Lower back pain during surfing

Lower back pain during surfing.

You may recognize lower back pain while surfing.

That is not good!

Lower back pain can have many causes.

If you chronically suffer from lower back pain, I advise you to contact a physiotherapist.

But if you experience lower back pain while surfing after some time, I have a very good tip.

Often you hear that stretching as well as strengthening your (lower)back muscles is good to do. And that is so true.

We also know strengthen the core is important. And that is what you probably do in a daily/weekly work-out.

But despite a trained core, one can completely overlook the use of the core while paddling.

Too often, you see that only the upper body is active while paddling.  The upper body curled up and the rest remains relaxed on the surfboard. If you do so, then you will experience a lot of tension on the lower back. And keeping this position in a two hours surf session the pain in your lower back will call you off.

On a longboard you can relax the lower body easier and therefore using your core, can easily be overlooked. So, special attention to longboarders.

It’s no problem to float relax on your board with the upper body curled up and the lower body relaxed waiting on a wave.

But once you get active, don’t forget to make the core and buttocks active when you start paddling.

If you don’t that, there will be more pressure on your spine in your lower back. The vertebrae in your lower back are pressed together in a too sharp angle. At some point, that will hurt and in the long run, your cartilage between your disks will wear out between your vertebrae.

On a picture it looks like this:

“WRONG”

How can you ensure that you protect your lower back and therefore don’t get lower back pain and even abstain from wear?

Two important things you should do are:

1. Bracing

2. Tighten buttocks

When you can brace your core and activate the buttocks you lift the lower back a bit. With strengthening the core, buttocks and even the hamstrings, the pressure of arching the back will be distributed over the whole lower body part. This way you can keep your spine constantly in a neutral position and will not harm your disks.

Then it will look like this:

“CORRECT”

We usually know how to tighten buttocks.

But what is bracing?

A brace is equivalent to a corset.

Your body's corset should be firm.

Core/the corset is not only your abs but all your muscles in your waist 360˚ all around.

So, those are your front abs (rectus abdominus), on the side (transversus abdominis) and your lower back muscles (multifidus). The last two mentioned are, for example, not used when you do "crunches". Which I would strongly advise against doing as abdominal muscle exercise anyway.

Bracing is a good way of breathing to strengthen your core 360˚ around the waist.

How do you “brace”?

- Put your hands on your stomach.

- Now, Breathe in and out.

- When you breathe in, both your stomach and your chest expand, give extra attention to the belly.

- If you do not feel one of the two expand, make sure that you breathe both to your stomach and to your chest.

Now bracing:

- Breathe in

- And with an exhalation, you say Tssss…. (Bring your tongue to your palate)

- If you now put your hands on your belly you will feel that your abdominal muscles are getting hard and expand a little. (not as much as in the previous, relaxed, breathing).

- While exhaling, prick your finger around the entire corset. So, abs on the front, side and lower back. Do you feel them all getting hard? Then you are bracing well.

How do you apply that while surfing?

With every stroke, you paddle you say “tssss”…. And also tighten your glutes. (Then you also train for beautiful buttocks;))

So, when you are paddling, I should hear you say, ” tsss.. “(left arm in the water), “tsss.. “(right arm in the water), “tsss...” (left), and so on.

Also, you lie more stable on your board now, so your weight doesn’t move sides ways while paddling. You paddle faster and more powerful and efficient.

What not to do: retract your belly button!

Unfortunately, this is an outdated principle that is still too often used by “professionals”.

By pulling your belly button towards your spine, extra tension is placed on your lower back, which you want to prevent.

With shortboarders you see this less because they have to make sure that their feet do not touch the water, so as a shortboarder automatically you to tighten your legs and therefore your buttocks to keep your feet in the air. But they also benefit from good breathing, so bracing, for a good core use.

In the video below, I will show how your paddle should look like. I’m not activation my buttocks enough, so keep in mind to squeeze the glutes well to get a bit more lift in the lower back. This will help to keep your spine in neutral position and therefore save you from pain.

If you have any questions about this please leave a message in the comments and I will answer them as soon as possible.