FITNESS ON THE ROAD | KEEPING YOU SURF FIT
To ensure your adventures don’t sabotage all the hard work you’ve been doing in the gym at home, here are some ideas on how to keep (or become) fit, strong and lean while abroad.
1. Apart from surfing, choose as many active outdoor activities as possible. The added bonus of keeping in shape, in my humble opinion, is appreciating nature and experiencing far more that your chosen destination has to offer. Surfing blesses you with this. When the surf is insurable or you are stuck in transit somewhere on your way to your surfing destination, try these:
- When away from the water, spend a couple of hours playing tennis, rockclimbing, bike-riding, skiing, walking, jogging, sprinting, kicking a ball, throwing a frisbee or playing on the kids playground. If the surf is flat try kayaking, canoeing or ocean swimming.
- Choose a trekking path suitable for your fitness ability and take a few hours to digest the scenery in a national park.
- Start the day with 10 or so sets of 30-50m beach sprints and finish off with an ocean swim.
- Spend a few hours walking or rock hopping around coastal bays.
- Choose to walk around the city over public transport. Take the stairs instead of the lift or escalators and all that stuff you’ve likely heard before.
- Take a new class such as yoga or a native dance class.
- If you’re drinking around a campfire, get up and dance that alcohol off.
2. Throw in some bodyweight movements every 1-2days (10-20min workout) using your imagination. Examples include;
1 leg partial squats or full squats / pistol squats
Handstand push-ups with feet against a wall for balance
Spiral/screwdriver push-ups (for added shoulder stress)
Overhead pressing using a large rock
Swinging a rock in a diagonal path (woodchop action)
Squatting holding a rock
Squatting holding a rock over the shoulder
Close-grip push-ups
Kids playground; chin-ups and pull-ups, monkeybar locomotion, horizontal pulls using a low bar, step-ups
Standard push-ups
High-step-ups
Hip bridges progressively extending the legs out for more hamstring stress
Hip bridges with your foot on a bench for increased intensity
Harrop curls with the feet anchored or having a partner hold your calves down (natural glute-ham raise)
Lunges
Single leg or split stance deadlifts bodyweight or holding a rock
Split stance squats
Lying and hanging leg raises
Reverse crunches with your head uphill (nature’s decline bench)
You could, for example, choose 5 of the movements above and complete a workout with 2-3 sets.
3. Stretch tight muscles or mobilise restricted joint areas, especially prone to develop with long periods of sitting while travelling, carrying luggage/backpacks or previous day activities which you are normally unaccustomed to. I’ve been seen at airports and bus terminals using a wall to stretch or placing down a towel and just stretching what I know needs attention, just avoid downward dogs or other butt-facing-people moves (needless to say, I also admit to performing these in public places).
4. Get plenty of clean, filtered/natural spring water.
5. Eat good quality, whole, real food. Choose hormone, anti-biotic and chemical free food sources where possible. Toxins are stored in fat (possibly a protective mechanism to keep toxins away from organs and the bloodstream), so if we want to keep lean it’s best to be as toxin-free as we can.
6. Timing of food intake. Having larger amounts of food with more carbs/calories just after a heavy workout or after several hours of trekking/climbing/other activity. Just after exercise like this, insulin sensitivity is heightened and glucose receptors have been brought to the surface of muscle cells, favouring whatever is next eaten to be used in the muscle rather than stored as fat in fat cells. Growth hormone is also elevated immediately after exercise compared to when sedentary, so conditions are primed for muscle growth and fat loss rather than fat storage when the next big meal comes. Increase starchy carbs and non-gluten carbs such as rice, sweet potato, pumpkin, turnip, beetroot, corn etc, on days of higher physical exertion
7. Enjoy a good wine/ spirit / beer from time to time, and keep in mind the fat storing and toxic effects of alcohol with respect to your body-shaping and health goals.
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