SWELL: Surf Workouts

SWELL is a dryland training program for surfers. It adapts to your surf days and hours, it's built on more than 40 studies you can read yourself, and it needs no sign-up, shows no ads and uses no third-party tracking. Pick your goal and the app builds your week: which days you train, for how many minutes and what each session holds. It's a rules engine, not a coach: every decision comes from the surf performance literature, and you can see where. WHAT'S INSIDE 100 exercises organized into 12 movement patterns. Each pattern is a 6-step ladder (steps 0 to 5). You move up a step once you own the one before it with clean technique, and the variants change with the equipment you have. Sessions of 15, 25 or 40 minutes, 2 to 5 days a week. FIVE PROGRAMS FOR YOUR GOAL Endless Engine: paddling. 36 sessions. Explosive Take-off: pop-up. 42 sessions. Rail to Rail: balance and turns. 40 sessions. Bulletproof Season: shoulder, lower back and knee prevention work. 30 sessions. Long Sessions: endurance. 44 sessions. WITH WHATEVER YOU HAVE Works with bodyweight alone. If you have bands, a kettlebell, a pull-up bar or go to a gym, the app uses the variants that fit. If your equipment limits a step, it tells you. ADJUSTS TO HOW YOU FEEL TODAY A short check-in (sleep, soreness, surf hours and pain) recalculates the day's session before you start. Optional spoken countdowns during timed exercises and rests, made for training with earbuds. Rests between sets follow what research recommends for strength and power. You can also adapt it yourself: waves today, just surfed, short on time, something hurts, at the gym, traveling. You train in 5-week blocks you can see before you start: four that build gradually and one deload week. The block moves forward with the weeks you train, not with the calendar. If you log pain, the load for that area drops and prevention work is added. SURF TRIP COMING UP? Enter the date and the plan gets you ready: first more endurance in the water, then fewer sets in the last two weeks so you arrive fresh. When you're back, an easy week. REMINDERS Optional: at the time you pick, never more than one a day and never at night. SEE WHERE EVERYTHING COMES FROM The Science screen gathers more than 40 peer-reviewed studies, grouped by topic and linked to the original. What's inference is labeled inference, and what's preliminary is labeled preliminary. MEASURE YOUR STARTING POINT A push-up, pop-up and plank test calibrates your score. Repeat it whenever you want to see what changed. THE SET, OUR WEEKLY TEST 5 waves against the clock: you paddle, pop up and ride. Check your form once a week and see your personal best. The app explains which studies it builds on, which part is our own design and when it's a good time to do it. APPLE HEALTH (OPTIONAL) SWELL works with Apple Health if you connect it. It reads last night's sleep and your surf workouts from the past 48 hours to pre-fill the check-in, and you confirm each answer. With your permission, it can save completed sessions to Health as workouts and add an active energy estimate based on your weight in Health. What SWELL reads from Health stays on your iPhone. PRIVACY Account optional (Sign in with Apple): opening the app creates an anonymous account, with no email or password. No ads and no third-party tracking. Free, with no in-app purchases and no subscriptions. One button deletes all your data and lets you start over. DETAILS In English, Spanish and Portuguese (Brazil), following your iPhone's language. iPhone only. Light and dark themes. General fitness information. Not a medical service and not a substitute for advice from a health professional. Talk to a doctor or physical therapist before starting if you have an injury or pain or haven't trained in a while, and stop if something hurts.