Imagine if you turned up to your first ever kitesurfing lesson and the instructor handed you the kite, pointed at the water and told you to knock yourself out.
I doubt you’d be that impressed.
But that’s exactly what we do in the health and fitness industry all the time.
You rock up at the gym, have an hour induction and are left to it.
You sign up to a weight loss program, are given a few recipes and are told to get on with it.
No wonder so many people fail.
Exercise and weight loss are SKILLS, and they’re very complex skills. Let’s have a look at just some of the sub skills you have to learn: * How to exercise correctly so you wont get injured. * How often you can exercise and how much recovery you need. * What you should be eating, how much and when. * How to shop for food effectively. * Strategies for dealing with social events. * How to cook
And that’s just the start…there are literally thousands of sub skills you need to learn and like any complex skill they take a long time to master.
As a result there will be learning experiences (ie. failures) along the way, that means at times you will get off course, you will mess up…and you know what?
That’s OK!
Because each failure teaches you something and means you are learning the skill more completely.
True mastery in any skill isn’t something you’re born with, it’s something you learn.
“Absolutely awful experience, I want my money back.”
My eyes widened in surprise, my jaw dropped almost to the floor.
And this after a week of kitesurfing where we had been at the beach for between 6 and 9 hours a day, every day. In my mind it had been as good a week as you could possibly expect to have and I was certain everyone would have loved it.
I chatted with some of the instructors and all of them told me the same story.
Yes the wind had been amazing, yes, everyone had progressed a tonne, except for this person (who shall remain nameless, lets. call them X).
Why? I asked.
Because they’d spent most of the time in the bar!
WHAT? I said…
Yeah, they continued, for the first 2 days X was loving it, was out every minute, flying up and down and improving rapidly, then day 3 came and they had to wake X up to get them to the beach.
When they got there X had to go and have some breakfast and a few coffees and then came back and set up the kite very slowly, and finally got on the water about 4 hours after arriving at the beach. After about 30 mins X came back off the water, had a sleep and then went and had a few beers.
This set the tone for the entire week.
This very incident forced me to make a change in the way we operated. You see I was actually quite sympathetic to X’s plight. I realised that due to the fact that we could be at the beach kitesurfing for up to 8 hours a day, many people just weren’t in good enough physical shape to actually last for an entire week.
They’d love it for the first few days and then it would all catch up them and they’d end up treading water for the rest of the week, not improving and not really enjoying it, which wasn’t what they or I wanted.
So we started preparing people before they came. I would work with them personally to build a program they could do which would get them in great shape, burn through those extra kilos and ultimately give them a LOT more energy and stamina when they actually get on holiday with us so they could kitesurf at 100% for the entire week.
I’ve taken that program, refined it, perfected it and right now you can get it for FREE, just click the button below to download it…
Dave’s been a kitesurfer for 12 years, last week he gave up and sold his kites…
When he first started he dreamed of being a lean, ripped kiter (like the ones he’d seen at the beach) kiting was his motivation and his inspiration to lose the weight he was carrying, to eat healthy, to get in shape. Now he could kite it meant he wouldn’t have to pack himself into a gym anymore. He could combine being outside doing something he loved, with getting fit and losing weight.
Only it didn’t quite work out like that.
He could never seem to build up a routine or be consistent enough in his efforts to really shift the weight and get in shape. Oftentimes work simply meant he didn’t have the time to build a routine or life simply got in the way. Many times when he did manage to get in good habits for a few weeks something would happen outside of his control which would mean he’d have to ditch all the good habits, as he had to sort out the crisis happening in his life.
He woke up most mornings, looked in the mirror and wasn’t really happy with what he saw, and worse he was starting to notice the effects when he went kiting. Because of his lack of physical fitness and the growing spare tyre he was carrying about his midriff, he was losing stamina and confidence on the water.
He knew he should do something about it, but just couldn’t seem to get motivated to actually start.
One day after a particularly terrible session on the water he decided enough was enough. He was going to shift the weight and get in shape for good. After all he was a success in a lot of other areas in life, why was this so hard for him?
He booked a kiting holiday to act as motivation, giving himself a target to get in shape for.
And he dug in, he gave up the booze, he watched what he ate, he started jogging. And he started losing weight, SLOWLY, but hey it was better than nothing. But it was hard work, he had to give up a lot of things he loved and constantly wondered “do I have to live like this forever?”
He was determined to crack this however so he kept it up.
As he started to lose a few kilos and feel a bit better about himself, the motivation he had to lose the weight started to disappear and he started having a few treats he knew he shouldn’t be having, a few more beers at dinner time, he skipped more and more workouts. Before he knew it, all his good habits had disappeared and he was back to where he started.
The kiting holiday was coming up and despite being in pretty bad shape he went, thinking he’d take it easy and maybe it would be the kick start he needed.
On day 3 after having had 2 great days on the water he felt something tweak. He always knew that having a gut was putting pressure on his back and the added forces applied by kitesurfing just proved too much. He spent the rest of the holiday barely able to move, let alone get out onto the water. Over the next few weeks of recovery, as a result of comfort eating and not moving much, he piled the pounds on.
After following this exhausting cycle of boom and bust for 15 years Dave finally decided he was just getting old and had to accept it, he sold his kites.
Dave is not alone in this. For many this constant cycle into and out of form gets so tiresome. They simply can’t see a way to balance their lifestyle with staying lean and in shape, it seems a constant choice between one or the other. Their weight starts to effect their ability and confidence on the water. They begin to identify themselves as being an inactive person, not the dynamic, lean kitesurfer they had dreamed of being, and despite being pretty pissed off, they can’t seem to do anything about it.
Don’t let your story be like Dave’s…
I’ve put together a FREE Case Study where I show you:
Why You Can LOSE WEIGHT But Can NEVER *Keep It Off* And How To Break The Cycle…
You rock up on your next kitesurf holiday, the forecast is perfect, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing and the water looks perfect.
You quickly unpack your kit, set up your kite, squeeze into your wetsuit and hit the water for 6 hours straight. You’re trying loads of new tricks and you even land a few!
What a buzz! One of the greatest days of your life and you’ve got an entire week of this.
The next day you wake up a little stiff but the wind’s blowing again, so you wolf down some breakfast, rig up and again spend the entire day kiting. After a few hours you notice you’re not really able to “bring it” like you were yesterday and you start making silly mistakes, tripping over little waves and despite having a great day you’re a little frustrated you didn’t progress as fast as you’d hoped…no problem you’ve still got 5 days left.
You have a few beers to celebrate and hit the sack looking forward to another amazing day tomorrow.
You wake up and immediately know something is wrong. You have no energy, your entire body aches, you feel a bit grumpy. You roll over and try to get some more sleep but you hear the wind banging at the window, calling you. Suddenly the thought of an entire day of kiting doesn’t appeal so much, you’re tired, maybe you’ll just take it easy…but it’s windy and this is what you’re here for.
You drag yourself out of bed moving much slower now. You eat your breakfast actually wondering if you’ve got the energy to really do this today. But you tell yourself you have to, you’ve paid a lot of money to be here.
You do go kiting that day but only manage a few hours and actually spend most of the day stood on the beach chatting and watching everyone else shredding it on the water. Those few hours you do have are great but you don’t really have the energy to try anything new so you just mow the lawn and don’t really progress.
This sets the tone for the rest of the week.
As you pack up to leave on the last day, you know you’ve had a great week but reflect on how much better it could have been if you’d just been a bit more physically prepared, if you’d just been a bit fitter you could have spent the entire week ripping it up like you were on day 1.
Next time, you promise yourself, you’ll make sure you’re ready before you come on holiday.
Don’t let this be you!
Right now I’m offering you the opportunity to grab our 7 Day Kitesurf Specific Workout for FREE. So you can have more stamina for kitesurfing and stay on the water longer and kitesurf day after day when the wind’s blowing, without needing a day off.
This is THE perfect program to ensure you never get caught short on a kitesurfing holiday again. It can all be done from the comfort of your own home, it’s literally been designed from the ground up so you don’t need a gym.
Now I’ve been a Kitesurf Instructor for the last 14 years and a Personal Trainer, Nutritionist and Peak Performance Coach since I left the Royal Marines in 2002 so I know EXACTLY what you need to be doing off the water to improve your performance ON the water and I’ve put it all together in this 7 day program which I’m offering you now for FREE.
When I first started training people to get fit for kitesurfing, I was all about slow movements and big weights.
It took me a few years to realise that to train for a sport as nuanced as kitesurfing isn’t just a case of going and throwing weights around in a gym or smashing out a few classes of Crossfit.
To efficiently train we must do it at the speed of the sport we are training for, using optimal weight for that sport.
At about the time I realised this I also discovered resistance bands. Portable, much less likely to cause injury, able to be utilised in any direction (not just against gravity) and providing equal resistance throughout the entire range of motion of the exercise (meaning you get MUCH more bang for your buck).
They also allow us to train with the speed and explosiveness we need for kitesurfing and you don’t need to be stuffed in a gym to use them, they’re also cheap as chips! ?
All this makes resistance bands THE perfect tool for training kitesurfers when they’re OFF the water.
And they’ve quickly become my #1 favourite tool for getting people into shape to kitesurf quickly.
I’ve put together an entire kitesurf specific, resistance band workout for you here in this video so you can get fit for kitesurfing with our resistance band workout and exercises. Designed by kitesurfers for kitesurfers.
Here’s a round up of everything you might have missed this week, including the resistance band workout:
How To Learn To Kitesurf 3 x Faster
One of the questions I get asked all the time by people just starting their journey into kitesurfing is, “What’s the fastest way to learn to kitesurf?”
In this second part of a series of videos I start to answer this question giving you some great tips for how to get up and riding in less time with less frustration.
Genetic testing has opened up whole new worlds to those of us in pursuit of optimal human performance (or just those who want to be better kiters!). For the first time ever we can understand our underlying genetic predispositions and design our nutrition, our exercise, our lifestyle around them and thus radically upgrade our performance nearly over night…
In this video, using me and my results as an example, I show you how I’m going to be using it over the next year to massively improve my kitesurfing and how you can too.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here’s a few ways I can help you improve your kitesurfing:
1. FREE Kitesurf Specific 4 Week Workout?
Most people don’t realise it but the way they are currently working out is probably ruining their kitesurfing. Workout for kiting the right way – Click Here
2. Ride Upwind in 30 Days
Knock weeks (if not months) off your time learning to ride upwind and save hundreds on your lesson costs — Click Here
3. MASSIVELY Improve Your Kiting When You’re OFF The Water
Get our kitesurfing case study “How to Kitesurf More Often, Stay Out Longer, Progress Faster & Have More Energy On The Water” – Click Here
Improve Your Kitesurfing Whilst You're OFF The Water
Join 1567 spending more time on the water, recovering faster between sessons, getting injured less and feeling great in their wetsuit by reading the Tantrum Letters every Saturday
