In all of the Riding Bumps training programs, strength training is an absolutely critical adjunct to your SUP and prone paddling. Although paddling is a whole body workout that will train your core, arms, and legs, it is also a repetitive endurance activity that has the potential to lead to muscular imbalances that will predispose you to overuse injuries. Strength training has the potential to mitigate the negative effects of paddle race training and make you a stronger paddler.

In San Diego, the physical therapists and personal trainers are all preaching a similar method of strength training. This method of strength training is broadly described as “functional strength training.” Rather than focusing on working specific muscles (such as bicep curls) they focus is on movement patterns, body weight exercises, and flexibility.

A recent New York Times article describes a similar approach to strength training employed by the Shannon Turley – the strength coach of the Stanford football team.  The following are a few pertinent excerpts from the article to give you an idea of what we are talking about.

Turley is a strength coach, and he is not a strength coach, or not exactly. Strength is not his focus. Function is. Balance is. Flexibility is….His players bench press, but he cares more about how they lift — with hands closer together, without bouncing the bar off their chests — than how much. He wants them to bend all the way down when they squat. Freshmen in Turley’s program do not lift weights upon arrival. Instead, for the first few weeks, they do “body work,” or push-ups and pull-ups and squats or lunges without weights; basically old-school, military calisthenics.

One of his favorite exercises, the push-up bridge, in which players stabilize their body in a plank position and spell out words using one arm, requires only a towel and the floor. The core boards are leaned on and stood on and can be used at practice or in the weight room

For the subtle art of injury prevention, the Cardinal stretch and stretch and stretch. They stretch before and after lifts and before and after practice. They stretch for fun.

Turley pays particular attention to his players’ Functional Movement Screen scores. The F.M.S. is a durability index, what Turley calls “a predictive, quantitative analysis of quality of movement.” That is the first test he conducts. It evaluates seven movements and scores players as balanced, functional, overpowered, dysfunctional and injury prone. It shows if a player executes a movement better with his left leg than his right, pointing out asymmetries.

“I tell all the guys,” Fischer said, “all the giants, the huge-looking guys, the Adonis-looking people, if you cannot move, you will not last. It’s a game of speed and movement and the lowest player wins.”

Or, in the vernacular on The Farm, it is real-world applicable man strength.

In the Riding Bumps book we give you a basic strength training workout that will introduce you to the world of functional strength training. Our workout,  is basic and steeped in traditional strength training.Our routine is a great starting place for most paddlers. If, however, you have been on our program for a while and you are looking to change things up,  you don’t have access to a physical therapist or movement specialist, and/or you are not on the Stanford football team, the good news is that there are several excellent resources to help you self direct your strength training program. Here are a few:

Core Performance Endurance: A New Fitness and Nutrition Program That Revolutionizes the Way You Train for Endurance Sports

Mark Verstegen has an excellent series of books in his Core Performance series.  With easy to follow instructions and just enough background about his philosophy thee books are a great place to start. We are big fans of books that include workouts you can follow (so you do not have to think about what to do) and this book has a workout by workout program you can follow. The only thing you will need to watch out for with the Core Performance programs is that they can be pretty involved and intense. If you are doing a lot of paddling you will need to tailor the program to your situation so you are not doing too much in the gym.

Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance

Kelly Starrett http://www.mobilitywod.com/ is the reigning grand all high exalted mystic ruler of performance based physical  training and his book, Becoming a Supple Leopard, is the bible of the movement. If you are really into this stuff, this book it is a must read as it includes just every movement you can possibly think of. The breadth and depth of this book, in our opinion, is also our main complaint about the book. There is almost too much information for the uninitiated to sort through. Moreover, this particular book does not have specific workouts as the reader is left to design their own training program.

Surf Training Success by Cris Mils

Surf training Success http://www.surftrainingsuccess.com and http://surfstrengthcoach.com is an online based training program by physical therapist and surfer Cris Mills.

Surf training success is a three phase program that uses many of the same mobility and strength drills in the previous books. Moreover, there is a very specific focus on flexibility of your shoulders and thoracic spine which is critical to the prone paddler and SUP athlete. As stated previously, we are big fans of books and programs that tell you exactly how much you should be doing and when you should be doing it. Surf Training Success does not fail this test. The program is well defined, very specific, and you just need to follow along. Finally, there are online videos demonstrating all of the movements in the program.

Our only real complaint about Surf Training Success is that the website comes across as an infomercial that is a little cheesy. Cris – you are better than that. Our advice is to ignore the “salesy” tone of the website and trust us on this one. The $37.00 for the program is worth every penny.