Surf Longer/Better with these 4 Pillars
Surf Better and longer with more longevity with these 4 pillars.
Surfing is a thrilling sport that demands physical strength, balance, and coordination, often in dynamic and unpredictable conditions. As a physical therapist and passionate surer, I emphasize the importance of injury prevention exercises tailored specifically for surfers. There are 4 critical components to ensure surfers have a long span enjoying their craft at the highest level. Excellent shoulder mobility, scapular strengthen, core stability, and hip mobility.
Having excellent shoulder mobility is necessary for the demands of paddling. If you are lacking shoulder mobility, the repetition of paddling will cause compensations in your shoulder, neck, or even low back leading to pain and dysfunction. I first make sure I have excellent shoulder internal rotation, and the secondly lat flexibility to I can reach overhead with no compensation in my low back.
https://youtube.com/shorts/UH4d2rDvVCY?si=QtvlZznz-1dQwY6N
https://youtube.com/shorts/RspLOSx26LY?si=IUjwf3RtrZPiqx3v
Strengthening the muscles around the shoulders blades, such as Prone Ts, Ys are excellent for helping with paddle endurance while taking pressure of your neck. However these have to be done very precisely and correctly to make sure you’re not compensating with your neck muscles.
https://youtube.com/shorts/1KHLlJbqWWo?si=hPofm-tYu6BYnQRw
Core stability is imperative for reducing the pressure on your low back during surfing. I recommend starting with an exercise called “dead bugs” to make sure your back is flat while reaching overhead to mimic the demands of surfing while getting out of lumbar extension.
https://youtube.com/shorts/g13rvb31nTs?si=UapHfVLHAViB4PMw
Finally, making sure you have adequate hip internal and external rotation are necessary for high level surfing where you are turning your whole body on a fixed board. Having great mobility here can allow you to turn better while minimizing the pressure on your knees. I recommend the hip airplane because it allows you to get more range of motion and also working on controlling with your hip stabilizers.
https://youtube.com/shorts/l2qTyQKBzeU?si=jkygwEJdWgeP-IBq
By integrating these injury prevention exercises into their training regimen, surfers can enjoy their time in the water with confidence, knowing that they have taken proactive steps to protect their bodies and prolong their surfing careers.
Master this exercise to live longer
Being able to do this exercise is associated with a longer life. Let’s break it down!
Squat! This exercise although super simple is very popular because quite frankly it’s very important and targets a lot of key muscles. Why is it important, well because if you try to lift something heavy off the ground (which we all need to do) without bending your knees, there is a good chance your going to hurt yourself. If you want to sit down into a chair, get off the toilet, or travel guess what? You’re going to need to do a squat. In fact, A 2014 study found that being able to get up and off the floor with as little support as possible was a predictor of mortality. Those who need less assistance from different parts of their body on average lived longer. In Eastern countries like China and Japan, they on average show much less prevalence of Hip osteoarthritis. Now we don’t know exactly why but one prevailing theory is that it’s because in those countries they squat very low as part of their day to day life.
So how do we build a good squat. First we need to make sure we have enough mobility, specifically in our knees, hips and ankles. If you don’t have the mobility you may still be able to squat low but you might compensating with rounding your low back and that overtime can lead to some pain.
Secondly we need to make sure we are turning on the right muscles. Are we activating our quads, glutes, and abs. A lot of people have a hard time with last two and there are a lot great exercises that can help you get there if you are struggling with that.
Third, we need to make sure we are strong enough. And in my opinion, just being able to get up and down isn’t enough because over time we will get weaker and we want to set ourselves up for success in the future, so let’s get a higher baseline now.
Lastly, if we have all those building blocks we just want to do it with good form. We should always lead with our hips because they are the strongest part of the body. If you are unsure, hire a physical therapies or coach to look at it for you!
Let’s squat to feel better, look better, do more, and for our loved ones so they don’t need to help us get up as we get older.
Dudda M, Kim YJ, Zhang Y, Nevitt MC, Xu L, Niu J, Goggins J, Doherty M, Felson DT. Morphologic differences between the hips of Chinese women and white women: could they account for the ethnic difference in the prevalence of hip osteoarthritis? Arthritis Rheum. 2011 Oct;63(10):2992-9. doi: 10.1002/art.30472. PMID: 21647861; PMCID: PMC3178680.