The Biggest Fitness Trend This Fall - Men's Health News

Work out like a surfer?without ever leaving land.

It?s an early autumn evening and the weather?s still warm, so seven surfers decide to hop on their boards, paddle out, duck-dive, and pop up?indoors.

Welcome to one of the fastest-growing fitness trends this fall: indoor surf classes. Participants in SurfSET?s class ride on a device that simulates the movement of a surfboard on water, with classes in Manhattan and Atlantic City. Come January, six new locations will open in Connecticut, California, and Colorado. Next year, Crunch Fitness will also host SurfSET classes in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City in 2013.

For $35 a pop in Manhattan, participants ride on a device called the RipSurferX, a knee-high board on top of miniature stability balls that shift as you move. That causes the muscles in your legs, arms, and stomach to constantly be working to maintain balance. There are also pulleys to mimic paddling in the open water. Throughout the core-intensive class, you simulate duck dives, carving and popups, in addition to traditional exercise moves like squats and planks. (For must-have muscle moves from the world?s top trainers, sign up for our FREE Exercise of the Week newsletter.)

Surfing, of course, can be a ?tremendous total body workout,? says Joe Dowdell, C.S.C.S., founder of Peak Performance,?a 10,000-square-foot facility in New York City. ?It requires core strength and stability, and a great deal of local muscular endurance and power capabilities in the muscles of the upper body?particularly the shoulders and lats.?

Metabolic expert BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., the creator of Men?s Health?s Speed Shred, praises the surfing workouts for their potential to rile up class participants. ?It gets people excited about exercising, because it?s kind of like play, and not structured like a typical exercise,? he says. Plus, there aren?t any weights to be found, which could be a big selling point for the dumbbell-averse.

?You?re forced?to call on your muscles faster because you are in an unstable environment,? says Gaddour. ?It?s something you don?t really get on the floor as much unless you?re doing really advanced movements. It causes your body to essentially freak out.?

Sound tough? Don?t worry. ?As you get better, you can make the workout more challenging by increasing or decreasing the stability of the board,? says SurfSET founder Mike Hartwick, a former professional hockey player. That stability can come in handy when you?re training for sports that require great balance, like stand-up paddling and snowboarding, says Donna Cyrus, the senior vice president of programming at Crunch.

However, Gaddour warns, it?s important in any instability exercise to make sure athletes are close to a wall or stable surface, especially if they?re new to the movements. ?You need a safety valve so you don?t face plant or break something.? At least in the classes in New York, the way the boards are positioned, there aren?t any walls nearby.

There?s also the price factor. The classes in major urban areas run around $30 a session at flagship studios. If you want to train at home, a RipSurferX will take you back $450. (At least it?s not as bad as The 5 Most Ridiculous Pieces of Exercise Equipment Ever.)

The bottom line? If you want to try it, go for it. Just don?t rely solely on instability training, Gaddour says. ?It?s great for working the core, but for all-around athletic performance, you?re not going to get better at jumping, running, and all-out strength power movements because it?s just too unstable.?

If you liked this story, you?ll love these:

Source: http://news.menshealth.com/indoor-surfing-fitness/2012/10/09/

Griselda Blanco Michelle Obama Speech eva longoria Rihanna wiz khalifa Michael Clarke Duncan Nazanin Boniadi