• Written by Rich McNabb • Proofread & Edited by Claude AI
How I built my own surf strength training routine from scratch after a shoulder injury, the actual workout, the gear that matters, and what changed once I stopped chasing goals and built systems. No shortcuts, just a proper, structured plan.
In March 2015, a couple of weeks after buying a brand new mountain bike, I went over the handlebars riding downhill at Mākara Peak with friends. The bike flipped, the seat catapulting straight into my shoulder and fracturing my scapula in three places.
Was I travelling at pace? No. Was I getting big airs off some jump? Also no.
I was travelling at an awkwardly slow pace, and instead of clearing the jump like a normal person, gravity took over and I fell to the bottom of the ramp in slow motion. The full story, helicopter rescue, reality TV camera crew and all, lives on my 15 minutes of fame.
The doctor at the hospital recommended against surgery, since most scapular injuries are better left for the body to heal naturally. That’s because the scapula is connected to, and surrounded by, so much overlapping muscle and ligament that operating on it can create more problems than it solves. So mine was left to put itself back together, like that scene from Terminator 2, minus the liquid metal and the ominous soundtrack.
It healed clean, no lasting damage on paper. Still, the body keeps its own records, and mine hangs onto receipts like a 1920s accountant. My left arm never got its full strength back, and I lost some mobility along with it, properly lost it, if I’m honest.
For a few years after that, rehab was light weights here and there, mostly just keeping the shoulder moving rather than anything resembling a real program. What actually got me to take things more seriously was a big session out at Lyall Bay in early 2019, a story that lives over in the post-surf stretching article.
It turns out being fit and surf fit aren’t the same thing. The muscles and movements you actually use while surfing, popping up, paddling, holding a duck dive, aren’t necessarily the ones you’d train by default.
That experience of being in over my head sent me looking online to learn more about water confidence and safety. I stumbled across the Ocean Warrior course and, not long after, started to create my own four-part surf workout program, covering strength, flexibility, stretching, nutrition and more.
No worries, you can skip the story and jump straight to the surf strength workout routine.
Ocean Warrior was great, though I wasn’t really interested in charging on massive waves. Staying calm when you’re in over your head is a phenomenal skill you can practice regardless. Around the same time I discovered How to Rip on YouTube which covered more aspects of surfing I hadn’t even considered: correct technique, dry land training and more.
Reading health articles and watching those videos shaped most of this program, customised specifically to my surfing goals, my age, and my injuries.
Training for something that pays off in the water, rather than training for its own sake, made the whole approach feel grounded with purpose, which flows into motivation and consistency.
Choosing not to work with a personal trainer isn’t a criticism of what they bring to the table. Freedom and flexibility matter more to me, choosing my own adventure on the day works better than committing to a fixed weekly session.
Motivation has never really been the struggle, and paying someone every week mostly buys accountability, which isn’t the piece I’m missing. Learning something myself, most of the time, beats having someone else run the session for me.
Where a trainer earns their fee, in my view, is technique: a solid block of sessions three or four times a year to nail good form and posture on something specific, then check in and adjust every few months rather than paying weekly once everything’s dialled in.
This is just what’s worked for me and my experience, not a hard and fast rule.
FitnessProgramer.com became my go-to for this. Its exercise library breaks nearly every movement down by muscle group and equipment, complete with anatomical diagrams showing exactly what’s firing and clear technique notes, so you’re not guessing your way through something you’ve only half seen on YouTube.
Building a program this way, filtering exercises by what I actually had access to and what my shoulder could handle, felt less like a compromise and more like designing something properly mine.
Here’s what that looks like on paper, four blocks, roughly 45 minutes to an hour depending on the day and what’s actually free at the gym.
Every surfer knows the feeling of paddling out in whitewash conditions, howling onshore wind, messy and disorganised waves stacking up one after another, no let-up between duck dives.
It’s usually a decision made out of sheer desperation after too long away from the water, and the results are mixed at best.
That said, the paddle out sometimes tells a completely different story from what the shore promised, and it’s worth the gamble. I’ve had some great sessions this way, glassy waves out the back that now look unrecognisable from the beach, and it’s almost funny paddling back in afterwards when you’d almost considered jumping back in the car to head home.
That’s when my shoulder and rotator cuff remind me they’re not built for whitewash anymore. These days I check surf cams and study forecasts on surf-forecast.com, swellmap.co.nz and surfline.com properly before paddling out.
Understanding how wind direction, wind speed, wave energy and tide come together into one clear data-dense forecasting widget means I actually know what I’m signing up for, most of the time. Picking the right board for the day matters too: a shortboard duck dives and manoeuvres far more easily than a 7-foot-plus mid-length ever will, though in low energy conditions the longer boards absolutely earn their place in the quiver.
For Wellington surf specifically, a fish or a mid-length covers at least 90% of what you’ll actually encounter. A performance shortboard for when the planets align is always good as well.
Leg day gets skipped permanently, without a second thought, and the world keeps spinning. Old knee injuries make squats and lunges more trouble than they’re worth, especially once weights enter the mix, so the treadmill and stationary bike carry the low-impact cardio instead.
Easy on the joints, still gets the heart rate up. Also helps avoid the classic “gym-crim” physique, skinny legs sticking out like an orange balanced on toothpicks.
Every single day includes some kind of training, though “every day” is doing a lot of quiet, nuanced work in that sentence.
Mood, injury and whatever the weather’s doing all get a vote. A beautiful day outside means skipping the treadmill entirely for a walk in the hills behind the house instead, summit views stretching out over Wellington harbour, the airport, forests and ranges in every direction. The treadmill loses that argument every time, no negotiation.
Roughly 30 minutes of weights fills a typical gym day, whatever’s free and on the list, tuned into what the body’s actually saying and skipping anything that starts feeling like damage instead of progress. Another 30 minutes on the treadmill or bike closes the session out with a proper sweat.
Home workout days run completely differently: something decent on the TV or music blasting, moving through exercises based on whatever’s within reach, ducks in disarray rather than a row. Unstructured F45 is probably the closest comparison, minus an instructor yelling encouragement, plus noticeably better snacks and a far more relaxed atmosphere.
Warmth and flexibility in a wetsuit matter more than people give them credit for. An O’Neill Hyperfreak Chest Zip 4/3+ Steamer paired with an O’Neill HyperFire No Sleeve 1mm vest turned out to be the goldilocks combination, the vest underneath keeps vital organs properly warm without adding any extra resistance to the shoulders while paddling.
Getting it wrong once was an expensive lesson. A Rip Curl Flashbomb Heatseeker 4/3mm Zip Free Steamer, bought brand new for $750, put so much strain through the shoulder that two or three short surfs were all it managed before pulling the pin.
Two weeks out of the water followed while the shoulder settled down, and the suit itself sold a month later for $400. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that hit hardest at the time.
Chatting with O’Neill’s customer support team sorted it properly, the shoulder injury, the mistake of going too thick and warm the first time, worked through over a few back-and-forth chat messages until we landed on the current combination. Years later, it’s still the go-to.
Properly cold mornings, the kind where the windscreen needs defrosting before the drive, are exactly when this combination pays off. Building real endurance is impossible when a wetsuit fights back the whole session, and the two and three hour sessions this whole setup makes possible would fall apart without it.
Getting up at 5:40am to surf before work stops feeling like a sacrifice when the gear does its job properly. Done right, this is the favourite part of the whole day, and the pressure to squeeze in a workout is a distant memory in the rear-view mirror by the time the drive home starts, wash the gear, shower, grab breakfast and coffee, then sit down at the desk to start work.
Endurance was the first thing to shift, and it shifted fast, a noticeable difference almost straight away. Sessions that used to tap out around the one hour mark started easily stretching beyond two, sometimes three hours on a regular basis. Calling it quits before going for broke matters though, there needs to be enough left in the tank for the paddle in, which can take a lot longer than expected on a variable day.
My shoulder stopped its usual next-day complaints. Confidence, endurance and my actual surfing all climbed together, yet let’s not get carried away, I’m still a terrible surfer, zero sponsors or awards to show for it.
Bottom line, I’m just having a lot more fun out there as a result.
The bigger shift happened somewhere quieter, in my head. I stopped panicking the moment a massive set started stacking towards me. That calm didn’t materialise out of nowhere, it’s the same breath-hold discipline and stay-steady-under-a-wipeout technique from The Ocean Warrior Course, and I still lean on it constantly: one big breath before paddling into something serious, staying loose if I get rolled and dragged.
Feeling that level of control in the water changed my entire relationship with the sport, not just my fitness. It’s a skill that comes with practice and slowly increasing your comfort levels.
Taking off on bigger waves I would have passed up on in the past, rather than calling the session early and heading back to shore, became normal. Chasing the biggest wave out there was never really the point, to me at least, chasing getting better at surfing was.
I purchased the Ocean Warrior course back in 2019, printed out the PDFs, watched the videos and put in the work. Two things stuck:
It also covers what pushing too far looks like, blue lips, a trail of bubbles, swimming off course, slurred speech. Useful stuff to know, less fun to read.
Ross Clarke-Jones, one half of the Australian big wave duo in Storm Surfers 3D, pictures himself in a nightclub when he’s held under, flashing lights, loud music, dancing it out until he surfaces. Different approach to mine, he’s reframing the chaos as fun rather than breathing through it. Same idea underneath though, give your mind somewhere else to go so panic doesn’t get the final say and burn through your oxygen.
When I first heard about people having cold showers, and every benefit that supposedly came with them, I thought right, I need to get in on this. Naturally, I took it literally.
If you weren’t being bold and starting cold, you weren’t just shortchanging yourself, you were missing out on the whole payoff. Half asleep, I’d crank the water to full cold and make it about halfway through the timer before bailing out, still covered in body wash and shampoo. I’d grab a towel to wipe off the soap and shampoo, shaking my head in disbelief and shivering, trying to forget the whole thing happened, and get on with the day knowing some people willingly put themselves through this ordeal on a regular basis.
An absolute assault on the senses, one that threw me off my game for the rest of the day. Twice was enough to decide I wasn’t built for this, and I called it quits.
Hindsight has this habit of turning up right when you don’t need it anymore. A few years later, I finally figured out where I’d been going wrong the whole time. Start with a normal shower, like always, in warm water first, then step the temperature down gradually, lukewarm, then full cold, so the only thing on your mind is your breathing. No excuse to bail early mid-shower, head to toe in shower product, looking like a guy who’s seen some stuff.
Breathing is where you actually get to take control back. It’s not easy, yet this is the one thing working in your favour. Cold water triggers a gasp reflex the second it hits your skin, your body tenses, and you’re suddenly taking short, fast breaths while your brain plans an exit.
Brace for the impact, expect the shock to the system, then go zen. Similar to staying calm in the surf by controlling your breathing.
Losing 12kg turned out to matter more for my surfing than any single session at the gym did. Less of the board sat underwater with every paddle, and duck diving stopped feeling like hauling a heavy kettlebell through every wave.
I track nutrition with the LoseIt app alongside weight and calories, not that I’m obsessive about the numbers and calorie counting, more that seeing them somehow makes me more consistent and committed.
Breakfast doing a lot of the heavy lifting, with a proper post-surf muesli recipe beats scrambling for something on the way out the door. One week in, I could already see how much the LoseIt app was going to level things up, so I bought a lifetime subscription and never looked back.
One thing worth mentioning. I’ve got a heap of food allergies, dairy, gluten, and nightshades (tomato, chillies, capsicum/bell peppers, and potato) all off limits. So I tend to eat healthy less by choice and more because nature has forced my hand.
My favourite food to this day is potato chips, which is exactly why my wife, Ali, keeps them in the trunk of her car rather than the house, otherwise I’ll demolish a full bag like a drunk Cookie Monster in a competitive eating contest.
That’s fine, though. The entire point of building a system instead of chasing a goal is that it doesn’t collapse the second you fall off it. You just climb back on the board and keep paddling.
Four parts that work as one complete system. Strength training, built from the ground up after a shoulder injury. Flexibility and mobility, the small daily rituals that keep it moving. The routine that actually gets me out the door on cold mornings. Stretching, hydration and nutrition that close the loop on recovery.
How I built my own surf strength training routine from scratch after a shoulder injury, the actual workout, the gear that matters, and what changed once I stopped chasing goals and built systems. No shortcuts, just a proper, structured plan.
Improve mobility and recovery with surf-specific stretches, a minimal home gym setup, and small daily habits, like surf skateboarding, that stick once motivation fades. Built around what actually works, not just theory.
The system that gets me out the door on cold mornings, wetsuit on before I've even checked the cam, gear packed the night before, no room left to talk myself out of it. Plus the actual warm-up and stretch routine I run through every time.
The stretch routine, hydration timing and nutrition habits that make recovery actually happen, especially in winter when it's the last thing you want to do. Built around the same gluten and dairy-free rules as everything else here.