Surf injury prevention
Prepare yourself to enjoy the best of surfing and perform at your best! Here, we have gathered numerous exercises to strengthen your body and thereby let you reduce injures.
The professional clinical team of medical doctors and physical therapists of Surfing Medicine International have collected best clinical evidence on injury prevention exercises that will help you to optimize your warm-up before a surf session.
You will get stronger, become more flexible, improve your breathing technique, and prevent common surfing injuries related to chronic overuse and muscular imbalance.
... but why do we all need a proper warm-up?
Surfers perform a large number of repetitive movements, using core and upper as well as lower body muscle power. Almost 1/3 of all surfers will suffer from an injury each year: most of those injuries will be related to paddling, wave riding, and miscellaneous activities like duck-diving, wading and swimming takes.
A good warm-up will help you to prepare the body both physically and mentally for what’s to come and help prevent injuries. Injury prevention exercise training and load management will reduce your risk of injury and help you perform better. You will also find more information on other pages of fittoplay.org.
3 levels of injury prevention exercises
The first level exercises are focused on warming up and training purposes when common training facilities are limited. You can do the quick version of level 1 before your surf session, right at the beach. Alternatively, you can use the level 1 exercises as general part of your general strength and conditioning training. The levels 2 and 3 are designed for more intense training of surf specific characteristics: mobility, stability, strength, breathing technique.
While following the injury prevention program, focus on performing the exercises with proper technique before you progress to heavier exercises. Make sure that you put emphasis on what your body needs (more mobility?/ stability?/ strength?) and feel free to combine exercises of all levels (when ready).
Click below to download your program:
More information on Surfing Medicine International.