Joe Surf: This gym trains surfers

You look at surfing today, and you’re amazed at the improvement in technology of how the boards are made.

So it makes total sense that if the board is a fine-tuned machine, the person operating that board should be fine-tuned as well.

Extreme Athletics in Costa Mesa is tuned into that aspect of surfing, focusing on surf-specific training that doesn’t involve getting wet.

Jon Brown, 34, and Paul Norris, 35, opened Extreme Athletics in 2012 and haven’t looked back. Their gym is located in an industrial area in Costa Mesa.

“I knew Paul from working at another company, and we had kind of talked about doing our own thing,” Brown said. “And finally we said, ‘if we’re going to do it, now’s the time.’ So we just kind of went after it.”

They didn’t have a lot of competition then, and don’t now.

“There’s not many,” Brown said. “There’s a couple, but there’s only a handful of us. In our area, I feel like we lead the way. We worked very hard on our programs, and we’ve worked with a lot of competitive surfers at every level, and we’ve really developed our program to be the best in the area.”

Sounds great, but a squat is a squat is a squat, right?

Not so fast, Brown says.

“It’s very different,” Brown said of surf-specific training. “Our focus is to give you the tools that you’ll need in the water. A general program is just that, a general program, and you’re working on aesthetics, building muscle and looking big.

“But you’re not focusing on that proprioception or your dynamic stability. Not just stability, not just simple squats, but doing squats with rotations and vertical rotations. Getting into moments that mimic what we do in the water, working the right muscle groups, so it’s very different than any other program.”

There must be something to it. They have trained World Championship Tour surfers Kanoa Igarashi and Courtney Conlogue, as well as plenty of young local up-and-comers like Tyler Gunter, John Mel, Nolan Rapoza, Andrew Doheny, Matt Passaquindici and others.

Brown and Norris are surfers themselves, so their business is their passion. Norris grew up in Florida and attended the University of South Florida. Brown grew up in Bakersfield and got into surfing when he moved to Orange County to attend Cal State Fullerton.

For Brown, finding himself in the position he’s in now was a natural progression.

“I grew up in a very athletic household,” he said. “My mom was a trainer when I was growing up, and she managed gyms. I went to school with a focus on physical therapy, and I was working in physical therapy. I worked at Newport Physical Therapy, where they work with baseball players and Olympic athletes, college athletes, professional athletes.

“I got the experience of working with these professional athletes, and I was like, ‘wow, this is really fun. I get to be more creative with the program and the rehab, and obviously their abilities are a lot higher, so I can really push their limits.’ So when I got into surf training, it was a perfect fit, because surfing is my favorite sport. The surfing community is awesome, I love working with surfers. It’s not only the sport, it’s the people themselves. It’s a natural fit.”

Norris had a similar experience working with the Tampa Bay Rays. But Brown points out that you don’t have to be a high-level athlete to benefit from the training.

There are surfers as young as 10 working out at Extreme Athletics.

“We have some very young groms and give them a good base of how to move their body, and the proper body mechanics and stability,” Brown said. “At that age, that’s what you really need to focus on.”

Courtney, Kanoa and Brett

Santa Ana’s Courtney Conlogue won the Cascais Women’s Pro in Portugal last week, keeping her world title hopes alive. She’s currently in second place behind Australia’s Tyler Wright.

The Roxy Pro France — contest No. 9 in the 10-event season — is underway, with the final contest of the season coming late next month in Maui.

On the men’s side, Huntington Beach’s Kanoa Igarashi is competing in the Quiksilver Pro France, which got underway Tuesday. Igarashi was matched up against Keanu Asing of Hawaii and 11-time world champ Kelly Slater in Round 1.

The waves seemed to disappear during the heat, Igarashi winding up with just two scoring waves, one at 0.50 and the other at 1.00 for third place. Slater took second with a 1.73 and 5.27. Asing won the heat with a 3.17 and 4.83.

The waves were so bad the contest was called off for the day after the heat. Igarashi entered the contest ranked No. 21 in the world.

Huntington’s Brett Simpson, surfing in the Qualifying Series (QS) in an effort to requalify for the WCT, placed equal-ninth in the Billabong Pro Cascais in Portugal last week, helping raise him in the QS rankings to No. 31. Simpson lost in Round 5 to San Clemente’s Tanner Gudauskas, who wound up equal-fifth.

Simpson needs to rank in the top 10 of the QS to requalify for the WCT.

JOE HAAKENSON is a Huntington Beach-based sports writer and editor. He may be reached at joe@juvecreative.com.