Time-Motion Analysis of Young Competitive Surfers: Southern Portugal

Abstract

Introduction: Time-motion analysis should be an integral part of the coaching process in competitive surf to help design training programs, as well as maximize athlete performance. There are a few studies that analyzed the timemotion of surfer activities during competition. Thus, the aim of this study was evaluate each activity’s time made by surfers during the heat competition, in order to account for the time spent in each surf activity. Methods: Forty-two young Portuguese surfers, both males and females, residing in southern Portugal, participated in the championship of the “School Sport” of the Algarve region. Each surfer was individually videoed for the entire duration of the heat using a video camera. The V-Note Video Analysis Software 2.1.2 was used to evaluate the movement´s time made by each surfer during the competition, in order to account for the time spent in each activity. The activities that the surfers were evaluated included: paddling; sprint paddle for wave; stationary; wave riding; miscellaneous (e.g. duck diving, recovery of the board, and other). Results: The surfers were paddling 58%, stationary 42%, sprint paddle for wave 3.8%, and wave riding 3.1% of the total time. The average of surfing activities were 15.2 seconds for paddling, 1.5 seconds to sprint paddle for wave, 8.8 seconds for stationary period, 4.4 for wave riding, and18.2 for miscellaneous activities. Conclusion: The data from this study revealed that, for this sample and competition analyzed, the activities that had a greater percentage of time included the paddling and miscellaneous activities. The results of this study show that surfing is an intermittent activity that is characterized by large variability of each activity that was analyzed, and these surfing activities seems to be controlled more by environmental factors than by surfer attitude.