Time-motion analysis of competitive surfers: Portuguese championship

Time-motion analysis has been used to provide detailed insight into surfers' performance. This study evaluated surfers' activity times at the Portuguese surfing championship in order to account for the time spent in each surfing activity.

Eighty-seven individually recorded videos of surfers were analyzed, showing their activity over the entire heat, and video analysis software was used to obtain each surfer's activity profile in the competition.

The results breakdown by time percentage show that the surfers were paddling 50.9% of the time, sprint paddling for wave 1.9%, were stationary 34.1% of the time, wave riding 3.7%, and involved in miscellaneous activities (e.g., duck diving, board recovery, etc.) 9.4% of the total time. Average times spent in each surfing activity were 18.6 seconds for paddling, 2.9 seconds for sprint paddling for a wave, 21.7 seconds for the stationary period, 11.5 seconds for wave riding, and 6.9 seconds for miscellaneous activities.

The data revealed that the most performed heat activity was paddling, allowing us to conclude that surfing is basically a long-arm paddling activity and that this activity constitutes a specific surfing competition demand, which in turn means that individual surfer's data can be used as a starting point for the development of tailored conditioning training programs.