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Saturday, 15 March 2008 |
SPRING IS ALMOST HERE!
We are almost ready to say good bye to winter and that means it’s time to start thinking about getting in the water. This month we are going to talk about pre-windsurf conditioning.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all you had to do was get yourself in perfect shape? Imagine spending 3 or 4 hours at the gym followed by a healthy organic lunch and topping it all with an afternoon siesta. For many athletes, this is the way it their life works- to most normal people squeezing in even a half hour workout can be a tall demand.
If you’re anything like me, time is a precious thing. My off season workouts are relatively quick and to the point. Windsurfing requires certain muscles to be in shape and there are some simple exercises I can recommend. Shoot for 3 days a week. On your off days, try to do some cardio only stuff- riding a bike, treadmill or whatever you want that keeps the heart rate up.
Pull-ups- yeah nobody likes these, but they are truly a wham bam bust your butt get in shape exercise. Pull-ups strengthen your all over your upper body and wake up those windsurfing muscles. Start out slow and do as many as you feel comfortable with. Never doing more than 10 each set, once you get stronger you can step up to more. I usually work up to 5 sets of 12 when I’m feeling good .
Next is core focus. I like the exercise balls for doing sit-ups. I do them crunch style, nothing to elaborate at first. Just make sure you are NOT using your back muscles, stay focused on the stomach. Move slow, don’t worry about how many you do at first, just learn the proper technique and work the core gently. I always have a good stretch on the ball and open up my back and chest muscles by leaning back and doing a full body stretch.
My next exercise is the Push up or bench press. In the off-season, I do some bench press stuff just to keep strong. I don’t push heavy weight; I just do more controlled lighter weights with more repetitions. This balances out your back muscles and keeps your body proportioned- we don’t want to be known as hunchbacks!
I rotate these 3 basic exercises all in sets- I like to go through 4 or 5 rounds depending on my time frame. In between each exercise, I will jump the rope for at least 3 minutes and at the completion of each round, I will stretch the hamstrings, glutes, shoulders and chest.
I do all of this in my garage. If you have to back a car out or move stuff around do it, not much room is required. If you can get yourself free for 40 minutes, you will be stylin with this workout program.
Here is the breakdown:
Start off with jumping some rope to get the body warmed up- go for 5 minutes. Do a body stretch and loosen up.
Do some pull-ups.
Drink water
Jump rope
Get on the ball and do some crunches
Stretch it out
Drink water
Jump rope
Push ups
Drink Water
Jump Rope
Stretch it out
There you have round 1. Start off by doing that 3 times and work up to 5 rounds of that with more intensity depending on how you feel. Think of this as windsurfing on land…. only not quite as much fun. You will thank me later once you do hit the water and have power to play! |
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Conditioning 
