Over the last few months the SSF have been looking at ways where we can help Scotlands surfers at all levels improve their surfing performance, health and general wellbeing. With that we are stoked to team up with Ash Boddy of Boddy Language an Edinburgh based CHEK practitioner who has compiled the ‘Weekend Surf Warrior’ programme www.weekendsurfwarrior.com. Check it out - the websites packed with professional advice on all aspects of surfer wellbeing from general health, diet, through to detailed ways of tackling common surf injuries and specialist surf conditioning programmes to maximise water potential.
For an overview of the material as well as as an interview with Ash himself check out our Health, Fitness and Wellbeing page.
Now with a few life changes time in the water is valuable and like everyone I want to make the best from the time I get. So I’ve taken my doctors advice, tried difference exercise routines and workouts with varying levels of success. Although the reality is that none of them were specifically designed around surfing, increased fitness, yes, improved performance when surfing….. not really.
I heard about Ash through the Scottish Surfing Federation so went and had a look at his website – pretty flash really, the part that really fired me up was Ash’s video on what we should be looking at eating for breakfast. My uneducated belief is that you only get out what you put in, the question is what should you put in?
So we agreed to meet at the 2013 Scottish championships, pass the formalities and agree to meet the next time I get home from offshore. The question Ash left me with was “What is it you want to achieve?”
So I’m left thinking OK, what is it that I want to improve about my surfing?
In my head here’s how the day’s going to pan out, go have a quick surf, have a chat about what it is that I’d like to work on, go through a couple of exercises that’s going to help me achieve this then off for dinner washed down with a beer or two.
Oh how wrong could I have been! No messing around when Ash turned up, yes I guess it helped that the ocean was as flat as a lake. Straight into an assessment of how I moved what was working and what wasn’t. Here’s the shocker, my objective is to improve speed and power through turns, apparently I’m loosing fifty percent of what I could achieve as I’m unable to load onto my right hip correctly. Too many years of doing the same repeated motions without structure and simply learning corrections and bad habits to allow me to continue surfing. Onto a mobility assessment and this was good news, at the ripe old age of thirty eight I mobilise quite well, great what’s next?
A Medicine Ball…… latest addition to the Noble quiver.
Coffee… Time for a chat about what I should be eating, me being me not too worried about the why but as it was being offered hey why not? So Ash tells me this is something he can talk for hours about, but we’ll only cover the basics. I learn about what I already know about cars, small minor adjustments are the go, big swerves are hard to correct and usually end up in a crash. Taking this analogy into food and your body I learn quickly why I should be eating within a specific diet, not to loose weight , or increase muscle density but simply to keep my car on the road.
The next morning Ash ran through a simple, personalised, structured set of mobility stretches, strength power and speed exercises and a pre-surf warm up. Don’t get me wrong some I found reasonably easy with others being challenging but the whole package was designed around my goal of improved speed and power through turns.
Later in the day after I’ve been in the garden for a couple of hours I try to think back on what the exercises were, I can vaguely remember, here’s the beauty. I have a copy of my workout emailed with descriptions, pictures and videos of everything involved. Too easy right? All I have to do is commit and I’ll achieve my goal.
Here’s my final thoughts of my assessment. I’ve woken up on Sunday morning and although we only completed a few of the exercises, I ache like I was surfing for three hours yesterday. Out of shape? Maybe I’ve never really been in shape for surfing! Like the doc said what do you do to keep yourself in shape for surfing?
by Chris Noble, 2014 Scottish Surf Champion