Surfing Waves

So awhile ago I started getting a lump growing on my right wrist. I had a feeling it was due to the popup that puts too much stress into my joints. I got a MRI scan and luckily it is not a tumour. Just ligament tear etc. I think this doesn't only affect to my wrist since I have pains in nearly all my joints throughout my body when I push myself too hard.

Does anyone else have a similar issue with surfing and joint pains? I think I might have to start eating more healthy and take vitamins or my surfing hobby won't last very long.

Report from the MRI scan:

- Thinning of central portion of TFCC with undersurface fraying but no discrete tear.
- Partial tear of volar radioulnar ligament.
- Tear of membranous portion of scapholunate ligament; volar and dorsal portions are intact.
- Longitudinal split tear of ECU tendon at level of ulnar styloid. ECU subsheath is intact.
- Subcutaneous edema at volar ulnar aspect of wrist.

I have an issue with waking up in the morning and joint pain............when I was 14 my father told me to enjoy the next 8-10 years as that would be the only time I'd have in my life when on some days everything in the body felt and worked right.

I stretch BanZ....stretch a lot. I find it really important for general body movement and if there is a secret to the fountain of youth, flexibility might be it.

I also eat really healthy, don't smoke or drink at all, do bodyweight exercises and surf often along with loads of stretching. Take vitamins and manipulate my diet to encompass necessary nutrients. I also listen to my body and have learned to back off as soon as something flares up or starts to hurt even if that means cashing in early on a surf sesh, and consciously hold myself back from overdoing physical activity.

Uncle Jaffa‘s set of things to,consider here. Your injury has happen to a cross wrist stabilizing ligament. The more injured it becomes and more torn the less stable. The lump is part of the swelling mechanism of Defence to immobilize an area being injured.
What may be causing it?, surfopractically ( mix of chiropracticand surfing movement thoughts) check out the end of your pull back paddle stroke, are you rotating the hand or adding a cute wrist flip to your stroke?
Examine your pop up,hand position, are you rotating your hand as you push up and off? This might also be made worse if you are gripping the rails as pop up! A wider than usual hand position will cause more pressure rotationally on the wrist, elbow will not handle as much pressure and the shoulders will start to gap the joint. Wrist taking much more force tha appropriate!

Things to do, warmth and cold alternating therapy, I can explain that by PM, Need to be done properly.
Tiger balm can be helpful. As a pain relief.
you need time to heal ( recommend twelve weeks for ligament tear) the swelling is a symptom not the problem. I would suggest if at all possible ask your doctor if he can get you access to,a sports physiologist or sports physiotherapist who,understands surfing.
You may also be offered anti inflammatories, cortisone injections, but the rest time to heal is a better option, covering up,the pain of the injury and continuing doing what caused it is just plain dumb.

The physio of both types are the better option
They can do,these things
Analyse your stroke, posture and popping up movents and correct them ( physiologist) a physiotherapist will show you strengthening and conditioning exercises to avoid re- injury..
Self check your diet habits and warm ups, how are you treating yourself in this? If needs be change those things that don’t work.
Your other joints will,thank you for this.

Do take the Time to heal, do take the genuine advice given.

I didn't know this could be so serious! I thought ligament tear is normal in sports? I don't stretch out much before going in the water. I spend about 1 minute stretching before running in. Don't drink or smoke but my diet is not particularly healthy either. My surf day includes mcdonalds before a surf session then some burger + fries afterwards. It's a little odd but I'm 5'6 and I lost 10 pounds in the last year or so from surfing and eating lots of junky food.

My orthopedic MD is also a surfer and he is well built. I'm going to follow up with him tomorrow so let's see what he says. I'm only 36 and I can feel all my joints locking up after a long surf session.

I'm starting to eat more healthy like having acai/ fruit bowls. More smoothie. I'll probably stop surfing again at the end of the month as it gets way too cold in the winter here. So I'll have at least 4-5 months to rest and identify the cause of it. I'm also typing on a laptop keyboard for 12+ hours a day so that probably doesn't help with my wrist injuries.

That's a lot of good advices here that I need to look into! Thanks.

Great advice on this thread...

It's easy to over do it when you're feeling the stoke. I get hurt every time I push myself too far; so I take a cross training approach.
Because I live so far from the ocean, I surf only once every 2 weeks. In between sessions, I try to do something else every day - jogging, bike riding, swimming, and surf-skating. It's a rotation that keeps me healthy and ready for every trip to the coast.

My advice is don't get injured. Sooner or later it will all catch up with you, sometimes much later. Anyway listen to your body if you are making some part sore try to do other things that don't make it sore and strengthen the other muscles and tendons and ligaments in the area. Maintain a decent amount of flexibility, it helps you to stay healthy. I am currently dealing with a sore shoulder from playing with my dog. Most likely the original injury was from a tree climbing stunt I did as a kid and then aggravated it cutting down a tree (manual saw). Took me 6 months to get to where I felt normal again. Then just recently the dog. I normally do a series of exercises to keep all my other parts working and have been trying to add in new stuff to strengthen my shoulders but finding most of them make it feel worse so I got some exercise bands and found a couple exercises that don't aggravate it and things have been slowly getting better. I ice it down if I do anything that reminds me I have a shoulder problem. Sometimes that is surfing but sometimes surfing doesn't make it feel worse I think it depends on how much force I use to paddle.

On joint pain, some people (although not me so no idea if this true) say that a lot of high glycemic food (ie sugar) can cause constant low level inflammation.

But the more you move day to day (just moving, not necessarily ‘exercising’); the more your joints respond. The body in general (acute injury aside) does much better moving than resting. So spending 5 days hunched over a computer is not fixed by surfing on Saturday.

Of course you are mid 30s; it’s definitely downhill from there

So Dtc how does my 69.5 years rate, isbeing over the hill an uphill battle?

My surf teacher advocated a lot of stretching of all body parts, (including wrists!), with a warmup of at least 10-15 minutes. I try to do that, and hurt my shoulder when I did not. At 36 you are absoutely on a downhill path with your body, and you need to spend more and more time to fight that. Being 52 myself, I face the hard truth that I need to do much more stretching than exercises as the decline in flexibility/mobility is much worse than the decline in fitness. And I need to do them daily. Independent of weight loss, junk food is bad for your body - a well balanced nutrition is important. And desk working is the worst - if you have a desk job, take breaks where you move several times a day - the body wants to move.

jaffa1949 wrote:Examine your pop up,hand position, are you rotating your hand as you push up and off? This might also be made worse if you are gripping the rails as pop up! A wider than usual hand position will cause more pressure rotationally on the wrist, elbow will not handle as much pressure and the shoulders will start to gap the joint. Wrist taking much more force tha appropriate!

I had a follow up with my surfer MD just now. He advised me not to rotate my wrist as well! He said he can give me some cortisone injection or physical therapy but I refused. I'm just going to go with yours and everyone's suggestion. More stretching, eat healthier, warm up and observe my hand when surfing. I've also just ordered the more expensive ergonomic keyboard since the majority of my time includes typing and programming on a keyboard.

Also for the first time I took 2 minutes to stretch out before going to bed. Wow it felt great, normally I sleep badly because I wake up feeling back pain or some kind of pain on my neck. I usually sleep on my right side as I have puppies taking up most of the bed space.

I also refuse to believe it's all going downhill from mid 30s. Humans live much longer these days and I hope I'm still surfing till I die of old age.

BaNZ wrote:

jaffa1949 wrote:Examine your pop up,hand position, are you rotating your hand as you push up and off? This might also be made worse if you are gripping the rails as pop up! A wider than usual hand position will cause more pressure rotationally on the wrist, elbow will not handle as much pressure and the shoulders will start to gap the joint. Wrist taking much more force tha appropriate!

I had a follow up with my surfer MD just now. He advised me not to rotate my wrist as well! He said he can give me some cortisone injection or physical therapy but I refused. I'm just going to go with yours and everyone's suggestion. More stretching, eat healthier, warm up and observe my hand when surfing. I've also just ordered the more expensive ergonomic keyboard since the majority of my time includes typing and programming on a keyboard.

I wished you had gone with the physical therapy, learning how tomuse your body correctly and the right exercises to strengthen and protect the damaged area and all,the lead up muscles too!

Without knowledge of what to,do correctly you can develop a chronic weakness, chronic is habitual,and harder to put right than acute injuries. If think learning to,stretch feels good think actually participating in reconstructing your body will feel!
Believe me lazy or can't be bothered will cost you big time!

BaNZ wrote:I also refuse to believe it's all going downhill from mid 30s. Humans live much longer these days and I hope I'm still surfing till I die of old age.

I'm 67 and will let you know when I reach the bottom of the hill.

BaNZ wrote:

jaffa1949 wrote:Examine your pop up,hand position, are you rotating your hand as you push up and off? This might also be made worse if you are gripping the rails as pop up! A wider than usual hand position will cause more pressure rotationally on the wrist, elbow will not handle as much pressure and the shoulders will start to gap the joint. Wrist taking much more force tha appropriate!

I had a follow up with my surfer MD just now. He advised me not to rotate my wrist as well! He said he can give me some cortisone injection or physical therapy but I refused. I'm just going to go with yours and everyone's suggestion. More stretching, eat healthier, warm up and observe my hand when surfing. I've also just ordered the more expensive ergonomic keyboard since the majority of my time includes typing and programming on a keyboard.

Yeah just because you are alive and surfing doesn't mean you have improved the whole time. There is a reason there aren't too many pro surfers over the age of 30. Maybe if you didn't learn to surf till you were older then you will continue to improve for a while after 30 but then your improvement will be slower than if you were learning at a younger age and at some point you will find you can't do what you used to be able to do. Your injury is bad enough you went to a doctor for it. I think I would decline the injection but take the physical therapy. Because of this injury you may well be at that point where you can no longer do what you used to be able to do. Talk to him/her about it. As far as I know the shot provides temporary relief and if you can endure the discomfort then you will be in the same place as if you had the shot in a short length of time. So if you don't want to go downhill then you need to work hard because it will be an uphill battle to keep from going downhill

BaNZ wrote:Also for the first time I took 2 minutes to stretch out before going to bed. Wow it felt great, normally I sleep badly because I wake up feeling back pain or some kind of pain on my neck. I usually sleep on my right side as I have puppies taking up most of the bed space.

I also refuse to believe it's all going downhill from mid 30s. Humans live much longer these days and I hope I'm still surfing till I die of old age.

Actually, independent of what you do, the aging process starts in your early twenties. Not fast and not affecting everything. That is not something you can stop. Medicine and better inisghts helped a lot to keep people fitter, but only if you apply those insights. I am now fitter than I was at 35. That is mainly because I do much more sport and am 20kg lighter, I wish I had made that change earlier. 35 is an age when you still can influence a lot. What is dangerous is that at that age you often still don't feel the impact of bad habits when it comes to eating, sitting, not moving enough (unless you gained weight). But over time, and gradually, tendons, joints etc loose their fluditiy, muscles harden easier and sitting shortens muscles and tendons, bad food clogs your arteries, even if you don't see it on the scale.

I am with you on rejecting cortison, that should be the very last resort. But I would agree to take Physiotherapy. Better to have someone seeing and guiding you - a forum can't do that .

When I had my clinic the patients I got the best results from at any age were those who followe the Treatment and then did a program or something like yoga or Pilates that made the body flexible. Injury specific exercises firstly for rehab. and then strengthen. If the muscle groups around any joint are strength and function balanced, the joint is correctly position by that balance and less wear and tear on the joint occurs.
Also good muscle tone with tendon and ligament strength and elasticity helps prevent or limits injury in sport! Called conditioning, often Sport specific..

jaffa1949 wrote:So Dtc how does my 69.5 years rate, isbeing over the hill an uphill battle?

After people reach the top of the hill the downhill part is a cliff for some, a steep slope for some and a gentle meadow full of butterflies and dandelions for others.

Then there are the ones who sadly turn around and scrabble desperately and despairingly in an attempt to get back to the top. Usually by trading in their wives and four door cars

Didja know eating dandelions, can cause form of paralysis called stringholt ( if you are a horse).
Nice pasture here in Austria for Jaffa

jaffa1949 wrote:Didja know eating dandelions, can cause form of paralysis called stringholt ( if you are a horse).
Nice pasture here in Austria for Jaffa

From Australia to Austria. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-diffe ... -Australia

Australia has thousands of sandy surfing beaches. Austria has none.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry.