your life, or movement, or training.

You’ll find the link to the interview at the bottom of this post.

Moderation & Balance. There is a massive need for this in the health and fitness field. Extremism has taken over. Instagram, 10sec quick fixes, elimination diets, purges, immediate benefit and extreme methods.

This has to stop. There is a fundamental need for moderation and balance, and some occasional tequila shots, ice cream, pizza, and kale. You get my point? 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you should have the fundamentals of nutrition, sleep, recovery, and movement in place, and focusing on real food nutrition.

The 20% of 3am taco bell, frozen pizza, beers, and some varied alcohol or rec. drug use aren’t going to have a largely negative effect. *unless you’re dealing with chronic health issues, then that 20% needs to be more focused and at times partially restricted. That 80% will be different from person to person, but the focus needs to be on real food foundations, adequate sleep, proper hydration, and quality movement.

I was asked about my current training, and some fundamentals for people to work on. I spoke about movement, flexibility, a lot of bodyweight training, but I gave no real movement goals. Here’s a few.

Learn to breathe properly. Diaphragmatic Breathing. Spend a few minutes each day, before you train, right after you train, and perhaps at night, to work on shifting your nervous system to a diaphragmatic breath. This can have very positive effects upon the nervous system.

Shoulder flexibility.  Make sure they can move properly. A large part of this is making sure your spine can move properly and having an efficient breathing pattern (diaphragmatic). Make an effort to undo the years of bad posture and computer time.

Bodyweight Work. Pullups, Various hanging positions, Squats, Lunges, Single Leg Balance, Pushups, Crawling Patterns, Handstands. Stability Ball work. These can all be very good things.

As with any and all exercise, some movements aren’t good for some people because of previous injuries, structural limitations, and current strength levels. Also, work towards being able to maintain a proper deep squat (there can be injury or structural limitations). Ass to Grass.

Flexibility and Tissue Release. Roll around on a tennis ball or foam roller. It hurts, but in a feel good kind of way. Progress that tissue release into some focused stretching, and then dynamic stretching. Being able to move your body without restriction is a key to staying injury free. If you want a program devoted to flexibility, tissue work, and pain relief, take a look at my program STRETCHES FOR SURFERS

We spoke about the fundamentals of what I think people should work on. It’s a bit difficult to break down exercises into fundamentals, as exercise really is specific to the individual, their goals, their injury history, their orthopedic capacity, and their movement history.

With that being said, the bodyweight drills mentioned above are a key. Even more importantly are the fundamentals of proper hydration, nutrition, sleep, thought processes, and finding a movement program this is aligned with your goals and sport. I’ll be writing about some fundamental movements in the next month or two, so keep an eye out for it.

Overall, my goal is to get rid of all the bullshit, dogma, fluff, and stupidity of the health and fitness world, and give surfers and athletes techniques to improve their body, their movement, their athletic capacity, —> their human movement capacity. That stuff will carry over to the way you can move in the surf.

Surfer Life Interview... LISTEN HERE

Please share my stuff if you dig it, and find it helpful. I would appreciate it very much.

-cris surf, movement, nutrition, life

If you’ve got any questions, get in touch on Facebook or shoot me an email.