I’ve been doing a lot of pushups lately. Two hundred a day, 20 every half hour for five hours. I’m doing it because I have a surf trip planned for Sunday, and I’ve barely surfed for months. A few times here and there over the last 45 days, but where I live, summer is flat, flat, flat. A house renovation took up all my spare time, anyway, which was a nice way to spend that time, but when I last surfed a few days ago, I was in pitiful shape. Like, pitiful. Gassed on the paddle out. Arms noodled after no time at all. Back kinked, lungs burning.
Gone are the days when I live in a place that allows me to roll out of bed, drive five minutes down the hill at the crack of dawn, get in a few waves, and roll into the office with salt drying in my eyelashes. COVID reduced my Mexico trips from as many times as possible per year to none. This coming trip, in fact, will be the first one I’ll have taken since my last surf journey to Portugal, about a week before Europe shut down. So I’ve been doing a lot of pushups lately. Of course, there’s nothing to get you in surf shape that’s better than surfing, but we can’t all be so lucky. If you’re in search of a decent at-home workout to get you ready, Koa Rothman‘s got something a little better than 200 pushies a day.
It’s a workout Koa does to stay in shape when the waves aren’t good — I’m sure his definition of “good” is a little different than most people’s — and it’s a quick 25-minute routine that can be done with or without weights, and while it won’t make you surf like Koa, it’ll make you able to surf a little longer.
