If you’re going to surf like Nate Florence, you should probably train like him too. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
Nate Florence chose a fun career. He did not, however, choose a career that’s easy on the body. The waves he surfs aren’t light ones. He actively searches out the biggest, heaviest slabs he can find and throws himself into them. When someone spends enough time doing that, injuries are inevitable, so Nate decided that he’d put together a quick video explaining how he trains to deal with them.
“In chasing the caliber of waves that I do as consistently as I do, there is always the nagging thought in the back of my head that the odds are getting worse and worse for some sort of injury to happen,” Nate says at the beginning. “It’s kind of not if, it’s when.”
Back in 2023, Nate took off on a bomb at Jaws. He got picked up by the wave after he fell and then fell through the giant barrel.
“I fell a lot longer than I thought,” he said at the time. “After the initial impact, I got sucked up and fell again. As I was falling, I was pulling my vest. I just fell a lot farther than I thought and my body was in a weird position. I just slammed on my back on the bottom of the barrel, which is just hard water. Right when I slammed, I just felt kind of a snap in my lower back, right on my spine… Turns out I have a compression fracture on my T12. A.K.A, I broke my back.”
It’s been some time since that injury, and Nate has fully recovered, as evidenced by his recent exploits. But it left more than a physical scar — it let him know that he needed to train to try and prevent severe injuries. And the way he does it isn’t easy, but it’s necessary if he wants to keep on doing what he’s doing.
