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Lifting your game

2nd September 2006 Alistair Taylor

Here's an article that hopefully will help you guys and girls that are looking for some free advice on lifting your overall surfing performance. This is really just based on my own experience, so maybe don't take it like it's law or something, but if you find anything useful and helpful, by all means use it.

Being Positive

These points aren't in any particular order, but this is a really important part of making it as an athlete. If you have a goal set to achieve something in sport, the only thing you are guaranteed of is that there will be setbacks, difficulties and disappointments along the way. Learning how to lose is actually a critical step in learning how to win — when you lose, you tend to be far more analytical of what you did wrong, than analysing what you did that helped you win. Viewing your defeats in a positive way, and learning from them, rather than getting all bummed and giving up, is a step closer to achieving your goals.

Tying in with this same point is perseverance — if you don't have that, and can't keep positive when you are dealing with disappointments, you'll never make it to the top. Pretty much everyone in sport, no matter how great their achievements, has had to overcome loss, disillusionment and so on. It's the guys that fight to overcome all this that end up winners at the end. 99% of people give up when the adversity becomes too much — but that remaining 1% that keep fighting are the ones that end up champions, and are an inspiration to the 99%.

If you look at a guy like Lance Armstrong for example, he had to overcome a disease that almost killed him, as well as losing his main sponsor, who thought he'd never race again, as well as deal with being written off by nearly everyone in cycling. He even had to overcome his own will, as he had a really defeatist attitude after his recovery....he didn't want to compete again at all. Yet somehow he found his will to win, and now he holds a record in cycling that is unlikely to ever be broken. This is an important lesson — when people or the media write you off, even if the whole world is against you, even those that once believed most in you — you can still achieve the impossible if you are willing to make it happen. Being negative never helps — ever.

Training

This is a vast topic, and to me covers everything from stretching to diet to cross-training to the waves you surf. I think training is a bit like a pair of shoes — you have to find what fits you, not wear someone else's shoes just because you like the look of them. We are all individuals, so what works for one may not work for the other. And bodyboarding is more of an individual sport than a team sport, so it makes sense that way too to find your own groove.

One thing I highly recommend is stretching of some sort. It too is a detailed subject, so you are best off getting a book and learning how to do it right — if you do it wrong, you can do more damage to yourself than good. However stretching is critical for injury prevention if you are doing radical moves, and even more so in cold water where your muscles tend to stiffen up. If you look at a guy like Jeff Hubbard, the guy is notorious for doing some of the biggest and most radical airs in the world of surfing — but he is also dedicated in the discipline of stretching....otherwise he'd be in a wheelchair by now. It's not just injury prevention either, but also about pushing your maneuvers to their extreme, and tweaking those inverts a little harder. Your muscles are like elastic bands, and we all know what happens to an elastic if you stretch it out and let it shoot off — the more it stretches, the farther it flies....

Regarding cross training, some guys use different sports to boost their fitness in bodyboarding. While this works, it's advisable to find something that you enjoy so that it can be sustainable, ie you won't get bored of it in a week and give up. But it also depends on how much you surf — if you surf enough, you might not need any other exercise to be fit.

One thing that I personally think is important though is that you surf often in all kinds of waves. If you get fussy and blow off all the 1-3 ft days, onshore days and so on, and only surf the perfect stuff, then you'll only surf well in the perfect stuff, and God help you if your contest is held in 2ft mush. Might as well pack your bags already. But surfing in all conditions will also help your surfing in good waves, as it's in small surf where you learn to get the most power out of the waves and refine your technique on the basics.

Nutrition

This too is a huge field of interest, and I don't know if I'd recommend reading up on it, because I have, and there is so much contradictory information in diet books it's unbelievable. I have also tried various diets, and at the end of the day, the common sense one works best for me — eat as close to what God put on this earth for us to eat as possible, ie lots of vegetable and fruits and whole grains. The more man meddles with food and processes it, the worse it gets....that's why we have so much cancer, diabetes and obesity in the world today...people's lifestyles tend to convenience food and lack of exercise. Yet if you go into rural parts of the world where people live off their own farms, you can hardly find a sick or fat person anywhere.

On the subject of meat, well, I tend to prefer a vegetarian diet, but I eat meat now and then. But allegorically speaking, our bodies are more similar to herbivores than carnivores, so I think we were designed for the salad bar rather than the barbecue. Anyway like I said it's a very involved topic, so I won't get too into it. I will say though that if you are eating lots of junk (fast foods, fried foods, processed food that can last in your cupboard for 8000 years before date of expiry and so on), and you change over to a diet that is rich in fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains, you will feel a big difference for the better in your surfing, I can just about guarantee that. As for drinking and drugs and smoking, don't get me started on that.....but if you want to indulge yourself there, don't even think about being a world champion, it won't happen.

OK there are some basic tips, they're free, but if you see me in the line-up and you liked the article, then you can give me a wave or something (especially if its at Pipe). Most of all, enjoy what you do. Positive lifestyle changes should make you happier anyway, as your life becomes more absorbed in positive things...plus you'll be surfing better, so who can complain with that? But I wouldn't go spending an hour on the treadmill if it makes you miserable, then you're better of just going for a surf and having fun. When you're having fun, you surf better too.

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