The effects of a land-based warm-up and accompanying passive heat retention on core body temperature, hormones, and subsequent performance in elite surfers.

Surfing is a high participation sport, yet little sport science research exists surrounding competitive performance in surfing. Given surfing’s inclusion as an Olympic sport from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics onwards, examination of performance would seem useful. In numerous land-based sports and in swimming the importance of warm-up and muscle heat is well documented. Here, we discuss the importance of warm-up in the context of expression of ‘power’ on waves in competitive surfing – a key criteria which surfers are scored for; and, also, how warm-up may enhance overall readiness. This research adopted a repeated measures pre- and post- design whereby participants engaged in several simulated surfing competitions in an artificial wave pool; once after an active warm-up followed by passive heat retention strategy (i.e., wrapping themselves in survival blankets – treatment), and once after no warm-up (control). Saliva samples were collected prior to and after-the active warm up, or equivalent time under control conditions, for measurement of the hormones testosterone and cortisol. Increases in these hormones have previously been associated with increased readiness to compete. Our results demonstrate a clear thermoregulatory benefit to the treatment, and small magnitude upward change to hormones following the active warm-up. In every participant warm-up was associated with improved wave performance compared to control treatment. We argue that the improved thermal profile may have influenced power and as such, surfing performance was enhanced.