As I hopped out of the minibus and into the gravel car park, I was greeted by sunshine, a gang of surfboards, and a man draped in cosy clothes with a coffee in hand.
He strolls out of the shadows toward me, puts his hand out, and introduces himself. ‘Cotty. Nice to meet you.’
We are at the High Performance Surf Centre in the quaint Portuguese coastal town of Nazare, a government-funded facility where the world’s best big wave surfers push themselves to the limit each day.
One of those surfers is Andrew Cotton, a plumber from Devon turned legendary surfing daredevil. Daily Mail Sport has been invited to big wave surfing’s most famous spot to take a peek behind the swell, attending a two-day boot camp with Cotton and his strength and conditioning coach, Andrew ‘Blakey’ Blake.
As Blake lays out the mats ahead of a breathwork session, on the horizon, you can see a score of waves crashing into the shore. To me, they look monstrous, but to Cotton, they are child’s play.
Cotton is one of the world’s best big wave surfers, finishing third in the latest Tudor Big Wave Challenge in December, and has a residency in Nazare. He spends six months of the year – between October and March – in the surfing Mecca, when the swells are at their largest.
Great Britian’s Andrew Cotton is one of the best big wave surfers in the world
Daily Mail’s Harry Bamforth spent two days training with the Red Bull athlete in Nazare, Portugal
The Brit regularly hits waves of 50 to 60 feet on Portugal’s silver coast, with his record wave sitting at a colossal 80ft, a size which, back in 2014, was believed to be the biggest wave ever ridden.
The Red Bull athlete was 34 years old when he rode that wave, which was deemed taller than the length of a basketball court if it were stood upright, and he had only just become a professional surfer. But now he is 46 and arguably in better shape than ever.
‘I turned professional very late, at 34, when most people are winding down their careers,’ Cotton tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘My mates who were professional surfers, guys my age and younger, were losing their contracts when I was signing mine.
‘I never in a million years thought I’d be doing this until I was 46, but now I want to do it until I am 56.’
Cotton’s longevity is down to a demanding but meticulous programme away from the waves, put together by Blake, with whom he has been friends since childhood. It includes breathwork on dryland and in the water, as well as intense gym workouts.
Blake was keen to have us fully immersed in Cotton’s exact training routine, taking part alongside the surfer as he faced a jam-packed schedule spread across just two days.
We started with breathwork on dry land, something that has become a staple of Cotton’s programme. When I first took to the mat, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was just going to be a calming, comfortable session. But boy, was I naïve.
Now, I’d like to say I’m not too shabby when it comes to exercise. I’m in pretty good shape. I’ve run a marathon, competed in triathlons, and was an elite-level swimmer in my younger years. Oh, and I’m humble too, if you couldn’t tell.
However, after an hour of breathwork under the watchful eye of Blake and Cotton, I felt like I’d had a full body MOT. I thought I’d only be testing out my lungs, not my groin, hips, and lower back. Just simple breathing movements had my body in bits. It’s fair to say my fitness levels were put to shame.
This was because we weren’t just doing simple breathing exercises; Blake was teaching us the Wim Hof Method, a breathing technique that Cotton has used ever since he famously broke his back during the Big Wave Challenge in 2017.
‘I’ve been working with Blakey, we actually grew up together, and he’s been on my journey,’ Cotton says, as he starts the session. ‘Together, we started studying, and I thought of some more practices, like how can I get the edge? And it’s actually really linked to breathing.
Breathwork is a key to Cotton’s training and keep calm when he is stuck in freezing cold water
‘Breath is a state. You get into the practices. You have to hold your breath, and then a 50ft wave lands in your head, so it’s a good motivation to be able to hold your breath.’
The Wim Hof Method includes ‘active inhalations with passive exhalations’, while Blake also taught us his gearing system for breathing, which Cotton uses regularly to improve the amount of time he can hold his breath.
These methods allow Cotton to keep calm when he is stuck in freezing cold water, with monstrously big waves crashing down on him. When this happens, he has to be able to hold his breath for at least 30 seconds while being thrown about by the Atlantic Ocean. Not just once, but perhaps on several occasions in the space of a few minutes.
Cotton adds: ‘My biggest fear was drowning, so I need to learn to hold my breath. Then you do the free diving courses, and that’s good, but then you realise it’s not really accurate for surfing.
‘Then you’re working on different things to train to get more comfortable, to eliminate that fear, or when that fear hits you, I know I can hold my breath for five minutes.’
After a brief interval, in which I wondered how it was possible for all the muscles in my body to be hurting after just breathwork, it was time for a gym session. This is where I learned just how much work is put into surfing.
We worked our neck, shoulders, core, but most of all, our legs. Cotton values leg day over everything in the gym, due to the strength he needs in his lower body for big wave surfing. Making sure his legs can handle the endurance needed to tackle mammoth swells on a regular basis is imperative.
However, due to the horrific back injury he sustained nine years ago, which he miraculously recovered from in just one year, he has a very specific gym programme. Simply put: no big squats allowed. Cotton is rarely allowed to use the bar due to disc inflammation.
He also puts a lot of effort into strengthening his neck, much like an F1 driver or rugby player. This is due to the amount of whiplash he sustained from skipping across the water after falling off his board while tackling a seismic wave.
While Cotton believes the best training is ‘spending time on the water’, he puts his longevity down to the hours he spends in the gym each week. This is something that, surprisingly, not all of his rivals do.
‘It’s funny, like surfers generally don’t train,’ Cotton explains. ‘They do in a professional level, like now they are getting a bit more professional, but I did a training session in Ireland last week.
‘I was with arguably the best guys in the world, and I was realising my numbers are better, and they’re in their 30s. And I’m just as fit as them.’
Bamforth was put through his paces by Cotton’s strength and conditioning coach, Andrew ‘Blakey’ Blake (right)
I’m not surprised with Cotton’s fitness, given how crazy his workout regimen is.
Following an hour of gym, we go on a stroll around Nazare before heading to Le petit chef Belge to guzzle down Cotton’s favourite burger. It was very much needed because soon enough, we were all standing poolside in our swimming shorts, ready for another session.
The time had come for us to put what we had learned in the first breathwork session to the test, this time in water. A simulation of what it’s like out in the choppy oceans, when the pressure is on. Just without the waves, and well, the current too.
Cotton took us through how to dump breath, which is emptying your lungs with one sharp exhale before breathing in slowly and going underwater, while testing how long we could hold our breath during intense exercise.
The session consisted of dropping to the bottom of the pool with no air in your lungs, swimming as far as you could underwater, and multiple 25-metre sprints without breathing, followed by two lots of 25 seconds of holding your breath underwater. It was exhausting but exhilarating.
‘The harder you work now in this, the easier it will be in real life,’ Cotton explains while sitting on the diving block. ‘It’s like you come up, you paddle, you turn around. S***, you got a 50ft wave going to break in your head. OK, now think about lowering your heart rate.’
After a strenuous hour in the pool, we were finally allowed some downtime ahead of a massive second day. And to say I needed it is an understatement.
On day two, it was an early get-up, a quick breakfast, and straight down to Cotton’s personal warehouse. The time had come to put everything we learned on day one into practice in the ocean.
Standing in front of a Red Bull-branded jet ski, with a gazillion different styles of surfboards behind him, in a relaxed tone of voice, he explained the art of the tow-in and how jet skis are set up differently in big wave surfing.
He points to where the kill switch should be hooked up and says that this jet ski doesn’t have one. Suddenly, fear sweeps over my body. But Cotton then soothes my trepidation by clarifying the reasons why the switch is unnecessary.
Jet skis are constantly needing to move through big breaking waves when out at sea, so there is rarely a scenario where it is safe to slow down. This means that surfers, after riding a wave, need to throw themselves on a ‘rescue sled’ while the jet ski is still going at speed.
As this was being spelled out to me, the thoughts running through my head were along the lines of ‘this is crazy’ and ‘there is no way I’m going to be able to do this’.
Bamforth had to try out his breathwork during an intense pool session coached by Cotton
Cotton pictured coaching Bamforth in the dangours Nazare waters on the coast of Portugal
And well, my thoughts were correct. After zipping up my wetsuit, stepping onto the back of the jet ski behind Cotton, and setting off for the shores of the world’s most dangerous but enthralling surfing location, I learned of my newfound respect for the sport of surfing.
Now, we were only allowed out to sea due to the almost non-existent swells. It was a small wave day, to say the least. But even with conditions perfect for a beginner, and one of the world’s best surfers on a jet ski coaching me, I just couldn’t grasp how to tow-in.
The tow-in is where a big wave surfer has hold of a long piece of rope connected to the jet ski, similar to that of a wakeboard, and is then towed into the line of a massive wave. So, it’s not even the tricky part of being a big wave surfer, yet I just couldn’t get the hang of it.
After being thrown around like a rag doll in the water while learning how to hop onto the rescue sled, it was time to try the tow-in. One attempt, two attempts, three attempts, four. Nope, it wasn’t happening. Frustration growing.
Five attempts, six attempts, seven attempts, more. Many more. But still no. Here came the temper tantrum from a very competitive journalist – yours truly – who hates being bad at things. Cotton calmed me down, told me to use the breathwork I had learned on day one, and gave me another few cracks.
Eventually, for just two seconds, I mustered the strength to get myself up on the board at roughly 20mph, and ride. The feeling was euphoric, and even faceplanting into the water couldn’t stop me smiling.
Then reality hit. Cotton has to use his legs to do that over, and over, and over again, every day for 100 times as long as I just spent upright. The strength it takes to do that is unimaginable.
The next day, as I travelled to Lisbon airport with every muscle in my body aching like it had been punched repetitively for the past two days, I thought: ‘Cotton is one crazy but incredible dude’.
In our final chat of the trip, Cotton told me that he had never come away from a fall or a serious injury and thought, ‘I really regret that’. That stuck with me. He and other big wave surfers will forever push the limits until their bodies can’t keep up with them.
