What would you do for a surfer’s body? And I don’t mean pretending to like superfoods so you can sleep with Laird Hamilton, or putting on a vegan act to woo Tia Blanco; I mean what would you do to transform yourself into a lust-worthy machine?
The answer? Anything but the gym.
Most of us are willing to follow fitness gurus and nutrition coaches on Instagram. But precious few have the time or motivation to hit the gym on a regular basis, or the money to hire an F45 trainer to yell us into submission shape.
When we do hit the gym though, many people do isolated exercises in a repetitious way, most likely wearing shoes and often using smith machines.
Current World Champion surfer Italo Ferreira, however, recently (and unintentionally) gave any ailing ab owners a tip on getting their arse into gear and building some long term strength of their own, with his latest workout, posted to Instagram last week.
That tip? Working out in bare feet. While this is against your average Anytime’s policy, if you can find somewhere to get your sweat on au natural (podiatry speaking), you could see your micro-stabilising muscles and coordination increase, injury rates decrease and overall gains and strength increase (if continued over time).
Combine this with compound exercises, a la Italo, and – all going well – you’ll get less injured and build more long term strength than you would have otherwise.
Another tip you can take from Italo is his high rep low(ish) weight approach (as suggested by his 14kg dumbells), which helps you build the sort of ‘surfer’ shoulders that stick around even as the rest of your body becomes emaciated (or bloated) as you rave your way through summer.
Not sold? Italo’s stablemate (and two-time World Champion) Gabriel Medina suggests this is the case too, working out in a similar vein to Italo (barefoot and with relatively light weights) and showing you how to build a physique that can survive a summer of partying with Neymar.
It won’t get you jacked like Ross Edgley, but it will (we reckon) help your washboard abs will last a bit longer, on those occasions when you do let things slide.
Good times await.