Tudeo wrote:RinkyDink wrote:By the way, have you tried relaxed hanging for your shoulder problem?
YES! Thanks for that tip. I try to do a little hanging session every day, it just feels good. Didn't you talk about how natural hanging is? I agree with that.
But I'm 55yo and too often need a lot of recovery time because it is really hard for me to stop surfing, as long I feel I can do some more.. If I surf too often and too intensive for a period I must pay a price. I hope the hanging will help with that in time. Also I started doing post surf massage routines for the upper back and shoulders, using 2 tennis balls tied together, against a wall. But mostly it comes down to a mental process of acceptance that you can't surf every day anymore. On the other hand while my surf frequency goes down, the stoke seems to go up. Also, even though my energy is not what is used to be, my surfing skills are still improving. That keeps the stoke going!
I don't have any shoulder problems at the moment. I haven't even been hanging on my pull-up bar. The last time I did was about a month ago. I had been suffering from awful rotator cuff soreness, shoulder pain, and neck pain for about a year when I first restarted surfing. Now I don't have those problems. I think they were, in large part, due to overtraining. I was weight training 3 times a week and surfing during my off days. After 15 years of leading a very unhealthy sedentary lifestyle, I think my body was kind of in shock from the sudden amped up physical fitness. The problem with working out is that it will make you feel great in many ways, but there will also be areas, particularly when you're older, where you'll have pain. Maybe it's a yin yang thang. Anyway, I went on vacation for two weeks, did a couple of light workouts at the hotel, but mostly I just rested and ate healthy. It felt good, physically and mentally, to just take a break. My shoulder pains went away. When I got back I started weight training and surfing again and the shoulder pain returned. I concluded from that that I was overtraining and needed to change things.
I stopped weight lifting and decided I'd just surf for my workout. Due to health problems, I have to maintain a high level of fitness. It's not an option for me unfortunately. I either stay in shape or waste away physically. It keeps me motivated, but it's a burden at times (price you pay for letting your health slide). Anyway, I don't think weight lifting is bad, but I realize now that it's only beneficial for me if I do it in very slow increments. I have to allow my body a lot of time to adjust (way more time than I originally thought) to increases in weight resistance. For me working out requires as much attention to avoiding injury as it does to planning my workouts.
Right now, I just surf 2-3 times a week. The ocean is my gym. I think my shoulder problems have disappeared mostly because I've gained strength in my back, neck, and shoulders over the past two years. I also think that surfing is a better workout because I'm not targeting and stressing a specific muscle with concentrated exercise. I'm instead spreading the exercise load around my various surfing muscles. I feel like I also rest naturally when I'm surfing. If I don't feel like paddling for a wave, I don't, as opposed to consciously resting for a specific amount of time between weight training sets.
Anyway, there have been some drawbacks for me. My legs are weak and it's affecting my popup and my surfing stance. I noticed the other day on my longboard that my knees were locked. I was avoiding crouching and didn't want to bend my knees. Just laziness really. Not good surfing form at all
So now I realize that I need to start working my legs out again. I can paddle around for three hours without thinking about it so my arms are in pretty good condition, but my legs and quads are seriously lacking. I hate doing leg and ab exercises, but I'm realizing that I miss them. My surfing prowess depends on them. The other problem I have is that I lose my stoke when I turn surfing into a workout. This is kind of a new development for me. There are days I'm just not into it, but I'm out because I need to work out. I'm finding on those days that my popup falls apart and I'm not really focusing on my surfing. That might lead me to pick up a new sport to keep my legs strong (maybe skateboarding or cycling). In the meantime, I'm going back to scissor kicks. Sorry about the long winded, rambling response.
Tudeo wrote:Yes it always takes a couple of waves to tune into a board when changing surfboards, but in my case I know the 8'2 and the 6'6 already very good, that reduces the time to tune in. As long you can surf frequently. I just came from the water with my 6'6 after nearly 2 weeks recovery for the shoulders, and my foot positioning was off on the first waves.
At the moment, I find going with a longer board just makes things more enjoyable for me. I'm not in a rush like I was early on to get to specific surfing milestones. I'm working up to shorter boards as my fitness level permits. Shortboards are kind of stressful for me because I don't have the fitness for them yet. However, my 7'2" X 23 X 3 1/4 fish type board is basically a surfboard with training wheels. It's fun, but at times it feels like a raft. I want to ride it more often though because it's a nice change from my longboard and it allows me to pump with more gusto than a longboard does.
My skills have improved a lot since then. I think when I ride it next time I'll probably take it out in smaller surf because the board has enough volume to ride like a fish. I suspect the best type of wave for that board would be a fast, barrelling wave like Mundaka where you could just fly down the line staying in or just ahead of the pocket. I also want to take it out to get a better idea of what turns are like on wide rounded rails as opposed to the thinner rails I'm used to. I'm hoping Namu has some advice about riding the board since he probably has more experience on it than I do at this point. 
