Yoga For Surfers: Benefits and Best Poses
Yoga is a transcendent ritual that has been practiced for eons to synchronize the mind, body, and soul. Known as both an art and a science, it leads the path towards a healthy lifestyle, focusing on improving concentration, balance, flexibility, and core strength, which is why it is an ideal practice for surfers.
Keep reading further to find out which yoga positions are best for surfers and what benefits they bring.
Benefits of Yoga for Surfers
Practicing yoga has various benefits in store for surfers, such as:
Strengthens Surfing Muscles
Yoga is a total-body workout that strengthens several of the major muscle groups used during surfing. Your entire balance system is trained by "flowing" through different postures, which can help you make smoother turns on your surfboard.
Enhances Flexibility
One of the most important aspects of excellent physical health is flexibility. It improves muscle and joint mobility and the range of motion. Yoga is noted for improving a practitioner's flexibility by tying positions to breathing, allowing you to dive deeper into your poses. Surfers need to be flexible in their legs and lower back in particular, and yoga helps immensely with these.
Improves Balance
Yoga is a great way to learn how to ground your feet, strengthen the legs, boost spatial awareness, and locate your body's centerline, in addition to specialized balancing postures that will challenge and improve your balance, helping you stay steady on your surfboard.
Boosts Concentration
Concentration is a skill that all surfers must possess to maintain a steady stance. Yoga aims to improve mindfulness and thus boosts focus on the task at hand.
In short, surf yoga will not only boost your performance at sea but also help your muscles recover faster, completely revolutionizing your surfing experiences.
How to Incorporate Yoga into Your Surfing Routine?
Not only does yoga prepare you for an enhanced surfing experience, but it also creates a sense of relaxation after a session. In other words, you can do surf yoga both pre and post surf session.
Before stepping into the waves, you can warm up by incorporating a short yoga sequence into your routine. Stretch your muscles properly and meditate for a while to boost consciousness and mobility in the waves.
Surfing can exhaust your muscles to a great extent. Thus, it is vital to practice some stretches, and slow, relaxing yoga poses after an intense session can help prevent soreness and boost muscle recovery.
Top Yoga Poses for Surfers
Let's look at some yoga positions that will help you improve your balance, concentration, and flexibility so that you can ride those waves with confidence.
Tree Pose
This tree pose is excellent for gaining balance and strengthening the core, thighs, calves, ankles, and spine, which are focal points for any surfer. This is also ideal for enhancing the sense of equilibrium.
Stand upright on your yoga mat.
Shift your weight to your right foot and lift your left foot off the ground.
Bring the sole of your left foot high onto the inside of your right thigh by bending your left knee while applying equal pressure on your foot and thigh.
Take 5 to 10 deep breaths before lowering your left foot to the floor.
Repeat on the other side.
Downward Dog Pose
One of the most difficult yoga positions to master, this ritual stretches your lower back, which helps ease any discomfort in the spine, tones the arms, shoulders, and legs, all while improving blood flow around the body, causing an instant sense of revitalization. It's also beneficial to do this pose before any physical exercise.
Get down on all fours with your palms widely spread and your hands shoulder-width apart. Tuck your legs in a manner that your knees are directly below your hips.
Bring your body to a standing position by raising it up and backwards with your legs straightened.
Take deep breaths while holding the pose for ten seconds.
Warrior Yoga
The warrior pose is a position of power that focuses on preserving equilibrium in any situation and improves stamina and concentration.
Begin by bending your right knee into a lunge and turning your left heel in at a 45-degree angle.
Bring your arms up over your head and arch your back slightly.
Hold your stance for five seconds while breathing deeply before switching to the left side. Repeat a few times for each side.
Heart Opener
This is the move you do when you get out from under a wave or when you get up to catch a wave when surfing. The key here is to open up your chest and give a nice full-body stretch, eventually enhancing your muscle flexibility. This pose also warms up your arms and pushes all the muscles in your body to work, preparing them for when you are in the water.
Look up towards the ceiling while extending your neck.
Completely exhale, then inhale deeply while flexing your thighs and pushing your hips up.
Allow yourself to glide gently with your breath, relaxing when exhaling and pressing your body upward while inhaling.
Repeat 10–20 times.
Garland
A hip opening pose is excellent to warm up the lower part of your body and get those hips, lower abdomen, and back ready for some surfing action.
Squat on the yoga mat by bending your knees and lowering your hips.
Make your thighs slightly broader than your torso by separating them. If your heels begin to lift, use a folded mat or blanket to support them.
Hold this position for five deep breaths.
Wrapping It Up
Flexibility, concentration, core strength, and balance are key aspects when it comes to surfing because not only do they prevent muscle or joint injuries; they also make your surfing experience more enjoyable. So, what are you waiting for? Incorporate the above-mentioned yoga poses into your daily routine to revolutionize your surfing routine.