Author Topic: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...  (Read 19837 times)

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2018, 12:58:40 AM »
Holy cow!  Holding weights in overhead water in a swimming pool and jumping to get a breath?  Sinking down to the bottom and repeating over and over?  That sounds pretty tough.
Really? I was just thinking how easy and achievable that sounded - like the sort of thing I’ve done for fun for many years. It’s not hard. Much easier than some of the other things that Laird does. I doubt it helps your swimming a huge amount though. If you want to swim well, you have to swim, not jump up and down on the bottom of a pool. But he’s got a brand to maintain, so has to generate wacky new exercise ideas to fill the lifestyle magazines and sell his coffee enemas or whatever it is he sells. Special golf balls to roll your feet on, perhaps, to go alongside the motorised golf cart? You gotta love what this guy has achieved in the water, and SUPers have a lot to thank him for. But he’s becoming a kind of self-parody. I feel that the Laird brand is about to jump the shark.

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2018, 03:04:38 AM »
Holy cow!  Holding weights in overhead water in a swimming pool and jumping to get a breath?  Sinking down to the bottom and repeating over and over?  That sounds pretty tough.
Really? I was just thinking how easy and achievable that sounded - like the sort of thing I’ve done for fun for many years. It’s not hard. Much easier than some of the other things that Laird does. I doubt it helps your swimming a huge amount though. If you want to swim well, you have to swim, not jump up and down on the bottom of a pool. But he’s got a brand to maintain, so has to generate wacky new exercise ideas to fill the lifestyle magazines and sell his coffee enemas or whatever it is he sells. Special golf balls to roll your feet on, perhaps, to go alongside the motorised golf cart? You gotta love what this guy has achieved in the water, and SUPers have a lot to thank him for. But he’s becoming a kind of self-parody. I feel that the Laird brand is about to jump the shark.
Agree 100% Kinda sad to see really.
Bunch of old shit

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2018, 04:02:47 AM »
There is some weird stuff that doesn't stack up but I can vouch for a lot of what he suggests. Strength and conditioning is essential post 40 and i can recommend barefoot for improving balance. I wear vibram five finger shoes a lot as I discovered quickly it was improving my board handling.

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2018, 04:08:46 AM »
I'll bet we will be having this same conversation when Laird is 86.  "He's peaked"... "what"? ;D

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2018, 05:45:54 AM »
There is some weird stuff that doesn't stack up but I can vouch for a lot of what he suggests. Strength and conditioning is essential post 40 and i can recommend barefoot for improving balance. I wear vibram five finger shoes a lot as I discovered quickly it was improving my board handling.
Yeah but strip away the weirdo nonsense and you are just left with the same advice that any fitness instructor would say these days. And let’s remember that a few years ago the instruction was all about high carbs and low fat!

Anyone who regularly uses wetsuit boots when surfing or SUPing knows the effect that it has on balance. But I doubt that not wearing shoes makes balance ability, rather than balance performance, any better. It might even be better to train in thick boots but compete in bare feet.

But I think what is going on here is Laird going mainstream. He’s got a limited lifespan (as an athlete, because of age) before he has to go down the Gerry Lopez “mystical guru” route to get a gig, so he needs to go mainstream and flog a lot of product as fast as he can now. To go mainstream you have to simplify your message to the point of banality, and rely on the “horoscope effect”.

Unfortunately a similar thing is happening with SUP round me. It’s wall-to-wall beginners on £200 inflatables on a sunny day. They have NO idea, and most probably have never done any other sport to even a moderate degree before. So the general discussions on social media etc are so mind-numbingly basic that it is kinda disengaging the previous early-adopter SUPers (who usually had a solid background in other sports before SUP), who are moving on to foiling, almost as away of distancing themselves from the “inflatable flotilla”. At the same time a bunch of largely self-appointed “experts” have appeared to service the wallets and questions of the inflatable newbies, and often their advice is based on pretty limited experience (and a desire to sell whatever they are selling) so it is a bit dubious sometimes.

SUP never was that cool. But now it has become very obviously uncool (at least, where I live). Maybe SUP is about to jump the shark itself, and Laird is just leading the way, as he always has done.

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2018, 12:10:57 PM »
"Strength and conditioning is essential post 40 and i can recommend barefoot for improving balance."

Try running barefoot on cool asphalt or any other hard surface to get your feet to feel the ground.  Your foot nerve endings will awaken.  All the while your running technique will adapt and improve.  Did this around 5 years ago and have never looked back.

Since then use Vibrams to detune the ride or zero drop with minimal cushion for running in the mtns.  But do use plenty of cushion for walking.

For SUP like to go barefoot or Vibrams or thick booties depending on water temp.
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2018, 03:05:28 PM »
Holy cow!  Holding weights in overhead water in a swimming pool and jumping to get a breath?  Sinking down to the bottom and repeating over and over?  That sounds pretty tough.
Really? I was just thinking how easy and achievable that sounded - like the sort of thing I’ve done for fun for many years. It’s not hard.

Depends on how much weight you are holding onto. 
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #22 on: June 12, 2018, 04:39:36 PM »
"Strength and conditioning is essential post 40 and i can recommend barefoot for improving balance."

Try running barefoot on cool asphalt or any other hard surface to get your feet to feel the ground.  Your foot nerve endings will awaken.  All the while your running technique will adapt and improve.  Did this around 5 years ago and have never looked back.

Since then use Vibrams to detune the ride or zero drop with minimal cushion for running in the mtns.  But do use plenty of cushion for walking.

For SUP like to go barefoot or Vibrams or thick booties depending on water temp.
I’ve gone a step further than this. This is my own routine to enhance foot sensitivity and flexibility:

I lay out 100 cornflakes on a large baking tray and then give myself 5 minutes to move them one by one from the tray and into a large mug, without breaking any, using only one foot. Then I repeat with the other foot.

It was very hard at first. But now I’ve mastered it, just about, and the extra foot sensitivity means that I can now hop on one foot up and over a set of sand dunes near me that are half a mile long, without stumbling. Before I started the cornflake exercise I was falling all over the place. My wife has even bought me my own packet of cornflakes to do this with, and the local press heard about this new fitness routine and came and took some photos of me on the dunes. Shortly afterwards I was offered a position in a local gym to develop the idea for groups of people, and we just had our first group session last Friday, with 16 people. We got through a lot of cornflakes and the vacuum cleaner was doing overtime, but it’s amazing how the people actually seemed lighter on their feet as they left. I’m sure that being able to be lighter on your feet will be a positive thing for the SUPers amongst them. They’ll be able to float on the water so much lighter that they might need to get lower volume boards.

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #23 on: June 12, 2018, 04:51:57 PM »
Wow.  Thought you were going to say you ate them after moving them.  ;D
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #24 on: June 12, 2018, 04:53:33 PM »
Wow.  Thought you were going to say you ate them after moving them.  ;D
No, that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #25 on: June 12, 2018, 05:00:46 PM »
About as much as the flexy SB organic porpoise advert.  ;D
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #26 on: June 12, 2018, 05:18:07 PM »
Nothing worse than athlete's foot cornflakes.
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #27 on: June 12, 2018, 05:19:47 PM »
Nothing worse than athlete's foot cornflakes.
Yum yum.

https://youtu.be/D-n8G_V24uw
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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #28 on: June 12, 2018, 05:30:55 PM »
Aren't you concerned you may become a cereal killer...

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Re: Why Laird Hamilton is still making waves...
« Reply #29 on: June 12, 2018, 05:47:08 PM »
Fast is FUN!   8)
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