Surfing Waves

Hi guys,

I've been surfing for about a month and I try to go out as often as I can. I'm over the whitewash phase and in the process of learning how to catch green waves ... I still nose dive/wipeout pretty much 95% of the time, but there's progress every once in a while!

Now over a week ago I started feeling this jabbing pain in my upper right ribs. I quickly realized must be related to something that happened during surfing, since the pain is worst when paddling, popping up or sitting up on the board. I'm pretty sure it's not a cracked rib since that would probably hurt much more especially when I'm not surfing. Has anyone had a similar experience to this? Can you pull a muscle like that during surfing? I do stretch and warm up a bit before going in but I guess that wasn't quite sufficient. It's really annoying since it's been going on for over a week now and really keeps me from catching waves .. so I'd be really happy about some tips on how to best deal/get rid of such an injury.

Thanks!

Had a similar injury myself the Summer just gone. Mine was actually caused initially when one of my mates punched me acting the clown. Spent the whole Summer going through a cycle of: surf a few days, pop muscle, rest for two weeks and repeat. The long and short of it is that the intercostal muscles take bloody ages to heal, there are no shortcuts. Surfing is the one sport that seems particularly well designed to aggravate these injuries.

Do you have a lump where it's sore? I was convinced that I had broken a rib which subsequently healed with a malunion, the lump was that pronounced, but a chest x-ray ruled that out. Take it easy for a while and it will heal faster. I prolonged this process by plastering it with anti-inflammatories before each session, covering up the pain and letting me injure myself all over again. It's really not clever surfing with an injury, it can be downright dangerous.

I had something similar in the same spot. I surfed for a couple of weeks straight and one day I started getting a sharp pain in my ribs. Coughing and sneezing was brutal. Turned out to be a slipped rib. Since surfing puts alot of stress on the rib cage since it carries alot of your weight, its a common injury I found out the more i researched it. Its caused by your ribs shifting apart for a split sec and stretching the cartilage in between them causing it to inflame. Side to side motion on your ribs while paddling is bad and can cause it. Now I try to keep my body from shifting around as much as possible while paddling. Only thing for me to fix it was rest and no surfing. I was down for a couple of months. I tried to come back to early and only made it worst.

Gawd !

I have had so many twinges it's unreal. The most dullest day led to worst of twinges from trying too hard !

Relax and nurse it if in the water - it will go away - eventually !

::: Hwyl i'chi ! :::

Thanks for your opinions everyone! I never felt a lump where it's sore which is pretty much why I ruled out that it could be cracked, but it sounds like it could the same thing trifish experienced since I do remember moving sideways on the board sometimes to turn and get waves. Definitely will try to avoid that in the future. The only similar injury I had before I started surfing that's similar to this was like the standard sprained ankle, and I heard from plenty of people in sports that the healing of the ligaments can actually be accelerated when you put some force on it once in a while. This definitely seems to be different though, but anyway I guess the bottom line is to take it easy for a while ... luckily the waves where I surf have been way to huge for my level lately anyway so I don't have to feel bad about it!

Thanks again

It can also be a nerve that has been squeezed. The cure for that is pain killer and B-vitamin. Your doctor can also give injection with B-vitamin.

I got rid of some pain in the chest by using some soft padding under the wet suit.

One more possible solution is a sport physiotheapist who knows a lot of sport injury. They can be hard to find and cost 60 Euro a pop.

Just to give this post a finishing touch - it turned out to be a cracked rib. I initially stayed out of the water for about 3 weeks, came back too early and the pain was even worse than before ... so I finally went to get some x-rays done which showed the crack. Another 4 weeks break ordered from the doc but now all is as good as new ... finally pain free.

So I guess the bottom line is ribs crack a lot easier than one might think - and getting x-rays done earlier rather than late could save some injury time.

Hi There,
We hope that all is going better now. I personaly had a carcked rib 4 years ago, trying a floater. I fell on my board, and the shorey closed on me, got back and surfer a couple waves, got back to the camp and fall in the kitchen. was a broken rib, you can't do much to that but rest, got back to the water after 18 days exactly


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