Oceanfront Living
Oceanfront Living | Peak Points * Think of the beach as an exercise tool that''s great for strength and endurance training. * Look around regularly while swimming to keep your bearings and stay on course. * Run, walk, bike, kayak, surf, swim, play volleyball, roller-blade, throw a Frisbee. In or along the water, it''s all great exercise. |
You don''t have to wax your chest, hoist dumbbells and pose on Muscle Beach to get fit at the ocean.
If you''re fortunate enough to live in a coastal area, then you must know the enlivening effect of salt air, sunshine, glistening water and offshore breezes. The combination simply lends itself to fitness.
Listen to San Diegoarea lifeguard supervisor Leonard Ortiz.
"When it comes to exercise, most people find it hard to get motivated about going to a weight room or getting on a machine just to do an aerobic thing. But when you come down to the coast, even if it''s just for a brisk walk or a job like mine, or you''re slipping the roller blades on, there''s something in the air. It''s a lot more enjoyable. You have the ocean to look at, a nice breeze; it''s energizing. Hey, I''m here every day. I know. I''m in paradise."
Ortiz gives talks on beach fitness activities for the California State Department of Parks and Recreation; he''s particularly an expert on surfing.
We asked him and others for guidance on how to use the beach as an exercise tool. There are endless alternatives. Here are just a few.
When Ortiz sits in his elevated lifeguard station, as far as his eye can see, people are engaged in myriad fitness activities. Here are a few he recommends.
Running
Choose your terrain, choose your level of workout. Lifeguards know all about running. After passing a test requiring them to swim 1,000 yards in the ocean under 20 minutes, they must then complete the "Run-Swim-Run." "You must run 200 yards, swim 400 yards and then run 200 yards in 8 to 10 minutes—depending upon ocean conditions. It''s not very easy," says Ortiz.
Lesson one: Running in soft sand is an entirely different workout than running on solid ground. What you run in soft sand, "the range of motion and the quantity of muscles incorporated in the running movement increase. It takes a lot more power and stresses the joints and muscles in ways in which they are not stressed on a flat surface," explains Ken Sprague, coach and strength trainer, owner and operator of the original Gold''s Gym and author of Sports Strength.
"Running in the soft-pack—the soft sand—is good if you''re working on strengthening your muscles for more push, more lift," Ortiz adds.
To avoid serious soreness the next day, Sprague recommends that you start slowly and don''t overdo soft-sand running.
Lesson two: If you want to do distance running along the ocean, you''ll need to be a student of the tides. Literally. "Look at a tide book and run at lower tide down close to the water where the water has already packed the sand," says Ortiz. "You can even run barefoot, provided it''s not rocky."
But know your beach before heading out without shoes, he advises. Some beaches have a lot of broken shells; some have boulders and cliffs or other rugged terrain.
If running in the sand is a bit too hard on your joints or calves, slow it down. "Walking is excellent conditioning if you walk on the soft-pack," says Ortiz. Or walk vigorously along beachfront walkways. There are usually a lot of good walking trails in beach areas.
Swimming
"Swimming in the ocean is a lot different from swimming in a pool," notes Ortiz. You deal with currents and rip currents and waves and swells. You have a wide-open expanse of water, so it''s easy to lose direction. And you have more buoyancy. Ortiz considers that a benefit.
"I''m a very strong pull-swimmer, but I have heavy leg drag—very little flutter kick," says Ortiz. "In a pool my legs sink. But in the salt water, I float better. I can outswim guys in the ocean who swim circles around me in a pool."
Dealing with Currents
"Pay attention to what the ocean is doing, what the currents are, what the rip currents are doing," says Ortiz. You can ask surfers and lifeguards or watch the TV weather. Coastal TV stations all give water-condition reports, he says.
"If there is a longshore current, and you''re going to swim parallel to the shore, you need to swim with the longshore current, not against it."
Longshore current?
"Along the California coast in the summer, we get south swells from storms off the Baja in Mexico. The weatherman will talk about ''south swells.'' Well, south swells bring a north longshore current. So in the summer, along the Southern California coast, plan to swim north so you aren''t fighting the current."
The theory, he says, holds for "the East Coast, any ocean, anywhere. There are different variables, and you need to check the local information, but you''re going to have rip currents and longshore currents. In some places it''ll be more dramatic than in others. So be aware of them."
Dealing with Direction
The current is going to mess with you as you try to swim from Point A to Point B, notes Ortiz. If you''re fitness swimming to and from a distant buoy, "you need to know how the current is pulling so you end up close to the buoy, while swimming in as straight a line as you can," he says. This is sort of like how a skeet shooter must take into account his moving target and shoot a bit ahead of it.
And swimming in a straight line in the ocean is no easy feat. "Periodically, lift your head up and set your bearings. Every three or four strokes or so," says Ortiz. "There''s no pool wall or lane lines to keep you moving straight. And most swimmers don''t have equal arm pull. One arm is stronger, pulls harder than the other. And if you aren''t paying attention in the ocean, you''ll find yourself swimming in circles or at least a pretty crooked line."
Ortiz''s secret: "It helps if you pick a land mass or some fixed object (like a fishing boat or a buoy) even before you get in the water that you''ll use as your setting."
Coping with Rip Currents Rip currents (also known as riptides) are narrow currents that move water along the shore''s edge back toward the ocean. They are usually between 50 and 150 feet wide and can flow hundreds of yards behind the surfline. They sometimes flow out of large holes not too far offshore. Rip currents can drag swimmers away from shore. The best strategy, if you find yourself suddenly caught in one, is to start swimming parallel to the shore until you are out of the rip current. Most serious riptides are only a few hundred yards across at best, and by swimming parallel to the shore, you''ll swim out of it. Once you are out of it, you can swim toward shore. If you try to swim toward shore while you are still in a rip current, you''ll wear yourself out fighting it and trying to stay afloat. The other strategy is to just call or wave for help. Rip currents can be dangerous—don''t take them as a personal challenge or a test of manhood. If someone can help you get out of one, by all means, take advantage of it. Better yet, avoid them when you can. You can spot a rip current by its choppy, foamy surface and by the dirty brown color of the water, which is caused by the sand it churns up. |
Surfing
Surfing is probably the most popular ocean activity in Southern California, notes Ortiz. It takes a lot of skill and involves delicate balance, lots of quick, lithe movements and a fair amount of vigorous swimming, so it is a fitness activity, he says.
One rarely sees a surfer dancing atop a board who looks out of shape or significantly overweight. A more robust build lends itself better to bodysurfing.
"There are many forms of surfing," Ortiz says. "The purest form is bodysurfing, the guy with a pair of fins; then boogie boards; regular surfboards; then long boards. And now there are guys out there kayaking in the surf, and people surf-skiing."
A Beginner''s Guide to Bodysurfing No boards, no gizmos, just you and the water. Bodysurfing—when you ride the top of a wave on your chest and stomach—is a pure thrill. And it can be quite a fitness activity. Here are the basics so you can try bodysurfing. * Walk or swim out to just beyond where the big waves seem to be breaking, and feel and watch the swells. Pretty soon you''ll have some idea which ones are likely to break soon after they pass you. * Pick a good-candidate swell and swim furiously forward atop it—your body pointed toward the shore. * As the wave breaks, fight to get your chest just ahead of the curl of the wave, hold your body rigid and let the wave''s power propel you forward. When perfect, your body rides the wave like a surfboard. It''s a charge. When less than perfect, you flail your arms and kick like mad, and the wave gets away from you. Or doesn''t break when you expected it to. Or breaks suddenly and splats you in the sand. Seasoned bodysurfers wear swim fins, which give them more kick-power and better control. Some wear high-tech wetsuits so they can stay in the water for hours almost year-round. More recently, bodysurfers have taken to boogie boards for faster, easier, longer wave riding. Bodysurfing is a workout because no one catches every wave. You do get better at it with practice. Better at timing. Better at positioning. Better at form and technique. But still, you do a lot of swimming between great rides. And for every good ride, you have a long walk and swim against the swells to get back out to the wavebreak. |
Other Activities
The possibilities for fitness fun on the beach don''t have to involve the water. Here are some other activities Ortiz recommends.
* Beach volleyball. "Anywhere where there''s a nice sandy beach, you find people putting their poles and nets up for volleyball," he says. If you want a game right now, bring your own poles, net and group, he says. Most existing groups are pretty experienced and have established rotations; you don''t just join a game in progress.
* Skating. "Anywhere there''s a sidewalk or parking lot, you''ll find people roller-blading and skateboarding," Ortiz says. Both, he says, are good aerobic, lower-body muscle-builders.
* Bicycling. "People don''t ride their bikes in the sand, of course, because that''s bad for the bikes. But in the West, the Pacific Coast Highway runs along the beach, and in many areas there are bike trails right along the water, and people ride their bikes in packs of 100 and more. Bicycling is big."
Beyond that, there''s Frisbee throwing, kite flying (the new high-tech kites that fly circles and dive involve several pull lines and might give you a bit of an upper-body workout), surf fishing and even metal detecting—folks walking along the beach waving their metal detectors and locating coins, pop-tops and what-have-you—nature walks and birder''s hikes, and. . . . Gotta go. Someone just yelled, "Surf''s up!"
