Surfing Waves

I surf. I surf a lot. I paddle a lot. Sometimes I paddle quite significant distances just for the exercise (or I've been washed from the point to the adjacent postcode...)
I surf and I paddle almost every day, and I do very little other exercise... and dammit, but my shoulders are sore!

There's a really good grind going on in my shoulder joints due to rotator cuff syndrome (or surfers shoulders). Time to get the resistance band out and to balance some muscles


This morning, however, the surf is 2–3ft and glassy clean. More paddling, but with added anti-inflammatories

such an annoying injury to have

One of the 'trainer blogs' I follow is Eric Cressey, who specialises training baseballer (esp pitchers), who have a lot of rotator cuff problems. If you dig around his site you might find some interesting stuff, like below (his main problem is that he can be a bit jargonish but work through it!)

http://www.ericcressey.com/clearing-up- ... ontroversy

http://www.ericcressey.com/fixing-the-f ... tabilizers

one of his gym partners also has a blog

http://tonygentilcore.com/2011/05/top-e ... ator-cuff/

Unfortunately its often a tedious day to day grind to fix it. I do my rehab exercises on the floor in front of the TV at night

I have a shoulder injury which I imagine is a rotator cuff. I am careful to not over do it and the only time it has really bothered me is after not surfing for a while (I did SUP but apparently it takes a whole different set of muscles). I also have a knee that bothers me so I do stretches and shoulder strengthening exercises being careful not to do anything that aggravates the shoulder or knee. In addition I ice my shoulder and knee a couple or more time a week if it isn't bothering me and more if it is. (20 minutes ice pack, 20 minutes off and 20 more icing it if it is bothering me or just one 20 minute ice if I am good).

The exercises dtc is suggesting are really helpful, I do suggest that you see a Chiropractor or a sports medicine physiotherapist to see if the shoulder joint is correctly aligned so the joint is moving equally in its range. Misalignment will if you promote exercise on that will establish incorrect ligamentous movement and uneven wear continuing the injury.
At no stage make your movements ballistic after you have have the joint checked rather use slow incremental stretching and light weights or resistance take time in the movement to allow the muscles and fibres to relax and release under the load.
There a couple of adjustment I do with shoulders to help but since I'm retired either a sports chiropractor or sports physio or physiologist with sort it.
Anti inflammatories can help but can be a trade off for other problems long term.

If the injury is acute ( new) or inflamed use R.I.C.E Rest Ice Compression and Elevation.
Ice 20 minutes on and then 20 minutes off.

If it is an old injury and occurs after surfing/ whatever regularly try this Ice first for twenty minutes allow the area to return to normal temperature at least 20 to 30 minutes then apply a heat pack for twenty minutes. You can alternate this several times BUT ALWAYS ALLOW TIME FOR THE AREA TO NORMALISE IN TEMPERATURE BETWEEN APPLICATIONS.
There are a number of Chinese herbal liniments I use that herbally cause cold and hot alternation in tissue.

Explanation of why this is done;
Cold drives blood away from the surface tissue and if left long enough from underlying muscles.
Has a slight sedative effect on muscle nerve cell reducing pain and reduces bleeding and swelling if the tissue has been damaged to the point of light bleeding. Hence why it is used in football injuries and immediate response. If there is bleeding into surrounding tissue then healing time is lengthened.
With ice there is removal of damaged tissue as the blood moves away
After ice, blood begins to come back to the area, bringing fresh cells to begin organising and rebuilding tissue of the injury.

If the injury is uninflamed but chronic then after the normal temp phase heat increases blood flow to the site and slightly sedates again and relaxes the tissue and more repairs are enabled.
The body's ability to heal is remarkable if you give it the time use common sense.
Always however, if you are not sure get a clear diagnosis and path to follow.
Best practitioners to go to are those that understand surfing, most have no idea!

jaffa1949 wrote:Best practitioners to go to are those that understand surfing

There's no other kind on the Gold Coast

It's not a new injury (not even sure I'd use the word "injury") - it's been building over the last year since I moved to the GC as I surf far more often and paddle much further distances. Fortunately, my biomechanics knowledge is pretty good and - to a certain extent at least - I can work out what's going on. It's definitely a mild-to-moderate case of Surfer's Shoulder, and the alignment is borderline.

Exercises first, and then we'll see where to go from there.

Dr Janda - old skool but in my opinion still cool

http://www.jandaapproach.com/

Some good stuff on here if you can be bothered to trawl through the jargon. I always think if you're going to spend time on this stuff it's good to do it right. Lots of fancy exercises out there done in bad postures so don't give great results. Worth a little bit of research before you compromise your television viewing experience

An update on this one...

I cut back on my surfing for a bit to give my shoulders a rest, and did the cuff-specific (or, rather, the opposite-of-the-cuff-specific) exercise, and that helped a bit.

But what really helped, almost overnight, was going to the gym. As I mentioned, I was doing a lot of paddling, but not balancing the shoulder muscles with any cross-training whatsoever.
Ho-hum, better join the gym then

I intentionally did a lot of work (light weights, lot of reps) with 'non-paddling' movements, and the shoulder pain just disappeared. I'm under no illusion that it's completely cured after a couple of sessions in the gym, but hopefully balancing the shoulders with surfing and gym sessions should keep it under control

Tomorrow is a surf day

If the muscle structure around any joint is balanced then the joint usually sits in its optimum functional position .
There is less joint strain and the shock absorbing elements and the movement potential is at ithe highest.

Unbalanced means restriction and the chance of extra injury under sports conditions as we adrenalin over exert beyond that restriction ( BTW I am very against pain killing injection so a footballer can keep playing).

Good work DBBB

good for you DBB. I have found building the muscles around my painful parts seems to help too. I hurt my shoulder sawing down a tree with a manual saw. It used to bother me surfing sometimes but lately it hasn't and I am sure due to dumbels I use 2 times a week. I injured my knee making a fast turn playing with my dog. They never got an exact diagnosis but it was pretty bad for a while but I started exercises to stregnthen my knees and it gradually got better to where now I only get a slight tinge of discomfort after surfing on a big day with heavy chop. I did something to my hip too and this was probably surfing related injury (powerful backside bottom turn on bigger wave) but I have been doing exercises to strengthen my hips and that has improved to where it hardly ever bothers me. Now all you have to do is make it part of your routine so it doesn't come back again.

I was watching the girls on wsp and saw sally fitzgibbon working out (yeah that was some quality TV I'll tell ya!) Anyway she did this move rotating her trunk while going down into a half squat, arms leading the way.. I tried it coz it looked great for turns and realised I have a bit of a pain from an old injury on my right ankle..drunken parkour in Biarritz, does wonders for your surfing! Gonna be a bummer if I ever get really good and have to smash some epic turns!!

So my exercise found a problem rather than fixed one

So, after exercising my shoulders etc for a while, they were a lot better...

...and then there was a week of good surf

The right shoulder isn't too bad, but yesterday I had to get out of the water as the left shoulder was just too painful (and meant I was missing all the waves). So off to the physio today. All my diagnoses were about right, and she didn't think it was a surgical-level problem, so that's good. A whole bunch of new exercises, as well as a (bloody painful) massage of the injured bits.
Also, there was talk of an inflamed something-or-other, which is good, because I can deal with that with DRUGS!*






* Yes, yes, I know...hiding the symptoms isn't the best way to deal with things, but if it stops it hurting in the water, that's what's going to happen!