Surfing Waves

I injured my upper back muscle from a bad fall before I first picked up a surfboard. I guess it never fully healed. Nowadays after every surf session, in the week that follows, I feel strains/tightness/some pains in the upper back muscles.

Wondering if this is typical in surfers or if the pains are really due to unhealed muscle groups.

I occasionally have muscle pain in my upper back related to my rotator cuff problem. It happens when I aggravate my injury that somehow apparently unrelated muscles (not rotator cuff muscles) become sore. To help resolve this quicker I take a tennis ball in a pillow case and standing with my back next to a wall I drop the ball holding the pillow case to guide it and hold it in place I find all the sore spots and lean into the ball so that it presses into the sore spots. I push into that spot for 30 seconds to a minute then find another one. Back when I started doing this it took me 15 minutes to do this but now just a minute or two of searching and finding not much

Im sure every injury is different, I have upper back issues from my job, netting fish over a high railing - but surfing/paddling doesn't have any negative effect on my back.

Be sure you're using correct paddling technique.

Look up ‘surfers neck’. - may not be what you have but it sounds similar - the pain might be In the neck but can also be in the upper back for exactly the same reasons

Plenty of online suggestions re treatment and mitigation including the tennis ball suggested by old man