By Inês Tralha
We see the wave. The manoeuvre. The score. The result.
What we do not always see is the entire season that brought that body to this point.
Surfing has professionalised the tour, media exposure, video analysis and board development. Yet it still tolerates a very convenient idea: the athlete keeps travelling, competing and training, and recovers whenever there is time.
As if the body were a resource that could be stretched indefinitely.
Enduring everything may look like ambition. It is not enough to make a strategy.
Organising the season to arrive ready when it matters
Periodisation organises training over time. It defines phases, objectives and the moments when the athlete aims to be in the best possible condition to compete.
The aim is not to stay at a peak all year. It is to distinguish between building, maintaining, competing and recovering. To understand what we are asking of the athlete, when and for what purpose.
A season is more than a list of events. It includes training, travel, sleep, recovery and decisions about where to invest energy.
If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
Choosing competitions is also part of coaching
In my article on planning the season, I propose organising competitions into three groups.
A events are the moments when the athlete aims to peak. B events allow them to consolidate processes, build competitive rhythm and make adjustments. For C events, the decision requires weighing costs and benefits: travel, budget, risk, the school calendar or current physical condition.
This requires something surfing does not always welcome: making choices. And taking responsibility for them.
Entering every event does not, in itself, demonstrate commitment. We need to know what each event contributes to the plan.
The body is not a detail
Sex, age, maturation, injury history, the calendar and objectives are not footnotes to preparation.
An adolescent girl, a young adult woman and an adult woman are not the same body in different sizes. Individualisation must appear in the decisions, not only in the service description.
Nor does it make sense to skip building an athletic foundation in order to reach exercises that look impressive on video.
Complexity is not progression.
First, the foundation. Then, the specific work that foundation can support.
A team needs clear responsibilities
Having people around an athlete is not the same as having a coordinated team.
Who decides the training load? Who monitors recovery? Who coordinates the season? Who protects information that should not circulate between opponents?
The coach, physical preparation specialist, health professionals and career manager have different roles. Aligning those roles is part of the work.
When nobody knows who makes the decisions, the athlete is exposed to incompatible priorities. The result is then explained as bad luck.
Measuring to make decisions
Monitoring is not about collecting graphs. It is about making decisions more consistent.
Perceived exertion, session duration, sleep, pain, stiffness, stress, mood, fatigue and travel can help us build a picture of what is happening. No number replaces the person’s context.
The aim is not to obey a metric. It is to assess, plan, observe and adjust.
As we follow the Championship Tour, it is worth looking beyond the result of a heat. An athlete’s career cannot be contained in the wave we have just watched.
What would you change first in your planning: assessment, competition selection, recovery or team coordination?
Further reading: Planning the surf season (in Portuguese).
Would you like support in working towards these objectives?
Tell me about your context and what you are looking for in surfing. You can also explore the Sports Training programme. The proposal and availability of a place depend on assessment and capacity.
To understand what happens during a heat, read how WSL scoring works.
Photograph from the Good Surf Good Love archive. It does not depict a heat at the current event.