Lower Body Training #2
Lower Body Training #2
Any time you are doing lower body exercises for surfing, make sure they are functional in nature. This means steering away from machine based exercises like leg presses, leg extensions and leg curls. These type of exercises isolate specific muscles, which can lead to a greater chance of injury. When you are surfing you are using multiple muscle groups at the same time, and therefore you need to train the same way.
The first exercise below is a more advanced version of the split squat. It will help develop your single leg strength and balance, which is important as most of the time when surfing, one of your legs is supporting more of your body weight than the other.
You also need to make sure that any leg strength program incorporates exercises that work on the hip extensors (hamstrings and glutes) so that your leg muscles remain balanced. This is important for both performance and injury prevention. The second exercise below trains the posterior (back) muscles of your legs.
You can do these exercises 2-3 times per week, and perform 2-3 sets of each.
One-Leg Bench Squat
- Start in a lunge position but with your back foot elevated on a bench.
- Keeping your body in an upright position, lower your back knee towards the ground stopping just short of touching.
- Your front knee should end up directly over your ankle.
- Push back up to the start position.
- Do 8-10 reps per leg.
Stability Ball Leg Curl
- Lie with your shoulders on the ground and your heels on the ball. Your hips should be elevated off the ground.
- Place your arms out to the side for support.
- Keeping your body straight from your shoulders to your knees, curl the ball under using your heels then return to the start position.
- Do 15-20 repetitions.
For more functional exercises for surfers, visit totalsurfingfitness.com. Here you will find a complete functional training program designed specifically for surfers, which includes training for core strength, balance, cardiovascular fitness, upper & lower body strength and flexibility.
ABOUT AUTHOR
Clayton Beatty is the fitness expert behind TotalSurfingFitness.com, a website dedicated to functional training for surfers. Clayton holds a BSc Degree in Human Movement, is a Certified Fitness Trainer and grew up surfing the Margaret River region in Western Australia. If you would like to learn more visit his website at www.totalsurfingfitness.com.
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