Let's move: World's top surfers elevate training with ice baths and early yoga
Surfing four to six hours a day is no longer enough to rise to the top on the international scene with athletes developing more creative methods to get an edge on the waves. Olympics.com went behind the scenes to take a look at the training regimes of the world’s best surfers.
Surfing
The coolest party on El Tunco Beach in El Salvador takes place daily at 4 pm at the hotel hosting Costa Rica and Ecuador’s surfing teams.
There is no music, no dancing, and no lemonade. But there are ice baths.
The two national teams have started a daily ritual of ice bath meetups after arriving in El Salvador for the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games. Surfers from all countries are welcome to join. Venezuela and Puerto Rico are already regular guests, but athletes from other teams have stopped by as well.
Diving into ice baths has become a common post-surf practice among elite surfers, many of which are on the lookout for creative training strategies to get an edge on their competition in the water.
And there is no shortage of ideas. From martial arts to meditation, the surfers have taken their on-land training to a new level as the sport becomes increasingly competitive.
Olympics.com looked into the athletes’ training secrets, making a few unexpected discoveries along the way.
Surfers’ training secrets: A party in ice
Top-ranked Brazilian surfers Joao Chianca and Tatiana Weston-Webb are also taking the icy plunge. Chianca opts for a temperature of 13 degrees Celsius for his ice baths, while the temperature of the water at the meetups on El Tunco Beach usually dips to 10 degrees.
“The immersion is for seven to 10 minutes, at 10 degrees,” Costa Rica’s physiotherapist Jose Pablo Vargas told Olympics.com. “The main goals are to help with the muscle pain that comes at the end of the day after training and heats, and to help with the recovery in terms of power. The other positive effect is to lower the CPK (creatine phosphokinase) levels in the muscle and also to train tolerance.”
A daily participant of the ice bath party, Costa Rica’s Leilani Mcgonagle welcomed the camaraderie of this mandatory, but chilly component of her training regime.
The surfers joke before getting in the icy water and time who stays in the longest. Once in the water, however, the focus is entirely on the body-mind connection.
“I found it really useful to work on the emotional and mental side,” Mcgonagle told Olympics.com. “You got to believe you can.”
Balance and flexibility: The keys to a surfer’s body
Yoga and Pilates are common ways that surfers try to improve mobility and flexibility.
On 29 May, the day before the ISA 2023 World Surfing Games start in El Salvador, the German surfers were up on their yoga mats at 4.30 a.m. to get moving ahead of the morning surf session.
Mexico’s Ana Gonzalez is another dedicated yoga practitioner, together with Brazil’s Filipe Toledo and USA’s Olympic champion Carissa Moore who does sun salutations as part of her morning warm-up routine.
Moore also praises the benefits of Pilates, as does Indonesia’s Rio Waida.
“My trainer believes in a lot of Pilates. Core, core, core. She is very strict, my trainer. She pushes me to the point of crying sometimes. But that makes me stronger in my head, which is the most important muscle,” Waida told Tracks magazine at the start of the 2023 season.
“I really love to flow and look graceful and powerful, to really look like you know what you are doing better than the other guy in the heat," he added. "I am much stronger than I was before, and it makes me feel free. It sets you free and gives you confidence. You want to achieve a surfing body. Not a gym body.”
Surfer on land: Back to cardio
While battling ocean waves is an intense cardio workout already, some surfers like to get their blood pumping even more.
Moore runs twice a week, while her teammate John John Florence is an avid hiker.
In her fitness and diet guide called Live Like Sally, Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons reveals that she wakes up at 4 am to get a cardio workout in before a dawn surf session. As she explains, the cardio training is essential to be able to paddle in the ocean.
Resistance training is another regular feature in Fitzgibbons’ workouts. She lifts weights and trains with resistance bands to then execute more powerful moves on the water.
Other surfers can also often be spotted at a gym.
France’s Johanne Defay lifts weights. Brazil’s Gabriel Medina trains at the gym in a weighted vest, while Kanoa Igarashi’s coach has him doing push ups and exercises with a medicine ball.
Surfing: A mind game
Physical strength is essential for an elite athlete, but so is a quick mind, whether it’s to dribble past three defenders on a football pitch or react to the ocean’s changing moods.
Neurokinetic therapy is a training tactic that German surfer Leon Glatzer shares with his compatriots and football greats Mario Götze and Per Mertesacker.
One way neurokinetic therapy can be put into practice is by passing balls between teammates or bouncing multiple balls off a wall and trying to catch them.
“You basically drive up the (reactions) in your brain, which are crucial for perception, attention, anticipation and decision making,” Glatzer told Olympics.com. “Therefore, the athlete (improves) his performance from the first second in the heat. Every time I do this, I feel I’m more in the present than ever, and I’m aware of all my surroundings. It helps me so much with any situation that comes along where I need to be focused and be reactive.”
Surfer vibes, fighter spirit
While Glatzer and his fellow German surfers try to quicken the mind, other surfers opt to slow theirs down.
Meditation has many devotees on the international surfing circuit. Toledo, France’s Johanne Defay and USA’s Griffin Colapinto are among them.
Colapinto also writes a daily journal and does breathing techniques before paddling out to his heats.
But while these meditative techniques align perfectly with the laid-back vibe surfing is known for, there are also surfers who come with a true fighting spirit.
Japan’s Mahina Maeda practises Brazilian jiu-jitsu, following the example of surfing great Kelly Slater.
Meanwhile, Colapinto seamlessly combines his daily journaling and meditation routine with boxing workouts. Given his recent rise to the world No.1 ranking, that unlikely combination appears to be working.