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Coach Magnum Martinez Breaks Down the Most Common Mistakes in Surfing



Coach Magnum Martinez Breaks Down the Most Common Mistakes in Surfing

right well what are some of the most common mistakes you see technique wise that man it you know it’s interesting in women and I’ll I’ll go straight to a point even on on high levels I see a lot of Bend from the hips they they compress your certain extent and then it’s a lot of bending from the hips instead of bending the knees you know and and compressing more without bending from the hips and that obviously has a huge effect uh effect on on how much power you can put on your turns how how hard you can push you know because if you’re bending forward you know and you have your tors and your head that weigh a lot and you’re too forward then you can’t push really hard cuz you your rail is going to disengage at one point so being compressed and and bending the legs more it’s going to give you a lot more and I I tell people hey your legs are like like a spring like Springs you know like or like shock absorbers but they’re Springs the more you load the more you load the more energy comes out of them so you got to use that to your advantage and and I give them the example of the pro Surfers like look at like you know look at Filipe to look how much he compresses and and extends his legs and how much energy he creates and then speed you know and force a from doing that right right so in women I see that that’s kind of like a pattern because maybe because the way they’re built differently than men you know so with man uh it’s different but also it’s like set the B on the rail hold the rail as long as you can you know transfer your way and also like I think in general men women compression gets overlooked a lot you you know because weight distribution super important but compression also and the rotation I I like to say like the comp the components of rotation are three on your upper body which is your arms your shoulders and your head and that needs to be Unison there needs to be follow through right and I use example of a tennis swing or a golf swing you know even baseball you don’t hit a a tennis you don’t go back and hit it and stuck right you swing through and all of a sudden the tennis rackets pointing the other way and the ball is going that way tennis rackets pointing that way why because if you stop the motion even though the contacts already happen and the ball left the the surface of the racket that follow through it’s very important to not cut that motion and to kind of it’s like extension of all that energy of that move movement you know so I use a lot of a lot of uh martial arts you know kicks punching all this stuff and how you use your hips how you use all this momentum and all this body mechanics to create a full complete movement and for men I feel like sometimes because they’re a little bit more Agro generally but not on all cases they want to like you know they want to throw a lot more spray they just want they they cut the flow because they cutting turns short so a lot of the times it’s let’s work on holding that rail longer keep the bar on the rail because if the B is on the rail you’re going to be able to push longer harder because it’s not only the fence holding you in the water it’s also the rail also the boards with the rocker if they’re flat they don’t project they just they’re going to spin like that but if they’re on the rail and that line The Rocker the bottom can turn there that’s what’s going to create projection that creates a more more amplitude on your turns the turn looks bigger more you know it just looks better right so to it’s kind of like let’s understand the mechanics of the surf of Surfing of the face of the wave of the right turn for the right section with the right amount of speed that you need to do that turn on that section and then let’s apply it to it and let’s see how it feels right and then also you know the rotation the the way Shifting the compression at the end of it but I’m like those are things that I’m like you know like if you don’t reload if you don’t compress on the bottom turn then you’re leaving energy and speed behind that you’re not using right and then if you’re not recoiling your back like before you turn then you’re not going to have enough it’s like trying to push from here or push from here you’re going to have more force behind it the more recoiling there is and also but there’s so much stuff to it all these aspects you know so that’s why it’s surfing so hard you know then then put the word on the ra then look over your shoulder then then start pressing gradually then shift your way then finish you know your turn so hey it’s not easy to teach right or even to do it yourself yeah that’s why surfing is the hardest sport in the world for sure so hey yeah and that breakdown and that the that advice is is really useful and so how do you you know get people to make these changes in their their technique right like compressing everybody knows mentally or a lot of people know mentally I need to compress more but like how do you actually get shocky or you want your your clients to compress more is it does it go back to you know what you mentioned where you know you have a note you know on your surfboard or anything like that or they’re just like you go out you know how how do you get your students to make these actual adjustments I think that’s always the hard part people know mentally they need to make changes but then for or for the example like cutting your turn short you know that’s a very common issue right how do you get them to change that well two things like with the compression and the first compression starts on the bottom turn right so if you want to start there if it’s back side is a little trickier but there’s ways to do it with your arm placement your hands placement you know if you’re doing a backside bottom turn and your hand your back hand is high then it’s not going to help you compress but if you bring that hand lower towards the rail of your board like if you were going to grab it but you don’t need to grab it but bring it lower it’s G to help you compress more it’s going to feel more natural to want it to get that compression Bend more the knees obviously your front hand needs to be that like pivoting like hand where you’re going to Pivot around and front s side it’s instead of I see you see a lot of that wind up right on the the back arm going like that but truthfully when you have a bigger canvas and you do that you’re not being efficient with your projection of the face cuz as soon as you do that and you decompress that’s it you’re not going to accelerate that much more but if your front arm it’s bent and instead of touching the water on your on your bottom turn you bend the arm and you want to put forearm on the water that’s going to help you you need to get lower because then your arm’s too high if you want to have that elbow and that forearm closer to water you you’re going to have to bend your knees more and that if you hold that compression like that as you come off the bottom it’s going to do that slingshot effect up the face so obviously takes a lot of practice and there’s things you can do outside of the water you know certain squatting lunges like all these different exercises jumps and all this stuff that it’s going to help because like ultimately the repetitions was going to create that new habit and if you don’t do it on land it’s going to be really hard for you to do it in the water when how many ways do you catch an obession all the distractions all the things but on land you can do you know 100 squats or 100 reps or anything that you want to work on like that in a few minutes so you got to you got to understand how the brain works you know to create a new have it repetition and how many times how many hours does it take in Pilates they said that that neurological and your muscular connection takes more or less four or 5 hours you know to engage the pelvic form what try that when you haven’t done it in the first 3 hours you’re like pel Lord what are you talking about you know but then through practice and repetition all son that connection gets established and then it’s like oh I can actually Engage The Bild floor I didn’t even know existed for 30 years you know what I mean so never heard about anybody yeah never heard about anybody talk about pelvic floor in relation to surfing that’s fascinating well that’s Pilatus and I don’t really use that but that’s like you know that’s a scientific you know uh proven point that you need certain amount of repetition to actually create a new habit you know certain amount of hours doing something to create a new habit and if not only you’re creating new habit you’re actually changing an all habit so it’s not easy so it takes a lot of you know Focus repetition proper technique I see a lot of people like doing using the skateboards and I use them with some of my clients cersi Carver you call it you know all these the really good like boards that are out there to to correct your Technique but like when I one thing I say is like if you go out and you are doing exactly what you’re doing in the water on the skateboard then all you’re going to do is cement that habit that you want to change so it’s not going to do you any good make sure you’re doing it properly first and then repeat yourself make sure you know that those repetitions are the proper technique the proper posture and then repeat them repeat them repeat them until you create the new right like they say uh what is it uh you don’t want to imperfect well I forget how it goes it’s like imperfect practice is just going to you you practice the wrong thing over and over again you’re just going to get worse right you have to practice perfectly you got to figure out what the perfect technique is and then you practice it and that’s actually how you get good I think that’s what you’re saying

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