Core Strength for Universal Windsurfing: Part 2, Exercises

Welcome to Part 2 of Core Strength for Universal Windsurfing, where we discuss more specific core exercises for windsurfing, using both Pilates and classic strength training exercises.

Core exercises can be trained in the gym, before sailing as a warm-up, or at home using Youtube videos or a memorized routine.  As little as three minutes just before sailing can help refocus the brain to start incorporating core activation into body awareness while sailing.

Recently, I’ve discovered a few new methods of core activation, training, and balance through one of my supporters, Thomas Le Caer at Gymsem Pilates, in Brest, France.  Pilates is a form of exercise that incorporates core activation, breath, focus, and movement, and has a number of useful applications to windsurfing. Adding Pilates-style exercises to your fitness routine, in addition to other core strength exercises, can assist with technique in the harness.

Pilates Exercises

A strong link exists between breath, focus, core activation, and the feedback loop discussed in Part 1.  In Pilates-style breathing, the core is activated and pulled in towards the rib cage during each breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, pushing the air out through the exhale.  Movements or exercises are performed on exhaling.  Training the body to breathe to brace the core can activate both your focus and the feedback loop while training on the water.  Pilates-style breathing is useful when bracing to keep good contact in the harness, and connecting this method of breathing  to the feedback loop maintains the brain’s focus on technique. While sailing, as you exhale, brace your core against the harness and use the contraction of your core to press further into the harness and extend your upper body.

In addition, because Pilates focuses on maintaining balance and core alignment with the body, you can develop a better awareness of your balance over the centerline of the board at any moment that you don’t have the sail for leverage (example: tack).  This is especially useful for example, when you have to schlog your small board back to the beach, or performing almost any light wind freestyle move.

Some examples of useful Pilates-style exercises you can try include the following:

Without equipment: Double leg stretch

Plank with instability added

Plank with added instability from physio ball

Added complication from a pushup

Easy balance training using Pilates method and tools to create stable posture:

Sitting on bosu while keeping hips stable, using breathing

Simple balance with correct posture, breathing, and core bracing on a foam roller

Kneeling on physio ball while bracing core; upper back and shoulders (scapulars) braced with a ring.  Any object can be used, ring, band, or for example, a towel

Same idea, postural alignment sitting on physio ball while adding instability with feet on bosu

Ok, breathing and balancing on a ball is not as easy as it looks

Use of Pilates-specific equipment: Springboard and “Reformer” machine

Where I find this equipment useful is either adding a level of complication while keeping correct alignment, or aiding in postural correction and balance by scapular retraction (shoulder blades squeezed in, shoulders not raised and pulling shoulders back).

Springboard scapular retraction standing on foam roller

On bosu

What the springboard looks like

Reformer machine:  This is a very famous and versatile machine with a moving carriage, that can be adjusted to perform a huge variety of strength and flexibility exercises using a system of bodyweight pulleys, bodyweight leverage, and incline.

Pilates could be for you if you like gentle, correct, yet challenging and strength building exercise that will help you make gains in correct technique in the harness while windsurfing.  Pilates classes are widely available in both private studios and bigger gyms.

Strength training exercises

A few additional, more traditional strength training exercises that for core strength that I find useful are a non-complicated variety of holds with differing levels of instability.  These can be done without equipment, and can be transformed into a short warmup routine before sailing.  These photos depict exercises from the French book Gainage pour le sportif by Olivier Maurelli, Bruno Parietti, and Michel Pradet. Gainage is a useful French word that encompasses any exercise or sports technique that reinforces the core.

These pics were taken at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru,  at the satellite village of Paracas.  Nothing’s super professional, I am making faces because the sun is in my eyes and I prefer not to waste time becoming a professional Instagram photo editor, but all the exercises are correct.  The photo above depicts the book in question.  I’m not being paid to advertise it either, I just happen to think it’s good.

While performing an exercise, the idea is to use breathing, core bracing, and balance to identify the flow of energy from the taut body into the points of contact on the ground or mat.  Upon finding this sensation, create a feedback loop by funneling your awareness from the core to the extremities of the body.  Next, try to imitate this sensation on the water, with the trigger being core bracing and contact with the harness, moving awareness to correct driving of the board with the legs and the relaxed extension of the shoulders, head and arms.

These are hold-type exercises which increase in difficulty with the addition of instability by lifting an arm, leg, or changing the leverage of the body.  The challenge is using body awareness to keep the segments of the body aligned and straight on the axis of the core, and keeping the core activated with breath.

Anterior exercises

“Bird dogs” on toes, progressing to lifting one arm (this is hard)

Plank in pushup position, lifting one arm or leg

Extending the plank more:

Boat hold

Posterior exercises

Glute-hamstring bridge with different methods of instability.

As you get better at bracing the core, breathing, and the feedback loop on the water, you will find that it comes automatically as soon as planing and contact in the harness is initiated.  Automatic is what we’re searching for, so we can perform correct technique without too much thinking – important for a complex sport like windsurfing!

 

 

 

Core Strength for Universal Windsurfing, Part 1

When coaching RS:X or instructing freeride windsurfing, a technique that needs constant reinforcement is staying in contact with and keeping weight in the harness.  Good technique in the harness is imperative for maintaining leverage over the sail and keeping the body extended over the water, thus unweighting the board and driving it through the mast foot and laterally with the body.  This lets you plane earlier in lighter wind, stay planing longer, and control and drive the board through choppy water.

A newbie in any kind of windsurf racing will quickly find that a lot of physical effort is required to get big equipment to go fast.  It requires a lot more than just sitting in the harness – kinetic chain activation is required and your body must move and brace dynamically to maximize going over waves, sheeting in a big sail, and keeping leverage over the equipment.  This is true whether you’re racing slalom, RS:X or foil.

Sailing RS:X with correct bracing and leverage (for reaching) in a seat harness, upper body extended, legs and mast foot pressure driving the board through waves.

Foil racers at the Medemblik Regatta 2019 demonstrate bracing and leverage upwind in the waist harness (Photo Sander Van Der Borch)

Freeride and recreational sailors also need to brace and extend the body in a waist harness.  This can be tricky even though freeride equipment is smaller on average than race gear. You must be conscious of not letting your body sag in and downwards with bent knees, or let your belly button get pulled inwards with  your butt sticking out (back extended).   Bracing the core is necessary to maintain the straight-bodied, classic “7-stance” that allows your body to efficiently transfer power in the harness from the rig through the mast foot, and through the lateral pressure of the legs/body, while keeping the board unweighted.

“7-stance” – basic freeride extended position in a waist harness.

In the above photos, one can visualize all the muscles the riders are recruiting through the legs, trunk, and back, and how the legs and body must be braced and extended to gain leverage over the equipment.

To improve your sailing and prevent injury, it’s obviously important to develop core strength and stability.  Over the past two decades, core strength has been a dominant focus of generalized physical training.  Core strength is often misinterpreted as just the strength of the abdominal muscles and doing “abs” exercises.  However, the commonly used physical training term of “core” includes abdominal muscles, the lumbar region of the back, obliques, muscle groups associated with the hip joints, gluteals, and any part of the body’s trunk, sometimes even including the upper back and chest.  These muscles also may include what is commonly referred to “deep abdominal muscles,” abdominal wall, or the transversus abdominis.  Strengthening these areas promote muscular, “functional” stability and good posture.

A common complaint of windsurfers is lower back or lumbar pain, especially in sailors who sail in weekend  or vacation warrior mode; or conversely, in those who sail big equipment as a profession and acquire overuse injuries.  Learning both how to  1) correctly brace and extend in the harness, and 2) reinforcing your core with physical exercises, can greatly help sailors of any level reduce pain and sail faster.

1) To learn correct bracing and posture while windsurfing, I often have students use a “feedback loop” or repetitive mental exercise to habituate their body and brain to their new, improved technique in the harness.  In the 7-stance in the harness, the front leg must be straight or mostly straight, the butt cheeks squeezed together (with slight lumbar flexion activated by hips), core activated, arms straight,  shoulders opened to the front of the board, and head extended.  The easiest way to teach your body the feeling for this position is to activate your feedback loop while you’re blasting around on a beam or close reach to the wind.  The order of repetition is as follows:

1. Do I have full contact with the harness, do I have 100% bodyweight in the harness?
2. Are my arms straight, shoulders rotated forward, and am I looking at the water sideways? (Looking at the water sideways means your head is aligned at the same angle as your body, and you are at maximum extension.)
3. Is my front leg straight and am I pushing the board laterally with my toes?
4. Lastly, am I breathing???

The feedback loop can be simplified into thinking about:  Contact, arms/shoulders, legs, breath.  Put the four items on repeat as you’re blasting around!

Another drill you can try to get yourself into maximum extension is to try and put yourself into an extreme stance, parallel to the water, while sailing any angle from a beam reach to close hauled.   Imagine your body parallel to the water and the horizon, pushing (laterally) through the rail or edge of the board with the toes or arches of your feet, or pushing through the board with just your toes if you have interior-set footstraps.  Lean back into the harness and imagine yourself falling backwards into the water with a straight body, looking sideways at the water with your head to keep it in line with the rest of your body.  If the waves start smacking you in the head and butt, or you fall in to windward, you’re doing the drill correctly.

Byron Kokkalanis (GRE) demonstrates maximum extension, shoulder rotation and head aligned with body, plus looking in the correct direction while sailing upwind at the 2016 Olympic Games

For our second segment of this blog, we will discuss core exercises that link breath and body awareness, including Pilates and more classic strength training exercises.  These exercises will help you gain body awareness in the harness, reinforcing consistent technique for going fast.

 

Developing Feel and Flow in Windsurfing – For Sailors and Coaches

Some windsurfers just look beautiful in movement, no matter what they are doing. Little kids pick up windsurfing quickly, and look graceful and effortless even when learning the most basic maneuvers.  Professional windsurfers convince their equipment do anything with the lightest touch possible.  

Caesar, the master of flow

In windsurfing, feel is known as the instinctual spatial awareness of equipment, and the rider’s automatic knowledge of how to control it.  In other words, it’s knowing how the equipment will react to any given direction and being able to lightly and gracefully control that reaction – a combination of intuition, memory, and focus.

Just like learning new languages, there is no question that windsurfers who have been practicing since childhood have a natural advantage over adults when it comes to learning new skills.  However, adults can learn to be more intuitive as well through training.  How can you, as an adult enthusiast, develop feel?  How can instructors better coach feel in adults?

Adult riders usually develop their own type of feel, often very individualized, a product of how they have learned to windsurf and where they sail.  Some adults have participated in a windsurfing development program through a national system (examples being the Federation Francaise de Voile or the Royal Yachting Association), but more often, they have been self-taught, taught by a friend, or have taken a few lessons while on vacation.  Others sail only in light wind or strong wind, cold or warm conditions, choppy or flat – depending on where they live. All this changes how an adult sailor responds to new, different conditions and their equipment.

Training yourself to have better feel:  For Sailors

I tend to categorize adult feel by combinations of the following two classifications.  

1.  Muscling: These are the big guys you know who like to go fast on huge equipment.  Many tend to muscle their equipment and force it to do things, and often sail tensed up and hunched over while strangling the boom with their Schwarzenegger grip.  Musclers attempt new skills by forcing.

Very sorry, John Kerry, but your technique….

2.  Flowing:  Imagine a professional freestyler. These sailors have a light, reactive, natural touch and a certain fluidity and style to their movements.  They will attempt new moves in a technical way based on what they have already perfected.

A British instructor demonstrating windsurfing in a physical and mental state of relaxation and flow (from UK Windsurfing Mag)

The ideal type of feel is obviously flowing, but most adults exhibit a combination of each type of feel.  Adults who have taught themselves to windsurf or haven’t had much quality instruction often lack flow and sail more with muscle and effort.   However, flow is an element anyone can add to their sailing.  The first step is to identify the skills you know by heart and can do almost perfectly.  The second is to practice a little with your sail on land. The third step is to use visualization and body awareness to accelerate learning.

First, make a list of the windsurfing skills you know by heart.  This includes things you would normally write off, like uphauling the sail, hooking in, and sailing in a straight line.  Turning upwind and downwind, tacks, beach starts, and mast base steering (before a beach or water start) are also automatic skills most windsurfers can already perform well.  Automatic skills are the best place to start to rapidly teach yourself or others a lighter, more flowing feel.

When we develop feel, we are trying to develop an awareness of how your sail is going to react to touch.  The easiest way to learn what the sail is going to do, and how to get it to do what you want, is by practicing on land.  In about 5-10 knots of unobstructed wind, remove the fin from a board that you don’t mind standing on, place it on some grass or sand, and attach your rig. In ABK windsurfing clinics, playing with your sail on land is called sail chi.  Three helpful exercises are the following (Pages 116-119 in the Windsurfing Tricktionary, if you have it).  Try to do each with a light touch and observe and anticipate the reaction of the sail.

Land exercises

1.  Boom boxing:  Stand on the board on the leeward side of the sail (backwinded or back sailing) and balance the triangle of the sail.  Keeping a straight body, place your hands lightly on either side of the harness lines equidistant from the center of effort of the sail.  Push the sail down with the front hand (mast hand) and the front of the sail will fall down.  Push with the back hand while it is falling, and the sail will pick itself back up.  Continue to make the sail rise and fall gently by pushing on one hand at a time, i.e. boxing.  

2.  Directing the clew:  Balance the triangle of the sail directly upwind with the board at 90 degrees to the wind. Move to the clew of the sail (standing on the sand or grass), and with one hand on the back end of the boom, move the mast to one side.  As it falls, chase the mast with the clew of the sail.  If the clew descends faster than the mast, you can pop the mast back up.  Keep the mast moving up and down from the left and right.

1. and 2. demonstrated by Andy Brandt in the first 2 minutes of this video taken at an ABK clinic.  Warning: audio is useless, sorry

3.  Sail wagging:  Taken from Caesar Finies’ Flowstyle method (p. 183 in the Tricktionary), stand on the board, balance the triangle of the sail and hold the boom with your front hand only, closer to the harness lines or balance point.  Move the sail back and forth laterally, without powering up the sail. Get a feel for how the sail balances and how you can control or slice the sail on a lateral plane without the clew swinging in or out.

Yes, it’s a photo I took of page 183

After practicing on land, choose a day with lighter wind, maybe 8-10 knots and go out on the water.  

Begin with sailing in a straight line and holding the boom lightly with hands close to the harness lines or center of effort.  Balance the sail against your weight, keeping the front arm straight but not locked. Imagine how light you can make the equipment, and how lightly you can hold the boom.  Hold the boom with two fingers with the back hand, and sheet in and out gently.  See how far you can extend your upper body against the weight of the sail, and let the palms of your hand extend away from the boom.  What is the optimal sail trim for your angle to the wind?  

Try to manipulate the equipment so it’s as light and balanced as possible.  Make the board steer as smoothly as possible.  Match your movements to the speed at which the board wants to sail and turn. Watch for changes in the wind and anticipate how the equipment will react in advance.  Try to adapt to gusts and lulls as fluidly as possible.  Close your eyes and feel gusts and lulls and imagine how efficiently and smoothly you can adapt the equipment to the change in wind strength or direction.

How lightly can you hold the sail and fly it in the wind before a beach start?  Are you pulling the sail down on your head and muscling to control it, or are you letting it fly freely in the wind?  While beach starting and standing in the water, what is the best speed for the equipment to easily change the direction of your board 180 degrees? Are you breathing and relaxed when doing maneuvers, or are you gripping the boom too hard and tensing up?  

Learning feel also requires body awareness and visualization.  Can you identify how your body feels at any given moment?  Place your awareness into different parts of your body, starting with your hands and feet.  Are you looking in front of you and keeping your head up while sailing?  Are you breathing?  Are your feet on the centerline of the board?  Where are your thoughts while sailing?  Also, watch some of the more advanced sailors around you.  Can you visualize putting yourself into their body to do what they are doing?  Watch videos of professionals doing some of the skills you already know how to do.  What are they doing differently? Try for a lighter feel and body awareness with all your automatic skills in stronger and stronger wind!  Make sure you are always extended in the body, arms, and fingers; relaxed, and breathing, even though you may need more physical effort to hold the equipment down.

Body awareness and visualization are in fact the beginning steps of the psychological factor of feel.  Developing feel, and getting the most out of a windsurfing lesson is also dependent on your psychological readiness to learn, openness to new things, and the enjoyment of teaching your body how to perform something new.  More classically, we can refer to this attitude as the Zen state of flow.  When you are listening to your instructor, examine your emotional state.  It is totally normal not to understand new concepts at first, so let go of any stress, tension, or outsized expectations of performance.  Let yourself breathe and relax while sailing, and allow yourself to learn new skills with curiosity, openness, and your own personal flair.  

Finally, nothing can replace the following two factors:  Water time and surf sports cross training.  Spend lots of time on the water just having fun.  Surf some waves on a paddle board, do a distance challenge on your raceboard, or see how many jibes you can do on a windy day.  Take the skateboard for a spin, learn kiteboarding, or volunteer as crew for the local Wednesday night sailboat regatta.  Feel is all about relaxing, having fun, and being creative!  

Training better feel in others:  For Coaches 

Students and athletes usually have different psychologies and learning styles that will require you to take a variety of approaches to coach feel (and other skills).  Although the drills and concepts in the section above remain the same, students will often personally express feel and flow differently and will need of coaching in different areas, both in skill acquisition and the mental side of sailing.  Psychology and learning style is observed in the physical expression of windsurfing and how a student reacts to change and learning new skills. 

When observing their students or athletes, coaches can ask themselves the following questions.  Is the student aggressive or timid when trying new skills?  Are they quiet, thinking through things, or talkative and asking for feedback?  Do they have good balance?  Are they clumsy or agile?  Do they pick up skills quickly or slowly?  Are they limited in mobility (range of motion, or are they freezing up due to stress)?  Are they smiling, or worried looking while sailing?  Can they execute simple corrections to bad habits and stay focused on correcting the habit during the training session?  Are they easily frustrated, or how do they otherwise react to challenging new techniques and situations? 

The following classifications are one way which I view a student’s athletic learning style, and how they could potentially learn to have better feel. These classifications are not to be confused with actual personality types or classroom learning styles, but are named in a familiar way to more helpfully describe a student’s approach to sport. 

1.  Introverted:  (Inward-focused or thinking) These students may lack a certain confidence in their learning style, or learn slowly. This could be a result of an injury, age, physical strength, or psychological factors.  Students may show fear of different conditions, discomfort with equipment, fatigue, lack of athletic self-confidence, or stress turned inwards / negative self talk.  They may be hesitant to try new things and will have to be coached gently with an emphasis on feel and flow in familiar technique and movement.  However, they are usually very attentive, are good thinkers, and good learners – they will work hard.  When coaching feel, teaching both aggressiveness and relaxation simply is key for these students.  For example, a student may be afraid to commit to the harness in order to plane effectively in very strong wind.  Fifteen-second speed runs can be used to encourage them into the correct body position, by having them try to get their body so extended that they are parallel to the water, shoulders rotated forward and out with head extended and trying to look sideways at the water over the shoulder – the objective being to fall to windward instead of being catapulted. Maneuvers can be taught by breaking them into pieces.  In challenging conditions, these students should be allowed to refresh the skills they have already learned rather than jump into new things.  Breathing and relaxation should be added into any exercise and students allowed time to process what they have been learning rather than being pushed, and to watch and discuss what other students are doing.  Give these students time to think and analyze for themselves.

2.  Extroverted:  (Outward-focused or reacting) Energetic people of all ages who are always pushing themselves on familiar territory and also when trying new skills.  These students may be easier to coach on a mental level, but may have to re-learn skills to eliminate bad habits or learn how not to muscle the equipment.  They also may challenge you by being inflexible:  only wanting to try certain things and not others, not wanting to change habits, or not being attentive to developing new habits.  These students may not benefit from slower progression or correction of certain too-forceful habits to develop flow, but they do benefit from breaking down skills into pieces, learning pieces of new moves that tie into each other, land exercises, breathing and relaxation, and the feedback loop.  The feedback loop is a circular self-check strategy to ensure students are using correct technique and relaxing at the same time.  For example, while learning to plane, a student could run repeat hrough this example of a mental checklist: Is my weight fully in the harness? Are my arms straight, and my upper body extended?  Are my hands relaxed and not squeezing the boom? Are my feet driving the board through the toes, and is the board flat?  Am I breathing?  After a while, moving awareness around to self-check technique and relaxation becomes automatic.

3.  Attentive:  A student who is already a perfectionist or has a « deliberate practice » or thinking-type approach to learning new skills, and good body awareness.  Depending on their athletic background they will show differing rates of progression.  The feedback loop and other self-coaching strategies will also help these students progress.  Attentive students may put more pressure on themselves, so relaxation and other mental flow exercises are also useful.

4.  Inattentive:  Students who are open to learning, fun, and will try new things, but may not pay attention to verbal instructions, and may have problems focusing for a deliberate-practice approach.  They may not have good body awareness or will continue to do things one way after having been corrected many times.  They should respond well to building-block new skills on the water, shorter duration feel-developing exercises, and copying the instructor.  Simplified feedback loops can be used to help build body awareness, and playing games is a great way to build maneuvers.  The key is to keep everything fun, fast-moving, and low-pressure.  These students are often the most fun to teach because they require lots of creativity!

5.  Natural:  Students who pick up moves quickly, the best example being kids who learn by imitating their older friends or an instructor.  Adult students who have had a strong athletic base as a youth, especially in freestyle type sports such as skateboarding, snowboarding, BMX, gymnastics, etc, will also learn rapidly.  Building-block movements demonstrated without over-analysis help them progress even faster.

Instructing kids on Bonaire – always fun!

With most students, rapid correction and instructor feedback will accelerate learning.  Having feedback is, in fact, an integral part of being in a learning state of flow.  Feedback can be provided by not only instructors, but also trained in the athlete as a positive self-coaching tool.  Hopefully the strategies above will help both instructors and students gain some new insight on learning feel and flow in windsurfing, in both the technical and mental arenas.