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.
Do you feel like more hip mobility would help your surfing? If you think of all the positions we find ourselves in while surfing, we are heavily reliant on movement around the pelvis. And if you have a vested interest in your surfing, then at some point you will have to come to the realization that you need to look after your body.
Meanwhile, day-to-day life wreaks havoc on those movements. Before you know it, you spend too much time stuck at a desk, feel like your pop up is getting slower and wonkier, and just start to move like a stiff old dude. If you’re currently experiencing this, it’s time to do something about it. And if you’re lucky and haven’t hit these walls yet, you have even more reason to be proactive.
At the foundation of your skill in the water lies your ability to move. Any sport skillset requires certain movement capacities from the body. Surfing, in terms of movement requirements, is up there with gymnastics and dancing. They’re all activities that require dynamic positions, full mobility of joints, and power.
I work with clients in clinical settings and with performance training, and I can’t stress the relevance of a healthy and mobile hip joint for high-performance surfing and even more importantly, longevity. Watch Kelly Slater, Mick Fanning, or Joel Parkinson as examples and only pay attention to their lower body. Examine the dynamic positions they put their bodies into, consider the forces being produced or the forces being absorbed through those movements.
Now ask yourself, can your hips move like that? The likely answer to that brings us right back to the original question: Would mobile hips help your surfing?
Yes, they will.
Dive into this routine for Fluid Hip strength and make sure you’re familiar with fundamental hip stretches. It won’t suddenly make you shred, but it will help your body to move well if you execute this routine three days per week for the next month.
Take a proactive approach and implement this routine, and ultimately feel better with your surfing.
You can find the full Surf Strength Training program from Coach Cris Mills here. Enter code THEINERTIA to save $30 for a limited time.
