Strange Beginnings
A few weeks ago I watched a surf school putting a group of kids through their paces. You know the stuff: They lie on soft boards making paddling motions then jump to their feet with their arms outstretched. I wondered briefly if anyone actually does surf like that anymore. Arms outstretched in that manner, I mean. Certainly to freeze in that position, which they all did, would be fatal on anything more significant than a tiny foamie. And there was something anachronistic about it: the wetsuits suddenly appearing like neck to knee costumes, the whole scene, already monochromatic under a grey sky, like something from an old black and white newsreel. A small absurdist moment, shown now only to elicit laughter. Imagine thinking such bizarre practices could actually assist anyone learning to surf! Their stark rigidity so profoundly contrasting the essential fluidity of surfing itself. Their conformity mocking the central conceit of the individuality of our styles.
These thoughts passed from my mind as quickly as they had come and were replaced by memories of my own beginnings and my own labyrinthine journey to whatever competency I finally achieved. I began because, as with mountains, it was there. There at the bottom of the street, five minutes walk away. It had no meaning beyond that. I doubt that I had ever even seen a surfing magazine when I began so my only models were the surfers I saw myself at the beach.
I didn't even own a surfboard. At first we used to sit on the beach, wait for a loose board to wash up, paddle it back to its owner and beg for a ride. Later, when my older brother's friends started to leave their boards in our backyard, I had a more reliable supply. But in truth, I wasn't all that sold on surfing, it was just something we did, the knockabout kids of the district, while those from better regulated families were swimming laps, training for football or doing their homework. It was, in the best sense, utterly meaningless activity.
While those well regulated kids were under careful adult supervision, we roamed free on the beach, building bonfires in winter, surfing in football jumpers, or jumping off and clambering back onto the rocks behind the pool on tiny summer afternoons, riding the gentle swells on to the slippery sandstone while the clubbies got drunk or marched up and down in those weird one piece outfits, in formation around the sacred object of the reel; the original dickheads, with their hands performing masturbatory motions as they unwound the rope above their foreheads.
What kept me surfing then was not the joy of riding waves but the joy of a world, not only without adults, but without any meaningful objective standards. There were by then organised competitions, Midget would win his World Championship not long after, but our beach was a backwater and we were kids at play. The subjective experience was everything and imagination far out scored ambition.
It was a world that only existed for those brief pre-adolescent years when the innocence of childhood still clung to us. Yet even when that innocence faded I kept surfing for much the same reasons rather than from any great passion. When I was 15 my family moved briefly back to Liverpool in England, and I didn't miss surfing for a moment. It was another, in many ways more vibrant, culture that had its own attractions for a rather loosely supervised teenager. But we came back and the beach was still there at the bottom of the street and what had begun as a few urchins was now a fully formed adolescent gang in which surfing was the key to status, so I kept surfing, again more for purely social reasons than for any intrinsic love of the activity.
I remember quite well when that changed. Boards had been slowly getting shorter and lighter but it wasn't until they actually dropped under six foot that I began to really love surfing. It was the freedom to carve all those arcs we take for granted now that, and the ability to set up barrels, changed everything for me. I can pick the precise moment. It was at a local reef and I was surfing a 5'8" double ender with a single tiny fin and tapered rails with hard edges. It felt like there was nothing under my feet, any direction I looked, it followed. Before I had been riding surfboards, now I was riding waves and that was the difference, that was the attraction.
The long slow glide of the malibu, with its ponderous turns and stylised postures had never really suited me. I was too restless and couldn't master that thing those kids had been so diligently practising; holding your arms just so. As for nose riding I could do it, I was just never entirely clear about why I should. If surfing was meaningless activity I suppose nose-riding was its quintessence, pointlessness added to meaninglessness, but I could never embrace it.
With shortboards there was an immediate sense of drama. You had to keep moving. To stand and pose, no matter how careful the arrangement of your arms, was to invite disaster. The only way to surf was to drive from rail to rail. There was also a sense of limitless possibility. This was only the beginning, those first short boards were no more than the equivalent of the Wright brothers' biplane, it would be a full decade before high performance single fins were developed, but we immediately sensed the possibilities in the freedom we felt beneath our feet.
As I looked again at that group, now having some finer point of the art explained to them by their young instructor, I wondered how many would actually continue to surf and I thought back to that first group I surfed with. Some now dead, others long ago lost into the wider world and those remaining not seen for many years now in the water and I couldn't help but wish them luck on progressing from such strange beginnings. //blindboy
Comments
I wonder how many surf school students actually continue on to make surfing a lifelong pursuit?
For me, I have always loved water, ever since I was little. I think I could swim before I could walk. I have always loved looking at water, on long car trips, ponds and creeks and rivers would always catch my eye. I have always loved swimming, fishing, sailing, playing under the sprinkler, anything to do with getting wet and my favourite drink is cold water.
My dad was a great body surfer and we'd spend literally hours catching waves in at whatever seaside caravan park we'd stay at for holidays that year. I had to be dragged out kicking and screaming to have lunch or whatever every time, I never wanted to leave.
I remember my first ridden wave was on my yellow Amoco surf mat pushed in by my pop at Elephant rock, Currumbin. I was about 6 years old at the time and I knew that I needed to experience that feeling again and again.
I pestered my dad for a board for years and years, or we would borrow boards from my surfing cousins. Boards that never suited my ability.
I caught my first stand-up wave at 27th Ave Palmy in my early teens, the sun was just coming up and the water was dark green and oily glassy. It was a left and the very first feeling of sliding across that green face had planted something in me that I carry to this day.
I kept surfing and playing footy, much to my dads dismay by chucking away a promising footy career, surfing gradually won out.
30 years or so later, the rest as they say is history.
God I love surfing.
Sorry, rambling on but thanks BB for reminding me exactly why I do.
A few years back Jim Banks wrote a simple status update on his Facebook page: "Why do you surf?"
It's such a bald question. Simple. Yet I remember reading it and being surprised that I didn't have an answer. Because it feels good? Because I'm shit at golf? I couldn't provide an adequate answer and still can't.
Also, Jim had hundreds and hundreds of replies to his questions. It really started people thinking. About six months later Billabong came out with their "I surf because..." campaign and I wondered if someone at the Bong saw Banksy's Facebook question and ran with it.
And comes with so many varied answers as you say Stu.
For me? Because nothing else I've done so focuses my mind as the act of riding a wave ... plus it makes me a far happier, and humbler, person.
I was out of the water for 12 months or more once and I still remember that feeling of paddling out the point for the first time. Over each swell, looking at the waves peeling down the line. I was just smiling early in the morning before the sun came up, feeling the cool water on each stroke and each swell gliding past under me. It is as vivid as yesterday but I cannot put those feelings into words. As cliched as it is, Bong got it right with "only a surfer knows the feeling". To me, thats what it is, a feeling.
onya surfschools- employment for some locals and passing on water knowledge and the experience of surfing/pleasure. many of the "schoolies" may not surf again but who cares, they seem like the only ones out on the FNC who have fun and dont take themselves seriously
It's all a bit hazy for me, the first time I stood up, or more likely the first time I remember, is more likely about the location than the moment. It was Mullaway Bay, Coffs, on a family camping trip. Just happens to be the time I caught my first Tailor.
From then on a surfboard, a fishing rod, and a push bike was life. The old rutile mine was still on the Currumbin Creek mouth.
I had some long lost photos of me surfing "out the back" at the Alley pre- creek mouth groyne, one was was on a 4 foot set, which was the biggest wave I'd ever ridden, but I took the drop for the camera, hehe . This was about the time MP won the first Stubbies, and Rabbit won the next Stubbies, which I got taken to watch.
Not long after, can remember the first "Holy Grail", ie: getting barrelled, had to check with my mates to confirm I had been "in there" cos it seemed to throw so far out and I seemed so small, but the space and sound and time was different, so I thought I had tuberided but wasn't fully sure. Around about here I'd have to mention Trout on his blue flames board, or "Blue Flames" as I called him. How could any surf as good as "Blue Flames", surely he was just as good as Rabbit !!
From then on, it was all about tuberiding, and full rail round house cutbacks. That was me surfing wise, I could do other stuff like reos but they seemed like an inconvenience.
Then XXXX arrived home from his family trip to Nias and came back to live at Currumbin. Between his previous life at Kirra and his trip to Nias, he was a master tuberider and totally fearless. (XXXX was surfing 6'-8' Big Groyne at the age of 12/13, an older mate from Palmy had told me about him.) I was 12, he was 14, still on single fins, he dragged my surfing, especially tuberiding to a whole new level. Take off, slot, stall, sit back, enjoy view, or feel your way thru the foamball, tuberiding.
Nowadays I just love the glide, in any form.
My Mum had a tiny black and white photo of the first wave I ever caught. I was eight years old and had arrived from England about two weeks earlier. A friend of my father's took us to Little Narrabeen and gave us foam kick boards to play with. The photo showed me being propelled on to dry sand with the board stuck out in front of me. Never looked back!
sid, pm sent.
Brother Zen, I would have thought your first stand up wave might have been down at Coalcliff on the old red and yellow Wallace single fin that dad surprised us with when living in Sydney (maybe even one of your many trips over to Manly via the ferry). That's my earliest memory of our having access to a real surfboard. I do remember the Amco surf mat. Always had the worst rash after a day riding one of those things. Have to hand it to them, we have the coolest parents.
We sure do brother.
Got a couple of stand-ups on the Wallace, but my first long, peeling, out on the face, actually working the wave with some semblance of ability was the one at Palmy.
Here we are mate, been surfing for most of our lives now.
Sent you an email, chance I can meet you in Indo October.
Can't remember why I started surfing, or what kept me going in those early years. My Mum and Dad both surfed, and after starting me in the Seacliff nippers at age 5 of 6, I suppose I was always going transition into regular surfing at some point (my family was never interested in the clubbie scene).
After a couple of attempts on my Dad's board, I got my own stick around the age of 11 or 12 (a 6'0 Jack Howarth thruster, from Hayden at Island Surf). From then on surfing was something me and my high school mates did at every opportunity, no questions asked. Bought every mag, watched every video, surfed every wave we came across.
I never played any other sport at all - music was my only other outlet - so by the time I got to the end of high school, surfing was just what I did. If I couldn't surf on any particular day, I'd find a weather chart or dial a surf report hotline to keep in the loop. Every holiday had to involve the surf in some way, shape or form. Any money I saved went on new boards, wetsuits or surf trips.
And somehow I'm still doing the same kinda thing twenty seven years later. The particulars have changed a little as life dictates, but the passion and drive is as fresh as it was back when I got my first board.
Hey zen what year was that Wallace? I actually worked there for a spell.
Yep brother, got your email. Checking options. East Java, Lombok, maybe even Sumbawa. Just checking out cheap but wave maximizing potential for our time. Will mail you tomorrow night.
As to why do I surf? So many reasons but top of my loves are having an early morning session in solitude, having a surf with my brother (every few years now), exploring for new waves, and just the feeling of riding a wave to it's and your potential. A symmetry if you will.
As for long peeling out on the face wave, had to be Wurtulla, mid 80's with you brother. Think it may have been on the Sky twin fin.
Hey blindboy, will jump in on Zens behalf. Don't know the exact year of the Wallace, but we got it our first year Sydney which was 1982. I believe it was second hand then but still in good nick. Had the hugest black fin in it.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/mwallace.html
BB, I'm guessing early 70's. Was about 6ft, Wallace pop-out, red with a yellow deck. Evil looking black fin. Can't remember whether it had a finbox or was glassed in. No plug for a leggie, hole drilled through the base of the fin. Similar to the 1970 board you see in the link I gave you. I think it still resides in a neighbours garage around the corner from my parents house.
Good memories Hash, hope we surf together again soon.
From memory Zen, looked like it may originally had a fin box but then professionally filled and fin glassed in. Always wondered as a young-un why there was a rectangle area (coincidentally the size of a fin box) surrounding the fin. Good memory on the drill hole in the fin. I do believe the board is still in the neighbors garage. Been there since they used to take me on family trips up to Double Island Point. I remember on one such trip, Jodie tried to surf it on a windy day, the air got underneath it, lifted it, and it came back down and cracked her on the head. Luckily it was the deck only and not the rail. A few tears from that but more from shock luckily.
BB, fine bit of work. Very enjoyable read and seems to have kick started everybody's memory machine.
I think I'm right, least I'm sure enough to have a go at it....
Wallace came out with those double ender pop outs the end of 1969. By the end of summer '69/70 gromments were all over them. Shane also had a pop out model.
The fins weren't a box as we all think of boxes now, yet it was a box. The idea being an all in one set up which didn't require rovings and fine tuned sanding etc of glassed on fins, so therefor was cheaper and easier to produce. The fins weren't movable. But they were big and the tip hung over the tail of the board on some... Lethal!
Now how's this for memory if I'm right... Wallace and Shane had done a deal with a chain of stores called Knock & Curby's in George St Sydney. They were the first attempt at mass producing a surfboard. Up till then boards were custom ordered and manufactured.
In fact I think Shane had his factory working 24hr shifts to keep up supply.
But it all died as quick as It took off cause they surfed like shit.
But wait !! Who didn't first have the finless foamie, complete with the obligatory gut rash.? Raw, red raw to the point of bleeding.
And the nose. We used to be able to peel slabs of sunburnt dead skin off our noses. Me n Snail piss ourselves laughin about it to this day, and he's got a big nose !! In hindsight, I sometimes wonder how I managed to have any nose left at all.
I was there for one summer around 1970 buffing and fixing dings then did the same thing at Keyos the following year. It was a bit of extra cash and as a bonus, a discount on a board. I had a 5'8" single fin Wallace shaped by Jim Beardsley. Great board for its era!
Ah yes, I remember XXXX, "Barrels are easy, all you have to do is stand there".
C'mon Shaun don't take the piss out of XXXX's barrels.
Just quoting him, If you have that many barrels then you know it's true, the hard parts getting in and out.
Jim Beardsley! Now there is a name I doubt I could have found anywhere in my memory. He was a man of the times for sure. Those early double enders from Brookvale at that time were good boards lead by Keyo, where McCoy was doing them for the Narra gang before kicking off himself. Two things bought the double ender undone as a design I think we would find if we researched it. That is the mass production of them that saw their finer points compremised by a lot of B grade shaping and Rolf Arness and Midget and Reno at the '70 world titles down Vic and the Hawaii influence that then began to dominated Aussie design thinking.
I think I got it right but please anyone remembering any better correct me.
Midget told me that board he rode in those titles was the best he had in those times.
When you put that in context of his status as a shaper at that point, it gives it some stick.
Also legend has it that if he had caught one more wave the world title would have been his.
Considering the influence world title holders designs get, I've often wondered where Aussie design would have gone through that period as following those big straight lines of Hawaiian surfers didn't really do Aussie surfers, who were hot dogged's by nature any favors.
Thoughts anyone?
Mouse you are right I have often wondered why we went back to longer boards at that stage. If we had stayed around the six foot mark and worked through the design issues we could have jumped a decade or so.
Jim Beardsley was a good friend. We surfed together a lot and I regard him as one of the best small wave surfers of that generation. He was a very private shy sort of person who loathed contests or anything that focused attention on him. He drifted out of surfing and was working in the US restoring vintage cars when he died tragically about a decade or so ago.
spot on Shaun, but aren't the best surfs, no turn surfs ? Anyone who's ever had one, will say... " oh yeah, THAT day."
Like 2 or 3 hour session of this stuff, different break, but of the same ilk, both get/got much meatier...
Not too many cutbacks in that vid, eh Sid?
There's been talk about both foamies and Midget Farrelly in this thread. I can combine the two as my very first board was a Midget Farrelly foamie. It was a first-gen, blue-top foamie with big black rubber fin. Would've been 1975.
They might've made some coin for old Midge by I don't think he'd be noting them in his design portfolio.
EDIT: Just went back and looked at the photos. It was called a 'fibreboard', even though it was a bog standard foamie, and it was made by Hanimex. Wooh!
Revisiting the foamie at a Cronulla ledge a few years back:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/stunet/81001385jx8dgIIpIMGP0539_...
There was a bit of a fad of surfing those Hanimex boards when they first came out. My kids had them so I would have a go from time to time but nothing like the wave in the photo. Way back with the original coolites there was a local who used to rip on them. We all thought he was kidding at first but in some conditions he actually preferred surfing the coolite. His older brother was a seriously good shaper so it was never a matter of dud equipment. Some people really can surf on anything!
But I can go one better than your Midget coolite Stu, I had an original Midget Farrelly skateboard!
mid 70s was there a foamie called 'little ripper' ?
BB what another good little read you have constructed here.
Pretty funny your quote on clubbies, "down in those weird one piece outfits, in formation around the sacred object of the reel; the original dickheads, with their hands performing masturbatory motions as they unwound the rope above their foreheads." ha ha
I like how you've drawn the readers into explaining their own first strange beginnings of riding or becoming a surfer.
OOhhhhh the good old memories.
@Stu is that you on the foamie at a Cornulla ledge.?...
Thanks welly I shouldn't make fun of them but they have been such a great source of amusement for so long I can't help it. I still laugh about the day they ran the surfboat into the side of the pool. I think the sweep was still drunk from the night before!
Picture this...
Early August bout '73. Rock to the local and its just after daylight and its massive. Huge closeout sets coming non stop straight off the outside bommie. Just hideous.
Squinting thru blood shot eyes I look to see what the few hard core early risers are looking at.
Fuck its clubbies in a boat!
Watch with interest. They stroke up and down behind the break, just back and forth, back and forth. What the fuck they doing out there? I sit and ponder.
I worked it out... The usual practice in August was to dust the boat off from its winter bidding place at shelly beach and do practice runs before the season kicked off in september.
The goose's had paddled out from protected shelly beach with no idea what they were paddling into to get the boat back to the nth steyne surf club. I knew they were trying to get to the club as it was the august ritual. "Hey let's just sit and watch". So we did.
Fourty five minutes went by where they just paddled up and down in front of the club house.
Then outa the blue they straightened and stroked like hell to pick up what looked to be a relative smaller set. Problem was when it hit the bank it stood up like a monster from the deep only can and it was fuckin huge!!
It was too late for them though to pull back, they were committed and where stroking hard.
The wave picked them up and they picked up speed as the crew pulled in their oars and began scrambling to the back of the boat as those clubbies do.
It was about now it all went horribly wrong.
Those boats are big but going down the face showed it up as a speck on infinity.
For whatever reason, known only to the sweep, he chose this moment to abandon ship!
Yep the fucker just jumped off his perch at the back of the boat and disappeared into the wave face! His mates were left rudderless in the boat. The boat turned sideways and got sucked up the face, turned upside down with all the guys in it, got sucked up and over with the lip, and headed down upside down guys still in it into the pit. The word mess doesn't begin to describe the aftermath.
I've often wondered what ever happened to the sweep. Surely an outcast from then on?
That's a good one welly. I saw a few classics in the early days of the rubber duckies when they had egg beaters on the back and the drivers were clueless. They would get caught inside and would just bail out or try to get up the face, stall half way and go over the falls. Of course they had their revenge. If there was a good bank, rowing practice was always right through the middle of the crowd and god help anyone who got in the way.
I just remembered a tragedy in similar circumstances to the one you described welly. Do you remember when some idiot officer ordered landing craft to land at Curl Curl in the middle of a cyclone swell and a howling southerly? From memory three soldiers drowned. They used to train there right up to the early seventies. They probably stopped after that fiasco.
Midget Farrelly's name is mentioned a couple of times. That's Midget at Manly in the B&W photo, third from right, 1958, photo by Snow McAllister as my reserch showed.
My tale.... I started a year later, 1959. Mum gave me 15 quid(30 bucks)for Xmas, I saw a board in the Manly Daily, caught the 155 into DY, bought the bugger and carried it all the way home to Narrabeen. Bloody thing weighed a ton. A 7ft teardrop, balsa with a cedar noseblock and a plywood fin. Home made and it must have been made from off cuts as most boards were 9-10 foot at the time. Had the glory days of no crowds, discoverys, fun, fun, fun and more fun.
Still surfing today, short and long, can enter the Over 65s next year, still have the mates I made all those years ago, my surf heroes are younger than me and I still get a buzz out of a big drop.
Advice from an old bloke... smile, share the waves, don't take it too seriously and have a laugh with the mob out the back.
Awesome malibumick !! I'll have a laugh out the back with you anyday, you old bugger you.
Great advice.
Well spotted Mick. Do you know any of the others?
Hmmm. Third from right? Mig is the one in the check flannel shirt isn't he?
Yes MM, Midget is in the check shirt. Now the chosen attire of bogans. We'll have to find an old Manly boy to identify the rest of the guys. Note the 1958 crew cut. When Midget returned from Hawaii in 1962, a national hero, he dyed his long blonde locks black as a protest against the thousands of blonde headed stompy wompys, none of them surfed, running amock on the beaches, giving surfing a bad name. Peroxide sales plummeted overnight!
Cool I will ask him...... ...midget is such a artistic surfer, even still today. I have seen surfing by mig in the nineties that would blow minds if I'd caught it on film... Let's just say, finess under extreme duress.
Gidday, I met Midget Farrely when I was a kid. Our mate organised a Surfing Sa night, or it might have been South Bay night, at the Old Vic. Another mate (vince... if you thought Marty Ryan was radical and wild, you should meet his brother) and I just old enough to drive, had to go to the airport and get him. He wanted to have some beers, and we did, while the guy organising the thing was freaking where we were. When we finally got there, he lured us into the bar again, and we stumbled out and got my mate. I can't remember much, except he was really funny and we were pissing ourselves. Eventually he gave out all the awards, but I remember us cracking up laughing because he was talking about all this other stuff, other than surfing, and all the guys were spewing at him and our mate the organiser. We ended up getting more pissed, this time with the organiser as well, and went back to kick on at his place. That was hilarious, as his wife was waiting, and she went ballastic at us, including Farrely. I just remember rolling around on his front lawn pissing ourselves, somehow having a surf with Farrely the next day at Parsons, and dropping him at the airport. I really remember what a beautiful surfer he was, so fluid, everything connected, read the waves so well, super impressive. And how funny it was all day reliving our mate getting unbelievably roasted by his missus in front of us all. Sorry Punk. Still it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that time you took me and Vince to Torquay to do business with the Rip Curl execs. That defies belief.
Gidday, I met Duke Kahanamoku when I was a kid. Our mate organised a Surfing not Drowning night, or it might have been a night where i wet me bed. Something like that. We all met in the Old Bailey. Or the Local Court. Or outside Central Station. Somewhere. Another mate (dwayne... if you thought wayne lynch was radical and wild, you should meet his brother, dwayne) and I just small enough to drive sitting on his lap (boy, that's another thing - i was sure it was a column shift but dwayne said, no, thats the gearstick your feeling), had to go to the train station and get him. Or the pier. Or the taxi stand. Somewhere. Duke wanted to go get some kava, and we did, while the guy organising the thing was freaking where we were. When we finally got there, he lured us into the bar again, and we stumbled out and got my mate. I can't remember much, except all of us except Duke liked dressing up in womens clothes, which was really funny and we were pissing ourselves. and I'm pretty sure I followed through on a couple of pisses. lucky i had me brown cords on, eh. Eventually he gave out all the awards, and i got best foxtrot, best pride of erin, and most promising pole dancer. but I remember us cracking up laughing because he was talking about all this other stuff, like how much fun we would have if we joined the scouts, and all the guys were spewing and pissing themselves and i followed through on a couple more. We ended up getting more pissed, this time with the dance hall janitor as well, and went back to kick on at his place. That was hilarious, as we had forgotten our pants, as well as Duke, who was still waiting at the Old Bailey. Or the High Court. Or outside the Rocks Station. Somewhere. Another mate went ballastic at us, but we all kissed and made up. I just remember rolling around on the janitors bed, pissing ourselves, somehow having a body rub the next day with the parson, and dropping him because he didnt shave before kissing me. I really remember what a beautiful person he was, so much fluid, everything connected, read the bedtime stories so well, super impressive. And how funny it was all day reliving how we'd forgetten our mate Duke getting unbelievably roasted in front the Old Republic. Or the Childrens Court. Or outside Penrith Station. Somewhere. Still it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that time dwayne took me to les girls to do the business. That defies belief. But the pictures are great.
Gold!
Amasing!!
@sg thats an absolute pisser.
If only. Except we know you did fuckall.
If only. not all. just most of them. why didnt you ever write or call?
Now I have to read upskirts crap to appreciate the stray-gator pisstake, excellent work.
OK fair enough, its time to get serious. And look at some of the major issues being discussed here in contemporary surfing.
Quote:
'Firsthwy, vose howwible, howwible mawwibu widers and wetrwro bumths keep picking on awl us thurfees. Iths not faiwr!Iths justh howwible! And if vey dont sthop wewll weawlly weawlly get weawlly weawlly mad, and wewll just get a gang and just punch them! Sthow, youth betta awll sthtop it, or elwthse, wewll juthst tewll our dadths too!
And, that sthtinky upwift, well, heeths just a sthinky upbum!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Mawwibus? Upwifts?
THHHHHIIIIITHHH IIIIITHHHHSS SUUURRRRTHHINNNGGG!!!!!'
Ha ha good stuff uplift I really like the way you have managed to catch my speaking voice. Have you managed to actually get wet yet or are you still stuck in the gym? My training is going really well I'm almost as strong as Rabbit at the peak of his steroid binge, you remember when he looked like Arnie and used to go around bending iron bars in his teeth?
Upskirt, you over do it with the botox this week?
Beautiful work, all of you.
Almost all of you.
We would like to draw your Honour's attention to Exhibit A:
'So I'm off. It's been fun but life's too short and time's too precious to do battle with fools from the shallow end of the gene pool.
Adieu. May Huey smile on you all.'
'Uuuuummmmppppp, uuuummmpphh, well, uuuummmmpppphhhh, well, you see your Honour, its just that... well I...I...I, did I say that...well ya see, its been taken out of context, what I really meant... its just that... I JUST CANT STOP READING UPLIFT'S BRILLIANT WORK, I AM ADDICTED, WITHOUT IT I AM NOTHING, I CAN'T HELP MYSELF!!! I DIDN'T MEAN TO DRIBBLE BULLSHIT AND GO BACK ON THE VERY PROMISES I MADE, EXACTLY LIKE , I REPEAT EXACTLY LIKE, WELL, EXACTLY LIKE A TYPICAL, CRAPPING POLITICAL LEADER.'
Wecome to whaaat world.
Heeeeeesss baaaaccccckkk!
Personally, I'm glad Whaaaat is back. Sid said similar and it good to see him back also.
Stray-gator, your serve.
@ stray-gator kudos to you sir, most entertaining post of 2013 thus far, keep up the good work
@upshitcreek-Suck on that big boy
I'm still laughing.
'so much fluid'
Priceless!
For sure it pretty fucken good, @stray-gator I have read your post probably 5-6 times even showed my wife.
She pissed herself.
Your post is a douser. Does the aussie word douser come from dousing? i.e. making someone wet by throwing liquid over them?.....
'For sure it pretty fucken good, @stray-gator I have read your post probably 5-6 times even showed my wife.'
You've got nothing else to interest her, so I don't blame you, poor gimp.
Thanks Uplift for not blaming me, but a true fact. My wife found it humorous in small talk and everyone else has to.
Except yourself, "So I don't blame you".
Smile big fella. :)
Hey no sweat wells, no doubt everyone has found small a major topic with you as well. Sound exciting around your way!
uplift, updrift, upsnatch,upngerk,uppity, updown the list goes on .
Why?
Strange beginnings.
I respect what have to say about exercise and dietie stuff and have read all your links to them, nice one and thank you for the information.
A few posts ago you sounded like the gimp with a ball in your mouth,
Im not sure if it was Botox?. as morris stated.
Judging by our avatars its not small eh.
'Have you managed to actually get wet yet or are you still stuck in the gym?'
Well blindboy you'll be glad to know that in a few weeks I'm off to my piece of heavan, to surf my favourite waves for 6 weeks, zero crowds. So many sickest waves at my feet.
http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/Uplifted/library/Uplift%20Favourite
And on my return my commitment is fullfilled and I've changed the setup, so back in the normal surfing swing around here. Looking forward to catching up again wordy, this is gonna be a blast.
Enjoy uplift, but before you go I think you really need to talk to these guys about getting their program for your gym.
http://fit2surf.com.au/
ahh what a hilarious bunch of humans......forgot that i had not been on for awhile...
did an interview not so long ago,asked why do I shape?.......sorta went like this...
"I shape because I surf,and I surf because I shape".....
I realized how boring one would be without the other,having done it for more than 40 years now....made me think how blessed I am to have both,which keeps ya forever young...
Its funny about all the exercise programs etc...if ya surf everyday .SUP on flat and small days...and stretch...thats all ya need.....
how boring is Gym.......and how really detached from surfing is JIM......
ahh what a hilarious bunch of humans......forgot that i had not been on for awhile...
did an interview not so long ago,asked why do I shape?.......sorta went like this...
"I shape because I surf,and I surf because I shape".....
I realized how boring one would be without the other,having done it for more than 40 years now....made me think how blessed I am to have both,which keeps ya forever young...
Its funny about all the exercise programs etc...if ya surf everyday .SUP on flat and small days...and stretch...thats all ya need.....
how boring is Gym.......and how really detached from surfing is JIM......
brutus, have you had your dozen raw eggs this morning ?
sid the chook shed was down and out no googys at all...will i be able to paddle tomorrow ??
sid the chook shed was down and out no googys at all...will i be able to paddle tomorrow ??
brutus one of the things that is coming out in the science of fitness at the moment is just how different people are in their response to training. I think that if you have a basically muscular (mesomorphic) body type, what you say is probably true as you will not need to do much to maintain muscle mass and strength. On the other hand someone with a long lean (ectomorphic) body shape and sedentary job will probably benefit from resistance training as they will almost certainly lose muscle mass and strength as they age. I do gym work from time to time as I feel the need and concentrate on power, moving the resistance quickly. If I am working with free weights I find that it actually requires full on concentration to keep the movements, fast, controlled and accurate. Now swimming laps, that's boring!
'Its funny about all the exercise programs etc...if ya surf everyday .SUP on flat and small days...and stretch...thats all ya need.....
how boring is Gym.......and how really detached from surfing is JIM......'
Pretty ironic statements. Obviously its often not enough to keep a person healthy and fit. Nothing could be more boring than being seriously sick or injured.
So many surfers have injuries that stop them surfing. I have personally helped plenty of surfers who couldn't surf any more, in some cases work either, get fitter than ever in the gym, surf their brains out, and earn a living again. So have other trainers I know.
You had to bring that up didn't you blindboy. Its a real can of worms in the fitness world, that mode of thinking.
Everyone has their training style, it comes down to results in the end. Well, you'd think it would.
Its really easy to confuse learning a skill, with increased fitness. For instance years ago it became huge to train with say a heavier basketball, or tennis racket, or run with ankle and wrist weights. When it was all done and dusted, the final outcome was that performance was hindered, especially under intense pressure. You end up with two different but similar mental/nevous system patterns, which causes confusion under pressure. So, when shooting with the normal weight ball, instead of having that one perfected groove, or feeling, under pressure you jump between the two, stuffing your shooting up. Plus, I watched Andy Blicavs, one of the best ever Olympic Basketballers cripple himself, knees, shoulders, ankles running with those wrist and ankle weights. So a school of thought emerged to seperate skill training from strength and fitness. Where the ideal athlete or performer is one who has the perfect skill, and the untiring, difficult to injure body and mind to perform it. That is the goal of all elite athletes, being able to maintain a perfect skill level, unhindered by waning fitness, actually a fitness level that enhances skill. If you observe people that lift weights between seasons, and drop skill training at that time, when they get back into skill training they feel shithouse, as the machine used to complete the skill is now changed and foreign to the stored skill pattern. So the ideal is to constantly work on skill, as you become fitter, so as to be always in the groove, in touch.
In my approach, surfing is no different. Nothing can perfect the skill of surfing like surfing. However as a fitness regime its poor. Literally zero glute/back/leg work. So minimum reason to adapt, equals minimum metabolic and hormone response. MR was literally crippled, yet could still win world titles. Guys like Briley dominated pipe. Camel is the big wave paddle champ. Heaps of surfers end up with stuffed backs, shoulders and knees. Which can be easily corrected in the gym, balancing them up, and allowing them to keep surfing, in fact, surf even better. That injury situation can be common in most sports, as they are so repetitive and specific, creating imbalance... like the tennis player with one bigger arm.
The balance thing reared up not long after, balance boards, fitballs, then bosu balls, and that craze swept through fitness training. Core became the buzzword. Super cores, where all the little supporting muscles, never before trained, were kicked into gear creating magnificent 'cores'. I love testing those super cores. Nothing like a bit of weight, especially overhead to test your core. Just load up a bar in a safety rack and put it on their back, or at arms length overhead. Minimum skill reqired. Just supporting load. Even Southy's 'barrarin', or deadlifting is a great test.
'Shit, fuck that, thats too hard, can I hook me fourby up to it? Oi,anyway, ave a go at me bosu reverse flutters!'
Sounds great, except again, when its all done and dusted that type of training results in a loss of strength and fitness.
'You ####ing blasphemous cockhead upprick, pepper the ####ing arsehole with fitballs... yoga the cunt! Ring ####n wordy!
That balance style traing creates a skill set which improves balance and coordination at that particular activity. It can quickly be demonstrated with kids as I have pointed out before. Kids learn much quicker than adults, and can do all that stuff quickly, not because they have developed super bodies, but because they have put in place the skill and coordination pattern quickly. In the same vein you can add miles to someones shooting range in basketball, virtually instantly by giving a few pointers and increasing skill. Their strength and fitness is no different to what it was when they had much less range.
Win at all cost elite athletes, where money is no object, but at the same time is paramount, ie, NFL, NHL, found that all their athletes became less fit when training like that. Its simple really. You can work much harder, also supported by all sorts of activation testing, when on a flat, stable surface. That should be the goal in fitness training, finding ways to work harder and harder, coaxing the body and mind to get stronger, more conditioned and fitter. Then use that super conditioned, tireless, injury and sickness resistant body to carry out the perfect skill.
In surfings skill case, surf heaps, on your favourite boards. Imagine Federer swapping racket weights and sizes and characteristics every five minutes.
As you say results are what counts uplift and it is often easier to hinder than help in terms of fitness so I am never dogmatic. I know what works for me and am happy to try new stuff if it seems reasonable but if someone is surfing well and injury free over the age of forty they have to be doing something right. Beyond that it is the reduction in energy levels and activity that tend to reduce ability and this can be unavoidable in many circumstances.
Fitness is all very well but if you are already stressed and under time pressure it is important to make sure that your training is not an additional source of stress. I know when I have a heavy work load or some sort of drama happening that is exactly when I will injure myself if I try to maintain high levels of surfing and training. For me runs of small surf such as we often get from October to December are the ideal time to do the gym work. You can keep your skills sharp and add some extra power. Beyond surfing, we are all destined to get old and some of the main issues for the elderly are lack of muscle and bone mass. If you don't want to end your life in a wheel chair let me suggest regular weight bearing activity.
My Grandad always said too me "Keep the machine well oiled"
IE eat well and be active.
uppo, I weigh plus or minus 110kg (solid bone mass obviuosly) and I wrestle logs for a living.
how much more weight bearing activity are you suggesting ?
[this will be good].
Uplift you don't see Federer swapping racquets all the time because his playing conditions stay more or less the same, day in day out. Surfing conditions are different pretty much every surf you have unless your constantly surfing a perfect reef where each wave is a lot similar to the one before it.
Yeh blindboy,results are all about how you recover. Recovery is the crucial element, and nutrition is a huge part of recovery. Recovery isn't like fitness in that it doesn't improve/increase in the same way, or to the same extent as fitness. What you have on day one is what you have, and it pays to maximise it. Some people have much larger recovery capacity than others, and can get away with heaps. Others can get just as fit, but have to juggle things much more. Drugs are so popular in sport because they massively enhance recovery. At a huge cost.
That's awesome to pay attention to all those factors blindboy, it is no different to a footballer say in season and off season. Even in this day and age its the one factor many 'experts' bungle. Its important to remember also that the fitter you become, the more nutrients required just to exsist, the more you will use in working out/training, in games (surfing), in skill training and in repairing and adapting, or getting even fitter. One of the biggest mistakes is when people start training more and more, taxing recovery more and more, and then eating the same. Its like trying to build a wall 8 bricks high with just 4 bricks. I have to drum into anyone wanting to get fitter, if you don't consistently up, or change your nutrition to match increasing strength/performance and fitness, then there is nothing to work with in recovering. 4 bricks will always be 4 bricks. You are wasting your time training thinking that you'll build 8 bricks high with just 4. One of the side effects of anabolic drugs is that they raise hunger and the rate that food can be processed. So people recover better... for other reasons also, hormones, or put simply switches/triggers.
Thats the beauty of eggs. Firstly, maximum output for minimum effort. Maximum utilisation and digestability. Less stress on the trained/stressed body, and simultaneously enhanced recovery/hormone levels. The worst situation of no dietry fat, especially saturated fat, which equals cholesterol which is your body's structural substance, (plants have cellulose, we have cholesterol), then say good by to hormones, and thus health and fitness. Another common bungle. Sugar, or too many carbs, the final blow. Organic, unprocessed... great, you turn it into sugar, whether you like it or not.
Every time you train, you have to keep the result wanted, the target in mind. Paramount, this has to prevent injury, not cause it. Will this workout leave me stressed (desirable), and will it leave me anabolic, or raised hormone levels? That's where all the skill at designing training comes in. How to make the session anabolic, create balance and injury prevention, enhance performance not hinder it, and simultaneously improve cardio/fitness levels. For surfing, if no real issues, something like twice a week, Session 1: deadlift, chins, pushups, hanging knee raise. Session 2: Squats, dips, bent rows, hyperextensions, hanging knee raise. Each session should be all over in 30 - 45 mins, not including warmup/stretches. Just that can make anyone ridiculously strong and fit.
'Thats too easy, I do 500 fitball cross bends, shoulder press, suat/lunge combo, on only 1 leg, balancing a kettle bell too!'
'Thats nice then you should lift this with ease... whats wrong?'
Then theres the major factor. The X factor. There's squats, and there's squats, like wise every exercise.
'What the fuck is that?'
'Me squats mate, pushing 200 for 4 sets of 10!'
And the fun begins. You can think what you want, but I am in that type of situation regularly, and have been for years and years, and have never had anyone question me when we are done, so I am extremely confident in what I say.
'Well what do you know, one set of 15 reps at 40 kilos and you couldn't even finish it? And sweat pouring off you, and now you are fucked... you're kiddin me?'
Only last week another cross fit star bit the dust. 3 sets of 30 reps for over 200 kgs he reckoned, super squatter. So, I challenged him to one set with 60kg, on a machine because his technique was so ridiculous, and would need a heap of work. Ridiculously easy he reckoned. So, I told him I would be a prick and not let him off the thing until he got 20 reps. And just to sink it home to him, got one of the girls to do a demo. Away he went, and the last ten reps were hilarious, he was bailing at 8. One set and he was fucked for half an hour and dripping wet. Breathless. Silence of the lambs.
There's squats, and there's squats. Most people inadvertantly become experts at bludging when they train, and inadvertantly find ways to make it easier and easier. They keep inventing technique changes, to make things easier, and waste in some cases years and years.
but what about them logs ?
Goofy, not really true, he plays on a variety of surfaces with with often constantly changing weather conditions, and even the balls change throughout the match. He tweaks the essentially same raquet to suit.
A truly top, expert shaper can make a quiver where they are so matched, that jumping from board to board in different waves/sizes feels like there is no change.
Fishy, so what, that scenario is common in this town. I know 130 kg tuna fishermen that are totally unfit, despite telling me how hard they work, and who are lucky to run 40m, let alone put up an athletic standard time, and who have a 2mm standing jump, and who are exhausted before the warm up even finishes. I treat them just like a 60kg person who sits in a bank, and find a starting level, and increase it. Like I said, there's squats, and there's squats... come on down.
If what you say is true, I'll guarrantee that you have perfected a skill that lets you bludge on the job. Just like a top squash player for instance, who learns to not move unnecessarly, or a top boxer who doesn't waste energy, or anyone who is good at something, even running, and learns to conserve, and to make it easy. So, even with a stuffed back MR could surf good enough and smart enough to be world champ. Imagine a supremelly athletic, equally skilled MR, but even more mentally confident against him?
well, didly squat to that.
meanwhile, OT, I was lookin' for some Kong/Sunset stuff, but endied up with this wot methinks is pretty cool old stuff...
There was some interest in that old photo...
I passed the info about the guys names onto stu... Figured I let him decide if its appropriate to throw peoples names on here.
Can confirm however that that is Mig in the check shirt, that it was taken at Queenscliff (the northern end of Manly beach NSW), and that that's Fairy Bower in the background.
The photo is made up of two groups of guys, The Freshwater boys, and The Bower boys who would sometimes hang out together. The photo was taken in 1958.
Mig said the boards were solid balsa and each board was shaped by each guy. That's pretty impressive... Mig was only 14 and the other guys around the same age. They called the boards Pigboards, and Midget made his on his mates back lawn at Curl Curl.
even better...
You might find this interesting uplift
http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/media/books/How-Athletes-...
Thats" STRANGE"
I wrestle whales, so we can eat whale burgers for smoko,
I am trained in helicopter emergency ditched landings in the ocean and can hold my breath for 37 minutes.
Thats just the "BEGINNING".
Gidday blindboy, good read. Genes are as pointed out a mystery. Dr Bruce Lipton made some interesting findings in that area, but as he challenges contemporary science, thats a shitfight.
The African American stuff is interesting. Thats how most of the African American imports used to talk with us when I was playing basketball. They loved stirring us about having been shaped into the supreme people by white America's horrific activities in the slave days. Payback time. It made me understand and become interested in subjects like 'bling'.
I think he largely overlooks a huge factor, belief, attitude, thinking, thought. WA footballer Haydn Bunton is a classic study of that.
I used to wonder heaps about practise, why some need so much, others stuff all. I believe that practise is really just a measure of belief, and conditioning. Some people aren't afraid to make mistakes, so they learn very quickly. Some believe that they are worthy, others feel they aren't until certain conscious and unconscious, self imposed criteria are met. To me a huge component of practise is that one day it allows someone to finally relax, and perform. Uncoached sports like skate boarding and free running show what amasing leaps and bounds can occur in learning skill, when there is no preconceived expectation and limit.
Speaking of skill, the article blurs the lines between performing a skill, and increasing fitness.
We are all human. Unless we have a disability, we hinge (squat) and we pull, and we push. How we do it, or why, becomes the skill.
So, I train those functions at their basic level, to improve, the foundation of movement, or skill.
And there are squats, and there are squats. Its true we all have differences, but they are easy to cater to if you know what you are doing. I keep certain factors rigid, but allow for lever length, structure, size etc. Rigid is important to prevent injury and to condition the mind to focus under intense pressure. No sloppy form. Set and rep nos, speed, range, rest between sets, frequency of training can all be manipulated infinitely to suit. But it all comes down to hormones. Switches. Nothing happens in the human body without the switch getting flicked. Training causes an effect on hormones. Marathoners run, sprinters run... different hormones are created, different switches, entirely different results.
I always tell my clients the same story. Take clean and jerks. We aren't trying to be a champion weight lifter. We are trying to create a cause which will create the desired effect, or flick the right switches. So, whilst the champion tries to perfect the skill of making the lift easier and more efficient, often risking injury by doing so, especially when repetition is involved, we are trying to constantly increase the hardness, and decrease risk of injury, actually balance structure to combat injury, so our techniques differ from the weight lifter to facilitate that.
Here's a good sample to try. Use similar to this technique, its a video of a lady that I train. Do pushups, each one 4-5 secs lowering, 1 sec squeezing at the bottom, 2-3 secs lifting, 2 secs squeezing at the top. No resting, no bludging. If you get to 25, do 6 full tension pulses at the top, 2 secs up/down. Keep core flat, rigid, elbows at 45 degree angle back from body, face between hands near the floor. Thats the best position for shoulder health. Try to keep head up, neck in line with spine, resist reaching to the floor with your face. Mimic her form.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=475493339127660&l=8755817167539674406
When you can do that, hold at the bottom for 4 secs before pushing back up.
Thanks for that uplift I'll work on those push ups. My right hand is still only at about 50% of normal strength after the surgery but I can do push ups now. Dips and chins are still a bit dodgy and after a year with no real training I'm just concentrating on control and balance with the fre weights rather than increasing reps and loads.
Gidday blindboy, if your hand is healing, try just negatives for a while. Start at the top, squeeze chest, triceps, shoulders, especially rear delt and rhomboid area, keep your body like a plank, and just lower to the floor taking 10 secs. Keep speed even, ie not too quick, then trying to make up 8 secs in the bottom range. Go right to the floor, but don't push back up, just come up on your knees, set up again at the top and repeat. Try to only take 3 - 5 secs between reps, and do 5 - 12 reps, for 2 sets. They are hard, great way to train, but will be easier on your hand, and help it get strong and heal. When 2 lots of 12 feels fairly easy, you will find starting normal pushups a lot better. Make sure your elbows don't flair out, but stay back at 45 degree angle, and tighten everything up, as you lower, right to the floor. Your face should end up between your hands, same width as in the vid. Try not to reach with neck/head. Do them every 2nd/3rd day. Hope it helps.
You are a cruel man uplift. Now I know where you are coming from with these workouts I'm not surprised you reduce people to quivering lumps of jelly. Let's say I am making a modest start, though I can now actually do a couple of chins and a couple of half way dips so the grip is definitely getting better. The push ups will take a little while to get up to a couple of sets of 12.
I hear you uplift, those types of negatives are gold. C I do respect your info.
Keep it up BB, the rewards will come soon.
Gidday blindboy, I was going to put this somewhere else, but seeing as the beginnings thing is your article, and it might help other people, I'll just chuck it here.
In your situation, you would be better off doing negative chins too. You'll get a better overall response. To be honest, I don't let anyone I train do chins until they can do 8 strict negatives with a decent amount of weight. In the average guy's case, 30 - 35 kg. Then they are guarranteed to be able to get a few strict chins, ala the push up video style. Here's some pictures of another lady I train. Her form is perfect, to be copied if your goal is to train/strengthen/improve and protect from injury lats, and the whole rear shoulder/back structure. Biceps, grip, abs/core get blitzed too.
http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/Uplifted/library/Uplift%20Training?sor...
Chinups are one of the most ludicrously butchered/rendered useless exercises going. You must hold that arch, and keep shoulders down and back the whole time. The palms facing you grip, just outside shoulder width allows the greatest range of motion/hardest work, and simultaneously enhances joint integrity and functional flexibilty. Like squats, watching people attempt to do them properly is extremely entertaining. Most 'I can pump out 20 no probs mate', legends end up barely able to do one. Usually their forearms crumble extremely quickly when using strict rep form/speed, and the whole show quickly disintegrates into a debacle. I mainly let the ladies demo to most guys, to let them realise what is possible, get their egos straightened out, and to sink the point home about the reality and benefits of proper training.
The beauty of the negatives is that they get quick results, and when you do them and reach the level, which you will, as explained, your whole structure is genuinely strong and fit enough to do justice to chins. It really aids grip strength, the most important, yet most under rated weapon any fit person should have in spades. No wraps/hooks.
You can set up a small set of steps to climb up, start in the top position, chest against the bar, elbows driven down and back, lats and whole back structure flexed, under maximum tension, with your body weight, then try and lower in that same position of the lady chinning,to a dead hang at the bottom. Feet crossed, back arched, shoulders down and back. Then climb up again. You'll soon figure out where to place the steps. You need to do 5 - 12 reps. When you can do a set of 12 for 10 secs, 3 - 5 sec rest in between reps, use the belt, add 5 kgs. And so on and so on, Workout twice a week. Negatives need recovery, although at first most aren't strong/fit enough to tax recovery much.
Dips and pushups pretty much do the same muscles, except the core gets more work in pushups. Stay on pushups, then graduate to dips. But do negatives just like the chins. Technique again is crucial, or you work the lats, not chest. Your hand will get tons of work in the negative chins and pushups. Thats my advice anyway. Hope it helps.
Thanks uplift. There has been very little surf here for a while so I have been working out more than usual. The push ups are coming good and the reps are building up nicely. I have been varying my workouts a bit but I’ll run through what I did yesterday.
1. 10 minute heart starter on the rowing machine
2. 3 sets Push ups/chins/dips
3. 3 sets 10kg dumbbell presses from bent knee start
4. 3 sets deadlifts 50kg 3 sets squats 50kg
5. 3 sets hanging knee lifts
6. 3 sets crunches with 5kg plate
7. 5 minute warm down on exercise bike
I will take your advice on the chins and dips. I have been keeping the work rate high for the aerobic benefit. My right hand grip is improving but still only about 2/3 of my left. I don’t think there is much I can do specifically for it. I must have been a bit sloppy somewhere as I had some mild spasm around T7 or 8 this morning but it has settled down quickly.
Gidday Blindboy, I've been wanting to comment, but have been swamped before I go on holidays.
This is my take, up to you what you think.
I wouldn't row before deadlifting. Rowing is deluxe. However, training wise, not in the style of competition rowing, where stroke length is an aim. Rowers accept back blow outs as a par for the course risk. I went out with and trained a woman's State and National Rower for a while. Back problems, disc blowouts are common. There are many theories why, over use etc, but I blame the constant, repetitive rounding of the spine, under high load. An absolute no - no when deadlifting, or when using rowing as a cardio exercise. Its better, and harder, to assume the arched seated row position, also keeping shoulders engaged back. Then its like combining squats and seated rows, and the discs are under even load, instead of being constantly pinched at the front by rounding spine. The core has to work constantly to brace.
Deadlifts are the toughest/potentially toughest exercise, therefore capable of maximum stimulus/response, so are better done when fresh, at the start of any workout. The resulting hormone surge from maximum effort deadlifts carries through the rest of the session, which should be a clear goal.
The best way to warm up for deadlifts is a series of 25 cat/cow movements, starting minimal range, and increasing to maximum by the last reps. I have anyone do this before any workout or exercise session, surfing included.
Then use deadlifting as the warmup, and to set the groove. If 50kg is the working weight:
1 set x 8 reps with the bar
1 set x 6 reps with 10kg
1 set by 4 reps with 20kg
1 set x 4 reps with 30kg
1 set x 2 reps with 40kg
1 set x 2 reps with 50 kg
Short rest, then start.
Deadlift form is crucial. Absolutely zero rounding, a constant, natural arch must be maintained. Core engaged, as if trying to stop having a piss, then everything in that area squeezed tight. Feet perfectly parallel, hip width. Knees must track in line with feet, no in/out/sloppiness. Hips low, head up shouders back. Bar grazing shins, legs. Breathe to take advantage of blood pressure, nature's packing. Alternate under/over grip... one hand underhand, one overhand. Start by lifting off something like besser blocks, or milk crates, until you can use body weight, then drop weight (Olympic plate height minimum height) and work off the floor.
Big breath in, hold it, tighten core/knees and glutes drive hips forward and up through heels. Back simultaneously drives up shoulders, quads drive back knees. Hinging. When at the top, locked out/glutes, quads/core/knees tight, blow out. Catch a couple of breaths, big breath in, lock up again, hold breath, reverse action squeezing all the way to the bottom, blow out only when the weight is on the floor/blocks/power rack. Super tight. Catch breath and repeat. Every rep must be as if its the only one being done. Super tight. Picking up off the floor/blocks/rack is harder (no momentum) than not putting fully down. Lift for 2 secs, squeeze/flex locked out at top for 2 secs, lower for 4 secs. Set up again. Repeat. 8 - 20 rep sets.
Here's a good demo of some aspects (even though Mentzer relied on drugs), except I disagree with foot spacing, and breathing, and sloppy lowering, where most injuries occur.
Here's a good example of posture I prefer from side on, except I dont like her speed (too easy) and not putting down each time (too easy... momentum). Constant arch, erectors engaged, supporting spine, working.
And by the way, hexbars are an awesome training tool in the right hands.
http://search.gymandfitness.com.au/search?p=Q&asug=&w=Hex+bars
From all this stuff, you should be able to figure out what I am getting at re deadlifting. Alternate grips each set.
Then I would do pushups, to rest grip.
Then chins.
Then Hanging Knee raises.
Maybe add military presses, but not really necessary (same muscle group as pushups), wasting recovery if you give 100% intensity to the other exercises.
Decompressed.
'Yeh but you have to work all the angles for complete development.'
Really?
http://johnalvino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/jacked-sprinter.jpg
http://nickb1222.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sprintingathlete.jpg
For cardio, gradually cut rest periods. Jumping to fresh muscles during workout works heart and lungs harder than using a tired muscle, capable of less work.
For specific endurance use paddling drills. Sprint, recover, repeat repeat for 30 mins. Paddle heaps on big, shitty, rippy days.
Hope this is usefull.
All good uplift, I picked up a shocking cold so I haven't exercised at all for a week but I'm back into it now, had a couple of surfs and will be in the gym next week. Thanks