Fitness

Its easier to stay fit than to get fit!

Lee Bartlett has been considered one of the most physically fit surfers in the UK for over 2 decades. At 39 years young Lee still trains and maintains a high level of fitness. Below is an insight to his surfing exercises.

“Over the years I have been lucky enough to have been trained by some of the best Surf Coaches and Trainers that Britain has to offer. I admit not all of their techniques suited my body type and surfing style, so what I've done is take bits from all of them and tweaked it to suit me. The main thing I learnt is its not good enough just to be surf fit. You need have an all round fitness. I cross train from surfing to boxing to light weights and home workouts. The most important thing I find is to enjoy what ever training you do, for me that's basketball, don't make it into a have to do routine. Make it fun and the fitness side of it will be a bonus.”

Warm up

The two trains of thought on this is are to stretch before exercise or warm up. I have never been super flexible so I generally warm up by doing light shadow boxing. If you do yoga or have your own warm up technique please use them, the main aim is to warm up all the muscles we use when we surf. I.e. the dorsal muscles, abdominals, quadriceps, triceps, pectoral, gluteal's and trapezii. This is my warm up:

1: Stand in your surfing stance, knee's slightly bent and adopt the boxing hands position. Your hands should be at cheek level. Slowly throw your front hand out as a “jab” remembering to shift your weight from your back to front foot. Just before your hand is is fully extended rotate your shoulder forward about 10”. Bring the hand back to the start position. Do the same with your trailing hand, this would be a “straight right/left”. This is a slow and light movement, your not trying to knock out Mike Tyson! Don't clench your fists keep your hands loose and open. You can introduce “hooks” and “upper cuts” to target the dorsal, trapezii, pectoral and tricep muscles. Once again move your weight from front to back foot to warm up the Quads and calf muscles. Do this for 1-2 mins, its more of a light workout than you think.

2: Now you have your heart pumping its time to do some front knee raises. Stay in your surfing/boxing stance. Keep your hands up and bring your back leg forward with your knee bent. The knee should peak as it reaches your waist line. You will need to lean back slightly to keep your balance. Once again slow controlled movements. Do 3-4 knee raises then switch stance. Its important to warm up both sides of the body equally. This warm up is good for abdominal and thighs.

Push ups

I use 3 main types of push ups. Normal, narrow hand and elevated. By changing your hand position you target different muscle groups in the shoulder and tricep muscles. If you keep your elbows tucked into your side you will hit the Tricep muscles harder, point your elbows out and you will feel more pull on the pectorals and deltoids:

Normal Push Ups:

a)Lie on a flat floor, chest-down with your hands at shoulder level. Palms should be flat on the floor and slightly more than shoulder-width apart. Keep your head up looking in front of you.

Your legs should be straight and your feet together. Your bum tucked in so you look like a flat plank of wood from head to toe.

b)Straighten your arms as you push your body up off the floor. Keep body straight. Try not to bend or arch your upper or lower back as you push up. Breath out as you straighten your arms. Hold for a moment then lower your self back to the start position. Breath in on the way down and make sure it is a controlled decent.

Narrow Hand Push Ups:

Lie on a flat floor, chest-down with your hands at shoulder level. Place your hands on the floor with your fingers as spread apart as they go. Now touch your thumbs together, making sure that your little fingers and thumbs make a kind of W shape.( if you have trouble visualising this, walk up to a wall place your hands on the wall as if your going to try and push it over, now slide your hand together so your thumbs meet)

Now follow instructions b) as above.

This push up will be harder to perform as you are using more of your tricep muscles.

Elevated push ups:

This is basically a normal push up with one difference. Instead of having your feet on the floor they should be “elevated”, to what degree is down to you! If you have never done push ups on a regular basis start off low, about the hight of a shoe box, you can use books, blocks of wood what ever you have. As you get stronger place your feet on higher surfaces.

Your hands can either be in the normal or narrow hand position.

Advanced push ups:

If you like more of a challenge you can introduce the Indo-board into your push up training.

DO NOT USE THE INDO-BOARD WITH NARROW HAND PUSH UPS. Although this would be highly entertaining it is very dangerous. The Indo-board will help strengthen the smaller stabiliser muscles in the shoulders.

The exercises above have a more muscle strength element to them. Remember you should have a balanced fitness workout. For cardiovascular training I use a mixture of “aerobic” and “anaerobic” exercises.

Aerobic: Refers to exercise that involves or improves oxygen consumption by the body. Running, swimming, cycling, brisk walking are a few aerobic exercises. Once you build you aerobic endurance you will be able to paddle longer and harder.

Anaerobic: Is used by athletes in non-endurance sports to build power and by body builders to build muscle mass. Muscles trained under anaerobic conditions develop differently, leading to greater performance in short duration, high intensity activities, which last up to about 2 minutes. Sprinting, skipping, boxing, football are all good forms of anaerobic exercise. After you anaerobic fitness improves you will recover from exercise quicker, you surfing should become more explosive.

I use the Indo-board to help core strength. Basic squats on the Indo-cushion trains your balance and quadriceps, make sure the movement is slow and controlled to get a real burn.

Another good exercise for the core, stomach, pectorals and triceps is the dreaded “Plank”. This exercise is you against gravity.

Set up in a press up position, could be normal/elevated/narrow hand, then lower yourself half way to the floor and hold. How long you hold for is up to you. I find the shakes kick in after about 25-30secs. Start off at 10-15secs and see how you go. As you get stronger lengthen the time.

Normal Plank Narrow hand Plank Indo-board Plank

The main aim is to help you get stronger for surfing if you cant afford or have time to go to the gym. One of the most important things is try to keep a good level of fitness, no matter what exercises you do to get it. If you have a dog don't just walk with it, have a little jog every now and then, play football with the kids, go to a dance class what ever it is, if you enjoy it and it gets you heart pumping you will feel the benefit when you surf.

I hope this little insight to my training will help you get the results your after in the water.

See you out back,

Lee

Lee Bartlett

25 Years of surfing