Six weeks in Hawaii can exact a heavy toll on your body. When giant North Pacific swell and flint-hard Hawaiian reef meet feeble Western body, it’s the former that generally wins. That’s why the guys in the Curl Off The Wall team house are pretty serious about trying to stay in decent fettle while they’re over here. Under the watchful eye of Curl Pit Boss, Matt Griggs, guys like Mick Fanning and Taylor Knox balance two surfs a day with custom programs designed to prevent their muscles resembling chuck steak by the time they get home.

Griggsy talks us through some of the elements of their programs…

FREESURFING

Over here the waves dictate when and how often the boys surf. Hawaii’s really different to the rest of the world because the waves are big, consistently, so you’re not only putting more stress on the muscular system. There’s also a lot of adrenaline involved with surfing big waves, and adrenaline, when it gets into your muscles, stiffens them. So the biggest thing here is recovery. When there’s waves we basically just surf and stretch, but if there’s no waves for a couple of days we’ll go up to the gym and train. We’ve got all our Chek stuff with us; tornado balls and cables, we travel with that stuff everywhere.
    

SOFT SAND RUNNING

A lot of people do it over here, but it’s a little old school. The only thing we’ve been doing in the soft sand over here is some squat patterns on the beach. I remember when the Curl surfers were first getting their fitness evaluated and Jan (Carlton, Mick’s trainer) asked the guys what they did to get fit for surfing. One guy replied, “Oh, a bit of boxing.” Another guy goes, “I ride my bike.” Jan goes, “Well that’s great if you want to be a better boxer or bike rider, but it’s not going to do much for your surfing.” Running will make you a better runner, but it may not make you a better surfer. The danger with soft sand running here is the slope of the beaches in places you might get imbalances in the way you use your muscles. I wouldn’t recommend soft sand running to be honest, it’s good for your cardio but not great for your surfing.

DIET

I guess diet is number one, to eat well. Most of the boys wake up and they have a glass of this green gear we start the day with here. It looks horrible, doesn’t taste great, but the stuff is really good for you. Then before they surf they back it up with some porridge, yoghurt for protein, acai, then they go out for a surf. Then they might come in and have a bigger breakfast. So they’re diets pretty good, especially the top guys. We’ve got these supplements too; we’re on a program with a company called Body Science. The boys are on a pretty full-on supplement program so they recover quicker and can get back out there. We’ve also got some Mass Master here too. I also had some Creatine for the juniors, guys like Owen Wright and Stu Kennedy. They’re going to hit the QS next year and they’ve got all the moves and the turns, but they’re a little light, and they’re at the age now when you can start tinkering with that stuff. They’re going to start putting on some more bulk and training up.

STRETCHING

The boys used to do a lot more yoga than they do now. I guess the training we’ve been doing over the past three years is so specific to each guy that it doesn’t leave many holes. If we’re surfing a lot we’ll just stretch; stretching in accordance with each individual’s program. They each have their problem areas and have specific stretches to work on those. It dictates what stretches they do, and they stretch every morning and every night cause they’re the best times to do it. If you got to bed with stiff muscles you’ll wake up with stiff muscles, so you need to stretch it out before you sleep. The boys have also been getting massaged quite a lot. I was told recently that every athlete should have a massage after 20 hours of activity, whether it be surfing or gym or whatever. At this level where they’re surfing and there’s so much adrenaline and lactic acid in the muscles, it’s important not to let it build up or you just start to tighten. Surfing is a sport where you really need to have open joints and limbs, Mick’s a perfect example of that. But they can’t stretch to keep up with the load on their muscles, so they need to have an adjustment at least once a week.

INJURIES

I’d love to see stats on how many people get injured over here. I reckon it’d be 1 in 10 guys would walk away from Hawaii with some form of pretty serious injury. Firstly, I guess, the prospect of getting hurt is on everyones’ mind, and you can’t have it on your mind because then you just attract it. They’ve got to surf fearless, cause it’s the only way they’re going to get the scores they need and do the surfing they want to do. The barrels you think you’re never going to make are the best ones, and sometimes you need to go down to experience them, you know. Injury is definitely an issue, but if you’re training the right way it’ll lessen the chances of you getting hurt.

REST

Another really important thing we’re starting to learn now in our older age is rest. When you’re young, you don’t think you need the rest, but these guys are at a level now where they know that resting their bodies is really important. They know they shouldn’t be afraid to walk away from the beach, especially here where the house looks directly out over Pipe and Off The Wall. If you’re watching the waves non-stop between surfs it drains you. You never really have a break from it, and it doesn’t become as exciting as having spent some time away from it then coming back.  //SEAN DOHERTY

“The water’s all flowing up from Waimea, it was like mud out there. It'd just go black once you got inside 'em.”

Mick Fanning was amongst it early this morning. The rain was still bucketing, but there was a fresh swell hitting the Pipe/Backdoor/Off The Wall stretch. There were some bombs out there, and with more north than west in it, Backdoor was where it was happening. There was a healthy crew out there, due to the fact that the Pipe Masters finals were going to run today. Mick split an eight-foot teepee peak with good mate Parko, Mick going right, Joel going left. Both got barreled. It was going to be a big day for Parko, who, after finishing runner-up in the Triple Crown twice before, was leading the ratings going into the last day.

The rain has continued to rain down by the shipping container. “We drove up the hill yesterday afternoon to go into town,” recalls Mick, “and there was this river of red soil running back down the hill on the side of the road. It was radical.” There’s reports of a house floating down the river at Haleiwa, while parts of the old North Shore town are under three feet of water. The beach at Waimea has been largely washed away, there’s foot-deep puddles across the Kam Highway, and, it appears, there’s more rain coming. As I’m scribbling this it’s still raining, and the rain has now been joined by a biblical lightning storm.

Haleiwa is pumping, but no one is surfing it. “I wouldn’t surf it if you paid me,” laughed Kekoa Bacalso. “That water’s so dirty with the river flowing out.” Instead, Kekoa decides to drive up the road a bit and surf a fun little right point that’s spoken of as a “secret spot”. Secret it might actually be if it didn’t break in the shadow of the North Shore’s only four-star hotel. But it has some fun waves and The Tank makes the most of them.

With the Pipe Masters finals on out the front, most of the crew decided to spend the day camped on the veranda of the Curl Off The Wall house. In the ultimate statement of how modern society prefers life through a LCD screen, crew are watching the contest webcast on their computers even though the action is on live, 100m in front of them.

As the day goes on its becoming increasingly inevitable Kelly is going to win the Masters again. He’s riding a squat little 5’11”, and it looks like its working. Mick is watching on as his mate Joel Parkinson loses his heat against Timmy Reyes, jeopardising his chances of the Triple Crown. He needs Bede Debride and Tommy Whitaker to lose, which they both duly do. It leaves Chris Ward as the only threat to Parko winning the Triple Crown, but Wardo has to win the final to do so. Joel wasn’t too worried initially, but after Wardo blitzed his quarter, and then his semi, things are a little different.

“Joel’s gonna be freaking!” laughs Mick. Two door’s up at the Billabong house and Joel was freaking. Wardo surfed against Kelly in the final, and you can bet it was the only time all year Parko was cheering Kelly on.

It’s starting to get quiet in the team house. Ricky Bobby flew home to South Africa today, a full two days in a plane. Ben Dunn and Dean Brady left yesterday. A lot of the overseas guys store their Hawaiian boards here rather than lug them all home again, and late this afternoon Kekoa drops around to picky up two of Ben Dunn’s guns to store up at his place. It looks like Dunny has packed with two minutes notice, and there’s stuff strewn from one end of his room to the other. Kekoa grabs Dunny’s boards, and stumbles across a box of brand new legropes Dunny has left. He grabs two, considering it Dunny paying the rent. //SEAN DOHERTY