title: Activity profile of world-class professional surfers during competition: a case study.
abstract: The activity profile of men's competitive surfing was investigated during an international contest. Forty-two male surfers were filmed during 42 elimination heats. Surfers' activities were classified into 1 of 4 distinct categories (paddling, wave riding, stationary, and miscellaneous). The surfers were paddling and stationary 51% (25-70%) and 42% (23-72%) of the total time, respectively. Wave riding accounted for 4% (2-7%) of the total time, whereas miscellaneous activity accounted for the remaining 2% (0.1-6%) of the total time. The frequency (average number of motions in a heat) of each activity was 26 for paddling (15-37); 17 for stationary (10-26); 5 for wave riding (2-8); and 6 for miscellaneous activity (1-13). The mean duration lengths of the activities were 30.1 seconds (1-286 seconds), 37.7 seconds (1-413 seconds), 11.6 seconds (1-44 seconds), and 5 seconds (1- 31 seconds) for paddling, stationary, wave riding, and miscellaneous activities, respectively. Most of the paddling bouts ( approximately 60%) were performed at time intervals of between 1 and 20 seconds. Approximately 50% (50.9%) of the rest intervals were between 1 and 20 seconds in duration. The results showed that surfing is an intermittent activity characterized by a large variability and random distribution of each parameter analyzed. This information can be used to assist in the development of fitness training programs and physiological testing for competitive surfers.
authors.affiliation: Team Sport Research Group, School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, The University of Western Australia, Crawley WA, Australia. amendezvillanueva@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mendez-Villanueva
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bishop
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hamer
mesh_terms: D003163:Competitive Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013177:Sports / Q000502:physiology*; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014741:Video Recording