Few athletes embody that 'Lost Boys', never-gonna-grow-up look quite like the bronzed Adonises of the surfing world. And few surfers embody that look – or the athleticism that comes with it – quite like 'The King' of the waves, Kelly Slater.
Now 54, Slater has just hopped back on the board at Teahupo'o and proved exactly why he's considered the greatest to ever do it, posting a near-perfect score and taking down three-time world champion Gabriel Medina – a man more than 20 years his junior – in the process.
So, how does a man with decades of competition, injuries and an almost unimaginable number of hours in the water behind him keep himself capable of beating the best surfers in the world, many of them young enough to have grown up watching him compete? And, perhaps more importantly, what can you steal from his approach even if you aren't planning on catching big waves anytime soon?
How Does Kelly Slater Train?
If you're expecting an intricately periodised strength and conditioning programme, prepare to be disappointed.
‘I don't have a workout routine per se. Surfing is my training,’ he told Men's Health in a recent interview.
And he’s not exaggerating when he says that. When the waves are good, Slater says he can spend six to eight hours a day surfing.
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When he was younger, Slater supplemented all of that time on the water with yoga, hill running, pool training and other conditioning work. Nowadays, however, the focus appears to have shifted towards keeping himself healthy enough to continue doing the thing that keeps him fit in the first place.
‘I do my best to eliminate injuries and keep my body mobile,’ he says.
That means plenty of mobility work, alongside yoga and Pilates – both of which Slater has practised for years – with strength work thrown in where necessary.
In a conversation with podcaster Tim Ferriss, Slater spoke about the importance of ‘staying supple’, while also ‘getting some extra strength and bone density, but not getting too big from using weights’.
This bit obviously has us raising an eyebrow, but to be clear Slater isn't anti-weights. He just views them as a tool for keeping his body capable, rather than something to build his entire training around.
In reality, anyone who has ever actively tried to put size on knows that ‘getting too big’ is seldom a risk. What tends to happen though, to Slater's point, is that men can get so caught up in only smashing heavy weights at the expense of training other qualities such as balance, explosiveness and mobility, that they can end up thinking it’s the weights that left them slow, stiff and uncoordinated. The truth is, varied and intelligent resistance training will give you balance, explosiveness and, not rob you of it.
He's also spoken about performing core work, crunches, stretching and self-massage, with the aim of strengthening the muscles that surfing neglects while relaxing the ones it hammers relentlessly.
Add in pool conditioning, breath-hold work, freediving and even Brazilian jiu-jitsu over the years and you begin to get the picture: Slater's training is less about chasing arbitrary gym numbers and more about cultivating a body that's capable of doing what he actually loves doing.
Of course, there's a fairly sizeable caveat here. For the vast majority of us, ‘surf for six to eight hours’ isn't a particularly actionable training plan.
If you don't have a world-class break on your doorstep – or, indeed, the ability to surf – you're going to be better served by a mixture of GPP, or ‘general physical preparedness’: building strength, muscle, mobility and cardiovascular fitness across a broad range of movements and intensities. Check out our Dumbbell Club, throw in some running, swimming, cycling and plenty of walking and you’re most of the way there.
Slater gets away with keeping his routine relatively minimal because his actual sport provides such an enormous training stimulus. The rest of us need to make regular movement a hobby.
What Does Kelly Slater Eat?
If Slater's approach to training is relatively instinctive, his relationship with nutrition has historically been much more obsessive.
He's been studying and experimenting with his diet since his early 20s, cycling through different approaches while generally settling on something predominantly plant-based, heavy on whole foods and rich in fruit and vegetables.
Breakfast has traditionally been fruit-heavy. Slater has described starting the day with hot water with lemon followed by fresh fruit or a vegan smoothie made with fruit and almond or coconut milk. More recently, he's described his ideal breakfast as ‘a big healthy smoothie, some fresh fruit and some protein powders and some little health remedies’, often adding chia seeds.
He's not vegan, though. Slater has said he feels particularly good eating a predominantly plant-based diet with some fish, and will also eat eggs and other animal products.
There are plenty of sensible takeaways here: eat your fruit and veg, prioritise whole foods, get plenty of fibre and make sure you're consuming adequate protein. Nothing particularly revolutionary – but all good stuff.
Beyond that, things get slightly more… experimental.
Slater has previously discussed ‘food combining’: a practice that involves separating fruit from other foods and avoiding eating proteins and carbohydrates together. He's also experimented with blood-type diets, food-allergy testing, digestive enzymes and a sizeable supplement stack including CoQ10, GABA and 5-HTP.
He's a fan of fasting, too, ranging from intermittent fasting all the way up to multi-day water fasts and ‘cleanses’.
It’s probably obvious, but it bears repeating that just because one of the greatest surfers of all time does something doesn't necessarily mean it's supported by good nutritional science. Many of the claims surrounding food combining, blood-type diets, ‘detoxing’ and cleanses are either poorly substantiated or simply don't have convincing evidence behind them.
By all means take inspiration from Slater's curiosity and willingness to pay attention to his body. But don't confuse experimentation with evidence or expertise.
Ultimately, the most useful parts of Slater's approach are also the least exciting: move a lot, build enough strength to stay robust, maintain your mobility, eat mostly whole foods, get plenty of plants and keep doing the activities you actually enjoy.
You might not end up surfing six hours a day in your 50s, but staying fit enough that you could doesn't sound like a bad goal.
If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.
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With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
