Are you wondering why surfers have incredibly toned and muscular bodies?? Are you ready to shred yours?

Well, apart from the obvious stamina and strength that the sport requires to excel,  Watersports athletes preform specific exercises to build their muscles and endurance.  All in the name of FUN bodysurf sessions.

The Warm Up

Before you dive into the exercises remember to warm-up your body first. Full body warm-ups increase heart rate and blood circulation, allowing ample blood to flow to your muscles and in turn preparing them for strenuous activity as well as preventing any injuries.

5 Best Warm-up Exercises:

1.  Breathing exercises: These allow you to relax your muscles before you get into the hardcore exercises.
2.  Warrior Lunge: Lunge forward, extend your arms towards the sky and then use your front foot to push back into starting position.
3.  Standing Knee Hugs: With your back straight, bring up your knee as high as possible and bring it close to your chest with your arms without rounding your back.
4.  T-Rotation Pushups: Start in a push-up position and slowly extend one of your arms to the sky while you rotate to one side. Hold the position for a few seconds and then move back to your original position of a pushup and repeat with the other side.
5. Breathing Squad: Breath out as your body goes down and breath in as your body goes up while you squat With your warm-up exercises well out of the way, it’s time for the real showdown! Remember that for any successful surfer the exercises mentioned below are integral.

5 Best Exercises for Enhanced Bodysurfing

Exercise 1 FRONT SQUATS (LOWER BODY STRENGTH)

Surfing requires great lower body strength and healthy joints to allow movement through every range of motion as your body has to absorb very large forces of the waves. Researchers say that weak lower body strength disrupts your core strength because of ineffective muscle activation. It’s important to remember that isolated muscle movements will not be beneficial.

Involve the use of your thighs, legs, and feet. Hence, the best exercise is front squats where you squat and add load to the front of your body. You can begin first with your body weight and then advance to adding weights to make it more complex.

Exercise 2 : PLANKS (CORE STRENGTH)

Core muscles are the muscles of your abs and your back. They’re responsible for supporting your spine because it has to constantly maneuver waves. The main function though of the muscles in your abs is to prevent your abdominal organs from injury. Whereas, the muscles in your back are responsible for stability.

You can start with a basic version of a plank with 20 seconds on and 5 seconds off. Begin with 3 sets of 3 planks and slowly increase your plank time. You can also make it more complex by adding leg lifts.

Exercise 3 :CHIN-UPS (UPPER BODY STRENGTH)

A bodysurfer has to constantly paddle to catch more waves and it can be VERY exhausting. In order to prevent paddle fatigue, a bodysurfer or handboardermust build their upper body strength.

Otherwise, they may be looking at a shoulder injury which is not a very fun prospect. Your rotator cuffs are muscles that support your shoulder and in order to strengthen them, you need to do chin-ups. This is because when you vertically pull on the rod, you’re not only increasing your shoulder stability, but also adding strength and endurance to your upper body. Thus, allowing you to paddle for longer.

Exercise 4 :JOGGING INTERVAL (ENDURANCE)

Surfers need high endurance levels to be able to keep up with bodysurfing for long periods and the high currents. Interval training is the best way to build this endurance because you have to produce high amounts of energy along with lower amounts of energy for shorter periods of time.

You need to set your own pace according to your current body endurance but a beginner session could involve a warm-up jog, a light 5-minute jog followed by a 45 to 60 second sprint, returning back to a jog and then a sprint and back again.

Exercise 5 TURKISH GET-UP (FULL BODY MOVEMENT)

Your muscles work three-dimensionally when you surf, which means no one muscle group should be targeted in isolation because all muscles work together.  It's important you train your body to work your muscles as an integrated unit. Turkish Get-Up is one such exercise.

Add weights (up to 12 kg for women and 20 kg for men) and consistently work on perfecting your technique. You can also advance it as a circuit by including jump-rope intervals and Turkish Get-Ups. In no time, you’ll see the wonders it will do for you!

Now that you’ve followed these exercises, and built your overall strength and endurance, there’s no stopping you from getting on that handboard and paddling those currents.

Discover more WorkOuts ➡️ here  

Author Bio:
This guest post was written by Hassan Khan Yousafzai, he is passionate about Digital Marketing. Along with educational background in Software Engineering he is bridging gap between marketing and development department. At Techvando, he has been consulting brands all over Pakistan to gain online traffic and profitable leads.