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By Flavio Crisi

 

Dear surfer,

My surfing homework consists of fun and educational exercises to prepare our body, mind, and spirit for surfing big waves!

 

I learned how to surf when I was 22 years old. At that time, I was living in São Paulo, a city located 2 hours by car from the beach.

Even though I never took a surfing lesson and I needed to travel for surfing, I learned how to catch waves really fast.

 

The reasons are that I was a good swimmer and skateboarder, and also because my surfing friends and I were very dedicated, spending hours in the ocean every weekend.

 

“Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are.” JC



 

10 SURFING EXERCISES

The best way to improve your physical & mental condition for surfing!

 

1. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 SPORTY FRIENDS

Share your healthy life. There are many surf groups on Facebook and on MeetUp.com, where you can make friends and share your passions! Just search for “surfers + name of your hometown”.

 

2. 🏋️ THE POP-UP AND TAKE OFF 

These are the names of the movement for standing up on a surfboard. As you can see on my Youtube above, you can train this movement in your house. Try to do it super fast and with precise movements, like a professional surfer.

 

3. 🏊‍♀️ SWIMMING IS THE BEST PHYSICAL TRAINING

If you are a good swimmer, try these exercises to increase your physical condition, paddling technique, and confidence to surf big waves alone:

  • Butterfly: breathing 3x1 - two cycles of strokes with your head into the water intercalated with one cycle of strokes with your head out of the water.

  • Deep end swimming training: running or working out at the bottom of the sea with extra weights, rocks or dumbbells.

  • Crawl (freestyle): with your head out of the water, like the water polo style 🤽‍♀️

  • Sprints: all kinds of swimming exercises with a high intensity interval training, intercalating fast laps with long rests:)

 

4. 💦 WATER EXPERIENCES

They are going to improve your familiarity & intimacy with open waters: bodysurf, bodyboard, paddle board, kayak, snorkeling, cliff diving, sailing, waterfalls, jacuzzi, etc… There are hundreds of water activities.

 

5. BOARDSPORTS

All of them have a similar way to move your body & get balance. From the aspect of how you put your feet on the board, there are 2 kinds of boardsports:

🛹 Without bindings (free): surfing, skateboarding, skimboarding, snakeboarding, etc.

🏂 With bindings (fixed): snowboarding, wakeboarding, sandboarding, etc.

 

6. 📚 BOOKS

There are many surfing books: novels, arts, equipment, biographies, competitions, etc. I really recommend you to read The History of Surfing, by Matt Warshaw.

 

7. 🏨 SURF CAMPS & RESORTS

Hotels where everything goes around surfing: lessons, movies, library, decoration, and parties. My dream is to open a surf resort with a fitness center inside. If you have some money and want to invest on this business dream, I would love to be your partner <3 

 

8. 🤩 SOCIAL MEDIA

Connect with famous athletes. For example, the waterman Kai Lenny, the big wave rider Justine Dupont, the skater Tony Hawk, the snowboarder Shaun White.

 

9. 🧠 NEVER EVER

No way to watch documentaries about shark attacks 🦈

 

10. 📺 SURFING MOVIES

Movies are the best to prepare your mindset and learn about surf culture! My second passion in life is cinema. I have been to dozens of movie theaters in different countries. Here is my selection to you:

 

Free Tv Channels

 

Amazon Prime Movies

 

Paid Tv Channels

  • HBO: 100 Foot Wave - I love this docuseries about Nazaré, Portugal.

  • The Surf Network - A streaming tv with the biggest collection of surfing movies.

  • Netflix - at the moment, Netflix has not so good surf movies.



 

SURFING CURIOSITIES 🎨

Let's talk about some fascinating things!

 

  • Goofy Footer x Regular Footer: on my Instagram, you can watch this animation Hawaiian Holiday - produced by Walt Disney in 1937. It is the first animated movie in history about surfing. It’s also the reason for the names of the stances in boardsports:

    • Goofy Footer: right foot in front of the board.

    • Regular Footer: left foot in front of the board.

 

  • The artist Hilton Alves has the world record for painting the largest wave mural. Located in Hawaii, It's about 5 stories tall and takes up almost 1.300m².

 

  • I’m constantly upgrading this Surf Training Ebook with new exercises & videos. Please, come back soon to check my new posts about the world of surfing!


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