What menace lurks in professional surfing?
It is a beautiful morning in southern California after many, many grey days. The sun is shining, bunny rabbits frolicking in the dewy grass, a little hummingbird has just built a nest outside my window and is gently optimistic about the future. Little does she know that a evil lurks nearby. Like a creeping shadow spreading across the waters. Like a menacing chill. Waiting to destroy her young hatchlings’ futures.
For somewhere close surf coaches are peddling dangerous snake oil, pseudo-science, lies masquerading as truth, death.
How do I know? Well the official governing body of U.S. Olympic Surfing just convened a panel of leading experts in the medical and possibly psychological fields to give the Olympic hopefuls the best possible shot at winning gold and let us read together from the press release.
“USA Surfing will work toward impacting the whole sport of surfing in the United States, not just our elite athletes or Olympic hopefuls,” Dean said. “We have assembled a dream team of experts to help create a performance pathway that supports winning medals and progressing the sport of surfing at every level.”
Dean believes in an evidence-based approach adapted to each individual athlete and warns of unproven and even damaging techniques employed by surfers and coaches striving to improve performance. “We look forward to sharing the leading research and techniques for surf fitness and training,” Dean said. “Surfers need to demonstrate competent movement upon which to build appropriate strength”
USA Surfing CEO Greg Cruse said Team USA’s High Performance Committee reflects the vision of USA Surfing leading up to the 2020 Olympics. “Kevyn has assembled a world-class committee and surf training program,” said Cruse. “The committee’s work reflects the momentum and excitement growing in USA Surfing. Surfing is one of the most athletically demanding sports in the world and it needs the solid, medically sound training program that the High Performance Committee will bring to the sport.”
All fine and good to the casual reader but the highly trained surf journalist sniffs out the disturbance and let us read the following line, again, together:
…warns of unproven and even damaging techniques employed by surfers and coaches striving to improve performance. “We look forward to sharing the leading research and techniques for surf fitness and training,” Dean said. “Surfers need to demonstrate competent movement upon which to build appropriate strength”
What are these unproven and even damaging techniques being employed by surfers and coaches striving to improve performance? Not lifting with your legs? Sitting with poor posture? Not brushing and flossing before bed? Drinking matcha lattes instead of coffee?
Steroids?
Some surfer or coach out there must know and I’ll get to the bottom of it but in the meantime we should probably speculate steroids. Or cocaine.
Informative blog article! I look forward to your future updates.
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…and back in the day they were Too Drunk to Fuck
Wasn’t he gold!
More like Justin Beiber, methinks.
No. What I am saying is that great, and even very very good surfers make their own decisions about what to draw from in their development. Of COURSE good coaching and training etc can be of value to a surfer. The key is that the surfer decides to call upon it, because he or she knows it will be of use. The coach, the fitness trainer, the whomever, is secondary to the intention of the surfer. If the surfer doesn’t feel any of that shit is of use, then it isn’t.
The last thing such a person needs is a committee overseeing his or her development, doling out ‘resources’ based on said committee’s decisions.
They definitely saw the WSL coming with “ California Über Alles “
Evidence is a good thing to base an approach on.
This whole fucking thing started when they added surfing to school sports programmes , and sports science surfing degrees at uni.
Oversight committees think their vision is more acute than everyone else’s. It’s more acunt as I see it.
The ’89 world champ just said Zeke has “got game.” What a gangsta. Is Pottz in the Bloods or the Cripps? Does he also rap?
He does rap! Every song starts the same. “check, check…. 8, 9, 8, 9 check, check….yo!….so back in ’89, check it!……I was world champ!….”
Legit! I mean lit.
“Legit! I mean lit!”
Those are the lyrics to the hook on “Turps On Purps”
Yes!
Ok, full disclosure, which of our fine, lovable athletes is on steroids? I want to believe. Gimme.
Kolohe been lookin juiced
Definitely on the program. Those white sunnies he used to wear are a dead giveaway.
Fuyck Kevyn.
You know what’s “unproven and even damaging” at elite surfing skill development level? World class committees, that’s what.
There’s not a shred of evidence that a committee of any kind has helped a world champ level pro gain any advantage or skills whatsoever, like ever.
Do ya reckon a committee would have let a 10 year old charge Pipe?
Getting to be a great, or even pretty fucken good surfer takes a lot of weird shit: a huge amount of water time early on, immersion in a culture that fits your inner self, influences that come along at the right time, often a board designer who grows or develops in sync, often a great peer group, wins that encourage and losses that hurt, and a profound self-involvement that leads the surfer to trust his or her own instincts above all advice or received wisdom. Committees, fitness coaches and the like, what they tend to create is mediocrity.
Will be interesting to see how Griff goes. He’s been exposed to much of what you describe on both sides of the ledger.
pretty fuckikng good by the looks!
He’ll have to become more of himself at that CT level before he achieves his best.
More importantly, why is Rosy doing a Van Morrison at Keramas? Pay and conditions?
Your second point sounds more like the new Olympic motto.
The only exercises I saw Grishka Roberts and Spencer doing during the golden age of British surfing were lung exercises.god love em .
Spencer! Hell of a bloke.
They’re both all time. Add Russell Winter to that list of infamy.
Saw the Winter family in action at the World Amateurs in Lacanau 92 and met a very charming and respectful Russell 15 years later up the road at Hourtin Plage.
We shared a house with French girlfriends in 94 👍
Come on, there’s a short story in there n’est’ce pas?
To be honest all the action was happening in Hossegor at the time but after surviving the 80s in cronulla I was very happy to be far from the madding crowd .Though we did have bank robbers from Holland , wanted criminals from the Channel Islands , the local surfing population made up of hunters fishermen and generations of the French Navy , Mercenaries ,A British expert on the Venezuelan economy , gay builders who had their own drag queen cabaret,a future head of surfing NSW,communists,the sons of a British Knight ,Riot patrol squad lifesavers CRS, a witch doctor ,the owner of a chateau, Surfing geniuses from Durban and Cape Town and Guadeloupe, a plethora of beautiful intelligent girls and 25 km of beachbreaks with no road access .Just your average coastal community.
Merci
I like how Dean only goes by one name. Like Beyoncé, Drake and Kelly. Gives him or her great credibility in the field of proven and not at all damaging techniques. By the end of the Olympics, he or she will be a household name.
LAIRD, WIM HOFF, KELLY – they’re talking to you.
Have you seen “the ice man”? He uses wim hoff.
Oh yay we’re finally ice skating! No jumps until you can etch perfect figures! Now they just need to figure out how to stick the sequins to the wetsuits ….
Ask the Chinese team ? There great at building things .
great at semi-legal sports supplements too.
After all these years, you’d think parents would wise up, keep the kids in school, and realize surfing’s just a hobby.
Unfortunately not. Even journeyman pros without much success end up owning coastal real estate.
Seen it with my own eyes, many times.
Maybe in Australia, but it seems like even air-conditioner repair men make $200k there.
Yes, we have no slave labourers to do such tasks due to our formidable moat.
I miss the simple times, when branch Davidian’s all wore the same black Nikes. No infighting amongst the Team!