Pull Ups For Surfers - Do they help surfing?
If you want to paddle faster, or for longer, you need to be able to perform pull ups.
Why?
Max Pull Up Strength and 5 metre sprint paddle performance have an R Value of 0.96-0.99 (depending on which paper you read).
Which means they are so closely correlated, it’s an overwhelmingly safe bet that increasing your pull up strength WILL result in you catching more waves.
It’s not just your SPRINT paddling (5, 10 & 15 metres) that improves though.
Max Pull Up Strength is also closely correlated with a reduction in 400 metre paddle time (Coyne, 2017), suggesting an improvement in paddling ENDURANCE.
This makes absolute sense as the stronger you are, the less likely you are to burn through motor units as you fatigue, resulting in an improvement in paddling efficiency.
What If I Can’t Do Pull Ups?
Make no mistake, Pull Ups are tough AF!
But, notwithstanding injury history, EVERYONE can perform a Pull Up. You just need to follow a process, and you’ll get there!.
Because I’m an all round good guy, I’ve mapped out a potential route to completing #projectpullup for you, with some basic progressions – starting with the ‘Eccentric Pull Up’ is a great place to start.
The ‘Eccentric Pull Up’ can form the start of a progression serious for surfers who struggle to perform strict pull ups
This is an all star of any exercise for multiple reasons, and I’ll talk about the benefits of eccentric training in a separate post.
For now though, drop this into your training for 4-6 weeks and watch the #gainz roll in!
As always, give me a shout if you have any questions at all.
I hope you have enjoyed learning more about pull ups for surfers. Like what you see? You might want to download our FREE Surfing Mobility Manual. Take a look below now.
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