For Nathan Florence, the fear of disappointing himself may be greater than anything that can happen on the board, which is one of the reasons why the pro surfer always comes prepared.
Fresh from one his workouts, Florence unpacked his gym bag for Muscle & Fitness and walked us through his favorite items that are all about ease of travel and don’t require much thinking. Success as an elite surfer requires maintaining his body throughout the year in order to battle big waves, as well as the traveling involved with the sport.
Vans Gear
Courtesy of Vans.com
I’m 29 years old and this has been a 20-year relationship. That’s super rare for an athlete, especially in surfing. You don’t see relationships between an athlete and brand lasting that long. I have two other brothers and we’re all signed with Vans. It’s kind of been a part of our family for as long as we can remember. We grew up here in Hawaii, so grew up surfing and we were fortunate enough to have that as an outlet. Vans was like how can we support you doing this?
It’s really like the perfect partnership with them and it’s been it has been a great run. Vans has been a big part of my career and just having that support from such a large brand as I’ve progressed throughout my career has been huge.
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Everything in my gym bag is kind of minimalist. It’s what’s light, what’s easy to use and what’s something I can kind of keep on me, in my car, or in my backpack. I do some trips from Hawaii to Africa, literally around the world, and I find the bigger guns — I like them at home, but if I’m on the road, I like the smaller one because I just toss it in the backpack and I know it’s going to be with me.
If it’s something bigger, I won’t put it in my backpack or I’ll leave it out. This is small and you could use it in airports and on the plane. Oftentimes, I’m chasing a swell and so I will fly and show up that day ready to surf. It’s super important to me to be as ready as I can be coming off a 10-hour flight.
I love reading and I read a lot when I was young in dim light and I feel like that affected my vision, but later on, the doctor told me that I have what we call pterygium and it’s from excessive exposure to salt, dust, wind, and weather. It’s basically scar tissue that builds up on your eye. I’m sure it’s got to be from the sun and salt. Those long hours surfing and the wind blowing salt water in your eyes all the time. Those warped my natural lenses and I started to lose my distance sighting.
I can see clearly close but I can’t see about 15 feet, which is a major disadvantage when you’re out surfing. So I started wearing contacts probably like five years ago and they’re a game changer for me. Although, it does suck when I lose them surfing.
I was on the WHOOP program, but I had to switch to something that told me the time. You don’t know how many times I’ve just made up times when someone would ask. I’m like, it’s 2:30, good luck. I didn’t want to explain to them that I just had a heart rate monitor on, but I love the data. I love the WHOOP, but I kept losing them while surfing. Someone was like, try the Garmin out. I tried it and I never went back because while it is a little bigger and heavier on your wrist, it tells time and it has a flashlight. That sounds funny, but I use that thing so much. Think of how much you use your phone light. I use the flashlight on the watch so much. This has GPS tracking, which was so fun. It links to Strava. All my surfs, my downwind foils, downwind paddling, my cycling, running, the trail stuff — all that stuff being linked to Strava. Strava is an entirely different community that I didn’t know about until I got the Garmin and started finding out how active the fitness community was on there.
All the segments, race times, and the leaderboard that comes with. Also, just having distance and pacing comes into play with what the GPS brings with the Garmin. I love tracking my workouts. Even just the high-intensity stuff where you’re not tracking GPS. I love the heart rate data and I love the sleep data because I like to test supplements in that way. Protekt made a sleep supplement and I actively saw a boost in my deep sleep and rem and that’s so dope. Everyone’s got the ability to now run their own bio test with these devices.
I had this problem of not eating in the morning. I’d wake up, have like two coffees, and go and I would just forget to eat. I would go surfing or work out. I wasn’t realizing the effect it would have on the energy I had during the day. I got into just searching for food in the morning. If you’re doing a lot of high-intensity work or surfing a lot I would try different things. I have zero appetite in the morning. That’s not because I’m trying to intermittent fast. It’s just waking up with no appetite. The GoMacro bar, they’re so good and easy to eat. I’ll wake up and I’ll just get one of those down. I don’t have to make any big breakfast. I’ll eat one of those, have my coffee, and go.
Throughout the day, I’ll keep a box of them in my car, or anywhere. Right after a workout, get food in again. I found that had the craziest boost in my endurance. You would think it was just help your metabolism or your appetite, right? But, my endurance went through the roof with just that change of getting food in first thing in the morning.
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Protekt Hydration Liquid Electrolytes Packets
Amazon.com
It goes back to what’s going to take the least mental energy and be the fastest. This is a liquid. There’s no powder, no bottle, no shakeup. You squirt the Protekt pack in and doesn’t leave any residue. It’s just fast, easy, and it works. For surfing, there’s no water breaks out there. If the waves are quality, we’re often going out and surfing for about three to four hours.
You’re just out there in the salt and sun. And Whatever water you put in before the session, you want to stay in and do the hydrating work and it needs to do. Protekt does that work for me. You can lose water fast plus the air in the tropical areas — you’re sweating actively, even though it doesn’t seem like it. Hydration plays a huge role in those long sessions for sure.
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Magic Mind
Magicmind.com
I remember when I first was looking into it and it was dubbed as a productivity supplement. I love that it was a little shot and nothing like you need to mix up. We started getting into it and while it is productivity, it was almost more like — we have this thing we call flow state, which is really what we do when we’re surfing. It’s leaving the thinking behind and how fast can you subconsciously make these quick and good decisions. In the water, those decisions oftentimes can mean life or death or mean the difference between getting better in a practice session. When you stand up on the wave, oftentimes, you forget everything.
When you’re trying to work on your surfing and get better, it’s hard to remember things when you’re actively faced with going down the line on a moving wave. You’re making these decisions based on what that wave is and the input that you’re getting from what you’re seeing and it’s always changing. Every factor is changing. The Magic Mind was like a boost into that flow state. It’s also good for those days you’re not quite feeling that sharp. Maybe you’re over-trained, or have brain fog. It just kind of clicks you into that sharpness. I have a YouTube channel for my stuff and I actively edit all my stuff. If I’m like on a trip and I’m surfing all day, and then I’m trying to get into the mood to edit — I’ll use it then. We podcast as well. It just helps you articulate your words and to get into the zone to complete a task. I am the biggest procrastinator.
We got some specialized bikes and we wanted to get into some longer riding. In the beginning, we were just doing kind of flat-road rides. Me and my brother, when we get into something, we get really into it. We had been riding for like a week and were like, let’s go around the island and it’s like 112 miles. We thought we were fit enough and we died. We couldn’t walk for days. We were so sore from biking with no preparedness for it (laughs). We were not eating right for that type of endurance ride. You have to be eating like every 15 minutes when you’re biking like that. We just crashed so bad. I remember looking down and my brother had crawled over to the bushes and was laying in the shade. I was like, this is not good. We’re going to have to call for help.
We got smarter with it and we smartened up with our training. We do a lot of hill stuff here. There are a lot of really great Strava segments and there are a lot of hills. We learned about the different zone training.
We just realized the insane benefit it was having on our endurance. I saw it through the speed at which we pr’d our times on the Strava segments, and then I saw it carry over into the gym stuff. I have a friend group of friends I train with and we’re super competitive. Everyone’s trying to get faster times and see who’s better than the other guy. My times just went up to the point until my buddies in the gym had an intervention with me and accused me of using steroids (laughs). I have a surfer body. I would have some muscles right here. I loved it. It was the biggest compliment they could have given me.
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