SURFERS – SHOULD YOU AVOID HEAVY WEIGHTS?

I was sent a link to a post with the above advice for surfers, worryingly written by an authority in surfing.  Which means people WILL listen to and follow it.

It’s a classic example (often seen on social media) of stating your opinion as ‘fact’.

When it comes to improving performance, the facts are the only thing that matter!

If I were to follow that advice & use it on my own athletes, I would get fired.

I won’t name the poster as that’s not really fair.  Good vibez and useful info only here 🤙🏽

So trying to be as nice as possible, let’s just call the advice ‘sub optimal’.

WHAT WAS SAID?

The post centred around avoiding heavy weight, low rep work because “too much weight puts on too much mass”.  

It also recommends that you train (seemingly exclusively) in the muscular endurance rep range (traditionally >25 reps).

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE ‘SUB OPTIMAL’

👉 High volume, ‘muscular endurance’ training is highly effective for paddling endurance (so still include it), but it SUCKS for force production

👉 Force production is ESSENTIAL in paddling endurance, sprint paddling, pop ups, wave riding and basically ANY other athletic endeavour or sport

👉 High weight (>85%), low rep work is THE primary method of improving force development for athletic performance

👉 Avoiding this form of training would significant impact your ability to catch waves and ride them

👉 Near maximal, high-tension lifting if performed correctly, tends to predominantly stimulate neural adaptations, not significantly increase muscle mass

👉 If you eat and train like a bodybuilder, you will put on mass.  As a surfer, your training is ‘concurrent’ (i.e. you are training for strength AND endurance) – so it’s unlikely you will be starring in a Conan The Barbarian remake any time soon

👉 Ironically, you’re probably more likely to ‘put on too much mass’ by consistently performing 25+ reps due to the high amount of metabolic stress this causes.  Which is fine by the way, because again, presumably you’re not eating 8,000 calories per day

Hope this helps. I never want to call people out, I want people to know the facts.