If you’re someone who enjoys charging big waves, sitting in the swell, and carving the perfect tube, then it’s safe to say that you’re thrilled for summer this year. After a long, hard winter full of social distancing, the summer sunshine is a miracle. So, we don’t blame you if you’re ready to grab your board and hit the beach as soon as possible. But before you do, it’s always important to prepare your body and ensure that your joints and muscles are fully primed for a day of surfing. Take a look down below at our top 3 tips to prepare your body for surfing this summer.

Planking
While you might not realize it, your core does a ton of work when you’re on your surfboard. From simply supporting your body while you lay flat on your board and paddle out to the swell to helping you maintain your center of gravity and control your balance when you’re carving a big wave, your core is one of the most critical muscle groups as a surfer. With that in mind, preparing your core for the summer surfing session is critically important.

Planking is a great workout to get your core engaged, strengthened, and prepared to charge big waves. We recommend practicing a plank at least once a day for 20-30 seconds at a time to get started. From there, gradually increase that plank for up to three minutes total. With each and every plank, focus more on form than anything else because this is what will really help to strengthen your core and get your body prepped for surfing.

Push-Ups
Next, push-ups are another important workout for surfers – and it’s one that most surfers likely push to the side. Think about it, when the big wave begins to curl, you need to pop up on your board quickly in order to catch the swell. Although this might be a small part of your surfing experience, it’s safe to say that you cant exactly catch a wave if you can’t pop up!

With that in mind, practice performing push-ups each and every day. Similarly with planking, you’ll want to start simple with about 10 push-ups per set. Try two sets at first, and then try to gradually increase your number of push-ups per set, until you can do 50 push-ups in a single set!

Yoga
Lastly, surfing is just as much about the mind as it is about the body. This means that engaging in proper mindfulness exercises will help you prep yourself for a big summer surfing season. Yoga is a great way to get closer to your center of gravity, your balance, and your inner peace, so that you can put everything else out of your mind and focus on catching the wave.

Have fun this summer, and be sure to contact Orthopedics Associates with any questions regarding how you can go about preparing your body for surfing season.