The classic Thurso line up. Photo: Roger Sharp
Today’s article is as a result of my last trip to Thurso. I had the privilege of chatting with some truly gifted surfers while huddled around a table at The Tempest, which inevitably led to a conversation about surf fitness, and the role of the subconscious, which I thought needed exploring more.
So for Matt Smith, Noah Lane and Al Mackinnon, this one’s for you.
When just being fit isn’t enough
I know that I can out-squat, lunge, bend, push, pull and twist every surfer at that table. My body is in pretty good shape. But I had my arse handed to me at Thurso over the weekend for one key reason: I needed more time in the water developing my intuitive brain.
Moving your body is a process of developing motor skill. That can be broken into various aspects, such as speed, power, strength, agility, balance, coordination, and flexibility. Each of these aspects can be targeted and trained to improve generic physical performance, which I provide in my programs. And that’s great, but if you don’t know how to apply it, then you still look like a kook.
The two brains
I read a fascinating book on a trip to Portugal last July by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called Thinking, Fast and Slow, and another by Christopher Chabris and; Daniel Simons called The Invisible Gorilla which essentially detail how the brain’s decision making can be broken into two opposing parts.
The fast brain is the easiest to use, can be highly irrational, and is what you refer to as your intuition. People like to use this part of your brain to sell you stuff you don’t need (like whey protein, or the ab roller).
The slow brain takes effort, uses loads of energy, makes sound and logical decisions (like why investing in my programs is the right thing to do), and processes anything that you have to stop to think about. You do not want to use this part of your brain, and Kahneman, Chabris and Simmons show quite cleverly how far your brain will go to not use this logic for making decisions.
A Surfing Example
Just think of the first time you had to pop up. You had to learn it in stages, right? Probably on the beach…
1. Paddle, head down
2. Catch the wave
3. Hands under the chest
4. Extend
5. Snap to your feet, balance, balance, balance…
You would then repeat this process in the white water until it became automatic (intuitive). Then came green waves and it was like you had never stood on a board in your life, then hollow waves, then you had to go left… I don’t go left…
But the point is, you had to think about it. Kahneman argues that at the same time as you were consciously trying to piece this all together, your pupils will have dilated slightly, your heart rate increased, and the slow part of your brain would have been working overtime, until it became automatic (some people refer to this as unconscious competence).
That is exhausting work. No amount of swiss ball training, Indo Board or Yoga will prepare you for that. It just won’t.
There is a principle of strength training called SAID (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand), which basically means that you need loads of exposure to a specific situation for your body to learn how to cope with it. It is only once that happens that you no longer just cope, but froth all over it.
The guys around that coffee table had one thing over me that I couldn’t out-train: some hardcore experience in the water, in lots of different types of waves, all over the world.
Their natural subconscious, or intuitive reasoning, was quick to react to a familiar situation that it had learned to cope with, and then thrive with, many times before. That environment would have triggered a number of automatic motor control processes that instinctively knew how to stabilize and perform at exactly the right moment, without thinking about it. It looked effortless.
It’s Instinctive
Your brain is pretty cool like that. Professional athletes use visualisation techniques to improve their motor performance in exactly the same way. By visualizing their run prior to the event, their muscles start to fire as their nervous system reacts to the perceived event. They don’t necessarily feel it happening, because it’s happening on another level.
This is how I got my arse handed to me.
Yep, I paddled out at Thurso East, and caught one wave in the first half hour, and wiped out. It was like I had never surfed before. I ended up paddling over to Shit Pipe to try my luck there, and with more, but limited success.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying, or that I was holding back. I was just in the wrong spot, and half a step out of time. My intuitive brain wasn’t able to function, and all of a sudden I was having to think again with my slow brain. So after a little over an hour, I was knackered.
I can paddle and surf beach and point breaks for hours, but my surf fitness meant nothing, because it wasn’t my muscles that were exhausted.
There was just not enough exposure to that type of barreling reef break for it to be familiar. What I needed was another week on that wave to get back to my normal standard of pumping down the line, and carving out the world’s longest, probably crappiest bottom turn while wearing a shit-eating grin from ear to ear.
I wrote the Weekend Surf Warrior programs for one main reason: to keep surfers in the water. That’s where we belong, and it’s the best way to get better at surfing.
Why? Because there is NO substitute for teaching your intuition how to surf like surfing Could I have done as well as I did without all my training? Not a chance. I am so stoked that it was only my brain that was knackered.
You need a physical body that works. You can train that on dry land, BUT you also need to develop skill in the water. Get a surf coach if trial and error isn’t your thing.
If your body isn’t working correctly, if you are in pain and unable to stay in the water because you hurt, or because you lack physical endurance, you need to sort that out first if you want to perform when you are in the water. No question. My dry land programs will help you do that, and you access them through the links below:
Check out my surf fitness program right here,
Or simply send me an email at ash@weekendsurfwarrior.com.
If your surfing isn’t where you want it to be right now, then you need two things: A body that functions correctly, and a brain (subconscious) that knows how to use it.
Don’t forget to train them both!
