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Have you ever heard of sea hiking? 'It's more than walking in the water'

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“The sea is our gym”, we speak to Diederik Veerman of Coastal Gym about his seahiking training. “Unlike surfing, for example, you can always do this. Whether there are waves or not. The sea determines the training”, says the trainer. Seahiking is done at Scheveningen and from this weekend also at Kijkduin.

Seahiking is a training in the sea, but it goes beyond just walking up and down. For example, there is the fanatical workout variant in which participants jump high over the waves, body surf, walk backwards and tense all their muscles, and there is the relaxed class where you relax and become even more aware of your breathing and the nature around you.

Injuries

Seahiking is a fairly new water sport inspired by the French Longe-côte. “A rowing trainer sent his athletes into the sea with only a paddle, for a good workout. I really like the principles of that sport so much, so I continued with that”, says Diederik.

He launched in November 861 sea hiking on Scheveningen. “In the water you can do a lot of movements that you can’t do on land or that have too much chance of injury such as jumping in the air and spinning before you land again. In the water you can even jump very high, for example over the waves without breaking anything afterwards.”

Diederik

The sporty Diederik is originally from Zeeland. He used to teach spinning classes, but was only too eager to get out of the gym. Diederik is not an insider. He studied history at the University of Groningen, including Arctic Studies and he also completed the PABO. He then ended up in The Hague as curator of the Museon-Omniversum, where in the early years he was involved with the special collection of Greenland.

And before that he even did fieldwork in the Arctic . “Despite all the modern techniques, it is still easiest there to go from a to b with a sled and that inspired me to start with Pullka lessons in The Hague, Westduinpark, sports with a sled behind you. When that was a success I started to expand the Coastal gym with seahiking.