Sports and Recreation

Archive for December, 2009

Surfing is one of the few sports that require all aspects of fitness:

• Aerobic Endurance
• Strength
• Flexibility
• Coordination
• Agility
• Balance
• Proprioception

Your traditional gym workouts will take care of your strength and aerobic requirements, and your yoga class will be more than adequate for flexibility. However, for surf-specific coordination, agility, balance and proprioception, you will need a surf-specific workout.

What is Sport-Specific Training?

In the past decade, sport scientists have begun to reevaluate the way we get fit for a specific sport. Past sport training programs usually involved isolation exercises, which strengthened the muscles used for the sport. However, according to movement science research, traditional strength training does little to enhance sport-specific skill. As such, trainers are now using the dynamic pattern theory of motor learning, which states that the brain is more efficient at memorizing movement patterns than it is at muscular isolation. For example, consider the traditional leg extension machine. Its movements are in no way similar to those used in surfing. Now, imagine a squat, performed in a surfer’s stance on a Bosu or wobble board. The exercise now resembles the movements of surfing, and is therefore a better way to enhance surf-specific skills.

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Kathy Peper wasn’t about to let someone she went diving with have a fatal or near fatal incident because they were in poor physical condition.

Peper, owner of Get Wet Scuba in Palm Springs, witnessing and hearing about fitness/health-related fatal and near-fatal dive incidents at Catalina Island, decided to do something about it.

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In case you didn’t notice, skateboarding is on the fast track to becoming one of the words hottest sports. Not only is skateboarding lots of fun, it’s a great way to stay fit without having to endure boring gym workouts. Propelling your weight on a skateboard will help enhance aerobic endurance. Add hills, and you’ll be working even harder.  If you decide to learn some skateboarding tricks, you’ll be reaping the benefits of plyometric exercise, as well as getting a great leg and core workout. As if that was not enough, skateboarding improves your balance, coordination and agility, especially if you practice performing tricks.

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