“Surfing is life” – we have heard it said plenty. It is a bit of a cliché, but somehow it seems to hold true to many. Why is this?

It could be said that it is because the sport is so engaging physically and mentally. Surfing exercises many different parts of the body and involves a lot of thought and mind-body control. On top of that, add some danger, emotions and some adrenaline and you can see it differentiating from other sports.

The Surfer’s Lifestyle

Also there is the famous surfer’s lifestyle. The purist can’t work to the regular clock like the rest of the world. Their clock is all about high tide, low tide, big depressions in the Atlantic, local winds and how all of these things come together to give the best possibilities of a good session.

…So when the right conditions arrive, the surfer has engineered his/her life to just be able to drop everything, grab the board and go! This makes it practically impossible to hold down a regular job, girlfriend/boyfriend and any kind of regular social life (unless, of course, your friends too are surfers!).

All of this results in the purist surfer being the misfit, the sub culture and that is, I guess, what gives a good argument to surfing not just being a sport to these people but a way of life.

But of course, it doesn’t have to be this extreme! Everybody can enjoy surfing at different levels and for the person who likes to look after his or her fitness, at least trying surfing is a must.

The paradox is that surfing creates fitness and also requires fitness…

The road to fitness

What we generally find with the surfer is the when s/he starts out, surfing itself helps them improve their physical fitness. And this is not to be underestimated! The cardiovascular, upper body/lower body/core workout that we are getting is quite enough to get into great shape!

Then further down the line, we have the surfer who has good physical form (through surfing) but wants to develop their surfing by being even more physically prepared and may start up some gym work just for this purpose…

Then we may have the new breed! This may well apply to many readers; the person that is already in good shape (has a good fitness culture of their own) and who fancies giving surfing a try – but first of all would like to know what muscle groups to work on so that when they hit the water they will benefit more…

In the coming weeks, we will be looking a bit more at “Fit for Surf”, exploring the many varied and interesting ways that you can prepare your body……

Next feature : “Fit for Surf - Paddling the Board”

You would be amazed at the number of muscles that you use - everything from your pectoralis major to your gastrocnemius.........................