Maximise Your Body For Surfing

Surfing fitness: If you want to get better at something, then you should put yourself in a position to learn from others that have done what you want to do, have more experience than you, or excel what you hope to excel in.

If you want to improve the way your body moves, and more specifically improve the way your body moves in the surf, watch this interview.

Recently I was given the fortunate opportunity to interview a fella that has been doing what I do for a much longer time… and he’s worked with some of the best (….like Fanning, yep, Mick Fanning). It was a very cool chance for me to learn from this guy, and from you to learn from both of us.

I’m going from memory on this, but a rough recap is below. You’ll even get a few other gems from this interview that I’m not currently recalling to type, so give it a watch.

Interview With Mark Breadner – Maximise Your Body for Surfing

Food: It Has a Major Impact Upon Your Body

Food: people in todays’ modern culture can become quite “acidic”, meaning the balance throughout the bodily system has shifted more towards the acidic from alkaline.

The body has a balance that can become largely offset by nutrition and lifestyle. A large majority of people have absolutely shit nutrition, so it shifts this pH balance, resulting in more acidity, which can be a large promoter of inflammation.

Inflammation is a precursor to a long list of potentially terrible issues, yet in our context we speak about how it largely influences joint pain. If you’ve got some chronic joint issues, take a look at your nutrition.

You could very likely improve it. Give this article I recently wrote a read: Top Foods to Aid Joint Pain

Your Spine Should Move More Efficiently

Spinal Movement: Don’t be a stiff. Modern culture puts humans into sedentary postures, which stiffens joints and tissues. Stiff joints and stiff tissue don’t translate to the necessary movements of surfing.

Take a look at your posture. How’s that spine of yours look? Hunched forward? Are you shoulders rolled forward? These postural offsets create tensions and strains on joints and offset the way they should optimally move.

Combine this inadequate joint movement with surfing, and things will hurt, and sometimes “hurts” need surgery… no good for your surfing. So what can you do to improve your spinal mobility and shoulder position? Start mobilising your thoracic spine, give this a read:

Turn Like Tom Curren – Flexibility for Rotation

Thoracic Mobility, Improve Your Upper Body Spinal Flexibility

Breathe Deeper, and Breathe Properly: Use the Diaphragm

Breathing: Your breath is a foundation of life. The manner in which you breath can have a profound effect on your well-being due to the immediate influence breathing mechanics have on your nervous system.

Stressful breathing mechanics (what we call neck breathing or inverted breathing) quickly shifts the nervous system to a sympathetic dominance, which is basically your “fight or flight” system, and keeps your body in a “stressed” state.

This can have a big impact on the overall health of your bodily systems. You need to get zen and work on breathing mechanics. Diaphragmatic Breathing. For surfers, not only is breath important for, well, not drowning, but improper breath mechanics can create unnecessary strain and tension in the upper body.… sore shoulders, headaches, neck tension, chronic should pain…check your breathing!

To help improve your breathing give the video below a watch, but also start improving your thoracic spine mobility. The posture of your thoracic spine influences the position of your ribcage, which largely influences your diaphragm.

Learn to Breathe Here: Can You Breathe? – Proper Breath Mechanics

There’s a heap of other insightful gems in that interview, so give it a watch…. I guarantee you’ll hear something that will help you improve your body, and then improve your surfing.

If You Want a Full Program That Combines all These Elements, Along With Months of Surfing Fitness Training Workouts, Check Out My Full Training Program!

Surf Athlete Training Program If you’re interested in a program that combines all of these methods, as well as more flexibility training, months of surfing strength and fitness workouts, in a step by step process of building a stronger body specifically for surfing, then take a look at my Surf Athlete Training Program,

I guarantee that it will improve your body and improve your surfing fitness.

As always, if you’ve got any questions or insights, comment below or get in touch on Facebook at Surf Strength Coach. If there’s something in particular you’d like to see me cover, get at me on facebook or email [email protected]

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