What I’ve Applied From Climbing to Surfing Part 2 - Training

As discussed in last week’s newsletter about overcoming fear [What I’ve Applied From Climbing to Surfing Part 1 - Dealing with Fear], - my other passion besides surfing is rock climbing. There’s a lot that I’ve taken from that sport that’s helped my surfing. 

There are a lot of similarities between surfing and climbing, but there is one really big difference between surfers and climbers though. Most surfers (unless they are pros and then for some reason it’s oddly ok) are generally anti-training. They like to pretend they came out of the womb with Curren’s style and Occy’s power and are very resistant to anything new even if it will help them improve.

Climbers on the other hand tend to be obsessed with training. They will spend endless hours at the gym hanging from tiny edges with their fingers with weights strapped to them and geek out about training programs. The vast majority of climbers don’t live in a place where they can climb on a daily basis so training is their way of preparing for the opportunities when they can make it out to real rock.

Just for reference - here was my old climbing training program:

As we all know, people that try harder at things tend to be better than those that don’t try hard at those things, so adopting a training mentality and applying it to surfing can give you an edge, especially for someone who can’t surf as often as they’d like to. 

Big picture - what does this look like for a surfer?

• Surfing as often as possible even when the waves aren’t good because nothing replaces time in the water
• Being intentional during your surf sessions
• Training paddling
• Training your pop-up on dryland
• PT / prehab / rehab
• Dialing in your diet and sleep

These are some of the things that helped me - hope they help you!