How Technology Can Help To Turn You Into A Better Surfer - 20 Minute Fitness Episode #093

This week on the 20 Minute Fitness podcast we’re taking you out on the ocean, as we’ll cover tech that comes handy for surfers. Some might have a misconception of surfing and think of it as just a fun activity rather than a challenging sport. But as soon as you get out on the water you realize that this is not the case, and there’re a number of devices that can also prove this to you.Press play to hear about the gadgets that will become your best surfing buddies and to learn how they can guide you both before and after your sessions!

Three Things You'll Learn
1) Forecast & Rewind With These Surfing Apps
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that there are a number of dedicated surfing apps that are available right at your fingertips. For pre-surfing help, you can, for example, download Surfline. An app that is considered as one of the world’s most trusted ones in weather forecasting.
With a professional meteorologist team behind Surfline, you can get information on the conditions of hundreds of surfing spots around the world. You can access long range swell forecasts and also see what’s happening at more than 500 surf & beach camps via real-time data. This way Surfline will always ensure that you know what to expect ahead of getting out on the water.
While Surfline also tracks your surfing performance, an app that specializes in this, even more, is Dawn Patrol. This app works with Apple Watch & iPhone integrations to analyze your surf and log all your sessions. Your Apple Watch & Dawn Patrol together track everything from the distance and the number of waves surfed to your HR and calories burnt.
Listen on to hear more about the before and after guidance, these surfing apps can provide!


2) Your Virtual Surf Coach
It’s one thing to get some feedback on your surfing performance, but taking it to the next level really comes with recommendations based on that feedback. Which is exactly what By The Wave, a company that provides virtual coaching for skate, surf, and snowboard, does. And this time around we’ll focus on their device, called Ride+ that was built for surfers.
Ride+ is a tiny gadget that can be attached to your board and connected to your phone via their app. The gadgets track your rides and provide you with all the basic data measured by the previously mentioned apps as well. But what makes Ride+ unique is that the device also measures your form and can detect errors in it.
When you open up the app you get a visual representation of yourself via a virtual avatar. With this virtual avatar Ride+ goes through your mistakes and shows the correct form of each movement. Tune in to hear more about how Ride+ will turn you into a pro surfer over time!


3) The Surfing Extras
Besides all the gadgets that focus on your performance and form, there are quite a few innovations that we can think of as “extras”. One of which is a really useful tool for especially those who shred the waves of more wild waters. The Sharkbanz 2 is a wrist band with a technology developed by marine biologists that “scares” sharks away. The band has a strong electromagnetic field that releases 1000x stronger sensations than anything in the shark’s normal food chain. As a result, sharks are deterred away.
And if we take turns from focusing on things that benefit the individual surfer to innovations that benefit the entire planet, we can take a look at Smartfin. Smartfin is not just a technology, it’s a movement that provides its members with research-grade data collecting surfboard fins. This integrated technology then collects data that can “help fill the gap in the oceanographic data”. An innovation that can aid the research on how Earth is going to respond to global warming over time.
Press play to learn more about the Smartfin’s movement and to hear about other exciting innovations in the surfing world!