Mid-year tips for when your Surf Training goes awry!

Whilst our world spins by at breakneck speed, our self-care and surfing goals can easily fall by the wayside. Where are you at with your training mid-way through 2025?  Are you still tracking along with the same momentum? Ticking goals? Seeing progress? OR, have you found yourself falling off the bandwagon? Perhaps life needed you to prioritise something else for a while, and now your training practices feel impossible to re-integrate? 

The latter is not an uncommon occurrence when it comes to the busy, multiple hat wearing, complex lifestyle of modern female surfers. In fact, aside from knowing where to start with surf training and conditioning, 'maintaining a regular training regime' is the second biggest challenge impacting female surfers within our community. 

So how do you collect yourself again and reignite your passion for training on the regular? 

As an Exercise Physiologist, supporting people with their exercise adherence is a BIG piece of the training pie. Afterall, I can’t be with clients 24/7. My role is to help surfers, such as yourself, become completely independent with surf training and surf conditioning. 

Over the last 2 decades I have accumulated several tips and tricks to support training adherence and consistency. However, I also feel it’s important to dive into gender specificity here and utilise our knowledge of female biology to support your training performance. With that being said, my first tip is - do not beat yourself up about falling off the training bandwagon. Instead, tap into your curious mind and identify what was missing. 

Don't beat yourself up. Analyse instead.

Generally speaking, females do not need additional reasons for having a negative relationship with activity and sports participation. The Australian Government is investing over $1 million in surfing alone, to support women's participation and sustainability in sport.  Talking negatively about yourself, because the training plan you had in your head isn't how it rolled out in real life, establishes a poor relationship with movement, surfing, the gym, pilates, running, swimming and sweating it up, all in the name of surfing better.

Females have a social-emotional attachment to sport that can impact their participation. I have composed a blog on this previously (read here). Knowing that we have a social-emotional relationship with surfing, means that we can equip ourselves better when it comes to surf training adherence. 

My suggestion is to take away the emotional attachment and analyse instead. Where and why did your training fall apart? Did you ask too much of yourself? Did you increase your training sessions too quickly? Was proper rest in the picture? Was driving to the gym too much of a time demand? Were you trying to do it all on your own? Did you find it boring?

Below I have composed a cheat sheet that looks into some of the challenges females in our surfing community experience, when it comes to sticking to a training plan. I have attempted to take away the social-emotional attachment and get down to the possible underlying issue. 

Write down what you need to build a winning training program

Rather than focussing on your ‘failure’ or how you didn’t succeed from a personal perspective, identify how your training plan can better support you. Yes, having a surf conditioning program that supports you is more beneficial than having a plan that you are constantly fighting against. 

From the table above, highlight what you need from the solutions column. These solutions will help to identify where your training program has been lacking support. Here would be my own personal list, as an example:

•  Attempt two training sessions a week only for the next 6 weeks, until I build consistency.
• Become clear in my values again and create a clear goal and clear training plan that will get me there.
• Create my sports nutrition plan based on energy availability, because I need more energy for my lifestyle at the moment.

From other female surfers I work with, I know their solutions list need to involve the following:

• Review lifestyle context using The Female Surfer planner.
• Increase support base and sense of community, to reduce training isolation.
• Prioritise recovery.
• Get a sports nutrition plan to support immune health and resilience.

Now that you have identified what ingredients are needed for a supportive surf training program. Reduce the expectation that you need to figure this all out on your own. 

Don't’ be afraid to ask for more support

I have been an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and Exercise Scientist for two decades. Writing training programs is my jam, but having to re-adjust training plans is a common occurrence. Training plans aren't a set and forget thing. They often require re-adjustments and tweaks and constant testing and measuring. That's where good trainers can lend a hand. 

If you have read this blog and you have found ways to integrate more support for yourself straight away - amazing! If you feel like you still need help in terms of some of the solutions in the right hand column of the table, here’s a list of options we offer at The Female Surfer:

Pre-arranged 12 week training program that includes surf fitness, strength and surf stability training (online with live training sessions weekly)

• This is our flagship surf conditioning program - The Complete Female Surfer - designed to get you started and carve out good training habits;
• The program is offered online with live interactive classes, to help fit the lifestyle context of The Modern Female Surfer. 
• Reduce the cognitive load of trying to figure out your training by yourself;
• Train with an Accredited Exercise Physiologist with 20 years experience, who specialises in female sports performance training, and is on the WSL medical team.  

Workshops within The Complete Female Surfer Program (Online and LIVE)

• How to create a winning training program;
• Energy availability for surfing - understanding how to fuel for life and training;
• Goal setting for female surfers - using your biology to have a love relationship with goals

Supportive group that includes your accountability buddies

• During The Complete Female Surfer you are set up with an accountability buddy.
• Plus! You get to train with like minded women, online, once a week.
• We have an inclusive chat group as part of this program and support each other along the way! See photos of surf breaks from local spots all over the world, ask others about which boards are a good choice for you and more. More than a training group, these special ladies become your online surf community, accessible anywhere in the world.   

Not ready to commit to 12 weeks of training? 

Want to start smaller and re-build? Check out our micro courses here. 

Of course if you are feeling really lost…

I am always just an email away, and ready to help you surf your best waves in this lifetime. Don’t wait another 6 months, you can start now! Just send me an email today and I will reply to offer you a solution. Email me today

I can't wait to see what waves you surf, when you achieve long-term consistency and progress. 

Here's to surfing our best waves in this lifetime ladies! Yew!