fitness after an injury any advice

[72taz]

Hiya I'm Taz a girlie in my mid 30's I live near great beaches and love surfing well watching others anyway, I injured my back (at work) about 10 years ago and struggled with putting on weight and generally moving around, having said that I've built up the muscles in my back, had physiotherapy and have been given the all clear to begin surfing, I had lessons before the injury and could stand up all e it briefly before the injury. Both my lads surf well and I'm good at paddling my board a 7'4" Hobie mini mal which as loads of volume and suits me fine, I'm 5'4" and weigh around 12.5 -13 stone depending on the time of year I'm still losing weight slowly and steadily.

my question/problem is I find that I'm frightened (of hurting my back) or just cant pop up is there anything I can do to helpl with this any exercises to aid the transition from belly to feet or do some people just use their knee all the time I can catch waves but have a psychological/physical block to popping up

I also have a 9'6" long board would it be better to practice n that?

any help would be brilliant

Taz

[Tonylamont]

Not sure about the nature of your back injury, but I had periodic lower back spasms for years and find that working on my pop-ups has helped mine.

You will notice that a lot of the instructional videos for popping up treat it as a two step process - (1) you place your hands below your rib cage and then push up, arching your back; (2) then you pop up, bringing your feet under you. I have found the first step to be great stretching / exercise for my lower back. This is similar to the "Cobra" position in yoga. You can even do push ups that way, simply arching your back and keeping your lower body on the ground. These are great as they both stretch you back and help develop the upper body strength you need to pop up in a fluid motion.

I would work on a lot of practice popups out of the water - the more comfortable / automatic your pop-up is out of water, the easier it is when you're out surfing. I'd also generally recommend some basic yoga as it helps develop the basic flexibility and core strength you will need as a surfer. I would recommend against going to a knee in your pop-up if you can possibly avoid as: (1) it results in poor balance; and (2) can become a hard habit to break. Though as a matter of necessity, some surfers do go to their knees, particularly as they get older.

Of course, if anything I have told you contradicts what your Dr or physical therapist says, please ignore.

And I'd definitely consider learning on that 9'6" - it will be a lot easier to paddle and pop up on that than the 7'4".

[72taz]

Excellent thank you, just tried the cobra stretching you talked of and wow it feels good Think I'll work on doing that, hopefully building the upper body strenght needed, and the 9'6 it is then

Thanks much appreciated good advice

Taz