Editor’s Note: This guide was created in collaboration with the Surf Strength Training Program, a mobile app and online program designed to improve your surfing through fitness, nutrition, movement, and recovery methods. Enter code THEINERTIA to save $30 for a limited time.
Many of us spend too much time hunched over a desk. This creates tension in the shoulders and spine that unsurprisingly makes life difficult, painful, and even irritating when it comes time to surf. So how do we release that tension and create greater mobility in these areas?
Most of our time spent in the water isn’t actually surfing, it’s spent sitting and then paddling. And if you think about paddling, it’s essentially our way of running with our arms. Considering we don’t run with our arms often, this part of our body needs regular strength and mobility work to be prepared for such movements. This, of course, can be accomplished by instilling an upper-body routine designed for paddling. This is why swimming can be such great cross-training for surfing, simply in terms of upper body output and development.
This particular mobility routine will help you to loosen stiff tissue around the shoulder girdle, open up motion for the shoulder blades, and integrate rotational spinal mobility. These are aspects of shoulder health that are paramount in pain-free paddling.
Undo what those last 10 years of sitting at a computer have done to your shoulders. Believe it or not, you have years of pain-free surfing to look forward to with the proper training and focus.
You can find the full Surf Strength Training program from Coach Cris Mills here. Enter code THEINERTIA to save $30 for a limited time.
