Officially September 1st and currently on day 6 of my month of surf training.

Day 1-3: Bowl skating

Day 4-6: Surfed at least an hour each day. Know it doesn't sound like a lot but I am out there alone so no one to compete for waves with. Not many actually rideable waves to speak of to be completely honest. But any time in the water is only going to led to improving. Typically only surf 1 or 2 days aMonty, so 3 days in a row and my 46 year old body is feeling it. Made sure to paddle a lot even on days I didn't need to just to get the muscles working. Rode the foam 7' sugar glider days 1 and 2, just working on pop ups and paying attention to my weight and how it moves over the board.

Today was dumping beach break, all close outs very drifty. Got a few though.

Ordered some new home gym equipment that the wife wanted so be adding in more weight training once it's delivery.

Good start to the month.. hoping to see some improvements.

Bro that looks good, all you need to do is open up a little more and pass that coffee cup up towards the lip. You do good almost passing it but you never actually get it around more to hand it off to the lip.

Another day another session. Little wild and drift out there this am. Normally would not have gone in, but I did today.

Definitely got my paddling workout part in. Few times I didn't even have the strength to pop up my shoulders were burning trying to not drift down 2 miles.

Got a few though... any day surfing is better than a day without.

So September hasn't officially started but in the run up to September I am on day 4.

First 3 days were all surfskate in the bowl 30 min season before work. Mostly just pumping around working on body and hand position and really focusing on the ease of the pump hoping to carry it over into surfing.

Today I spent an hour "surfing" some super small waves on a softtop 7'0" sugar glider from mick fannings line. I honestly loved it. I originally bought it for my daughter's to learn on, after their surf camp experience, hence the pink. But spend an hour catching waves, paddling a lot for exercise between waves up and down the beach.

Then my girls wanted a try so we spent another 2 hours pushing then into some and grabbing a few myself in between.

Plan on going out next 2 mornings as well, with the holiday weekend and the extra day off work on Monday.

Yeeeewwww

I use an app called stronglifts.

It is 5 exercises that are considered compound lifts.

Squats

Military press

Bench

Barbell row

Deadlift

It's 5 sets of 5 reps. You do 3 days a week.

Squat every day, the other 4 get switched each time.

Ie day 1: squat, bench, row

Day 2: squat, military press, deadlift

Day 3: squat, bench, row

Etc

Each day you do an exercise I increase the weight by 5 lbs until failure. If you fail Deload 20% and build again till you break your plateau.

Then I do a few other exercises on top to help more surf specific stuff.

Lat pull down for rowing power

Shoulder front raises for rowing endurance

Lunges with my front foot on a bosu.

Leg raises or planks for core.

I do these cause it's simple to keep track of. They are compound exercises so I'm using multiple muscle groups for everything. And the entire workout can be done in 30 to 40 mins tops.

When I was consistent with it, I could truly see and feel the difference, but the gym got super crowded in summer so now I'm doing them in my garage gym.

My ocean comfort is from 40 years of bodyboarding, surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling and anything else I could do to get wet in all my years of life. I LOVE THE WATER especially the ocean. I've ridden some huge, double to triple overhead waves while body boarding, that doesn't mean I'd be good at surfing it at this point though. I am just generally not afraid of the ocean or big waves, doesn't mean I have the skills to surf them yet.

Starting a few days early cause I know I'll get rained out at least a few days of training in September.

Day 1: Back in the bowl, just trying to remember how to do this. 30 mins cruising around the bowl, back to working on figure 8s since that's where I left off.

After talking to Graham yesterday about how the extension up the transition is just in the toes of the back foot I wanted to double check myself and to me thats what it feels like. Just jumping off my back big toe up the transition.

Have not skated almost all summer cause it's just too hot in the South and too many scooter kids when they don't have school, since this skate park is literally in the parking lot between 2 grade schools and a community center.

Feels good to have goals and be working towards them again.

Unfortunately a photo a day probably won't happen. I'll be sneaking my surfs in between dropping the kids off at school and making it to work myself.

I am planning on keeping a calender of what I've done daily that I can fill out when I get to work. But with the limited time there won't be much time to set up a tripod or camera, plus I'm leary of leaving it on the beach while I'm in the water.

I'm tired of being bad though so I'm gonna get serious about my improvement.

Graham Marsden walk up a flight of stairs with just your toes and ball of your foot on the tread of the stair, mid foot and heel hanging off. Start from a stand still, put feet next to each other on one stair. Then take that first step so your lead(front foot) goes up to the stair above the one you started from. Hold on to the railing as well so you can pay attention to the small amount your back foot toes push you up slightly, so that your lead foot can clear the stair height and then accept the weight of your body and do the heavy lifting up to that stair.

That tiny toe movement is all the extension up a transition is. It's just the slightest lift and forward shifting of weight. This is assuming that you are riding the bowling frontside (chest facing the transition) as it is ever so slightly different in the other direction, but once you get one the other side is easier.

I tried soooo hard, throwing my arms, pushing my hips forward, bending my knees more like I was squat jumping onto a plyo box, but came to realize it's just a toe lift...that's all you need. That and timing it with the transition up.

Then to go higher the next time it's the same small toe lift just slightly faster and with a little more upward press of the toe.

Coryn Daniel just gotta compress and extend a little more brotato. Your knees never change position on that turn.

When I was learning, which I very much still am, I remember only getting that kind of height and thinking okay let's figure it out and I paid very close attention to what felt like it worked.

The extension to me feels like doing a Calf raise if you were standing on top of a curb or plyo box or stacked weight plates. Also, Clayton mentions its a lot in his videos, that back foot is just the initial push up then the front leg does the heavy lifting.. To me it feels like trying to jump up the transition by jumping off the toes of your rear foot. It's literally just a gentle push (extension) off the big toe of the back foot and extending up with the knees and body at the same time.

It's such a small toe lift that once you feel it you'll laugh at how little effort it takes.

It's just a gentle toe raise.