Poor paddling technique when surfing can result in injury that may have been easily preventable.
Top 3 Most Common Mistakes
- Dropped Elbow in the Front Propulsive Phase of the Underwater Armstroke
- Shoulder Pain When Paddling
- Dragging Back Half of Body and Board
Causes of These Mistakes
Problem 1: Dropped Elbow in the Front Propulsive (FP) Phase
Common cause #1: Elbow was not high upon entry
During the entry of the hand and arm into the water, if the elbow is down there are two major problems occurring. One, drag is commonly added from either dragging the hand in the water during recovery, the elbow dragging in the water during the reach forward, or a combination of these as well as other balance related issues. The second major problem occurring is that the underwater armstroke loses power when the elbow enters low. The Front Propulsive Phase of the Underwater Armstroke is where all of the power is generated in the stroke. If the elbow is low when the hand and arm enters the water, typically, the elbow stays low and is thus not able to hold as much water in the front propulsive phase. When that happens, less power is generated.
Common cause #2: Elbow high on entry, but drops when start pull
If the elbow enters high, but then the elbow drops when it is about to begin the underwater armstroke, then power is lost in the stroke for the same reason we discussed above. Half of the solution is no solution. Just because the elbow enters high doesn’t mean the elbow stays high. The elbow has a higher CHANCE of staying high, but it is all too common for surfers to drop the elbow when they begin the underwater armstroke.
Problem 2: Shoulder Pain When Paddling
Common cause #1: Enter with thumb first
When the hand enters with the thumb first, the arm has a higher probability of being in a position where impingement of the rotator cuff muscles can occur. Impingement feels like a pinching sensation and continued motions reinforcing the tendons and bursa (a lubricating sac between the rotator cuff and the bone on top of your shoulder) will cause longer term tendonitis or bursitis (ouch!). Obviously, if you have pain in your shoulder, you will lose power because it will hurt to make the same motions thousands of times during a surf. It will also cause added drag when compensating for a less painful motion.
Common cause #2: Apply force down in the Lift Phase of the underwater armstroke
Another common cause to shoulder pain that many surfers are not aware of is applying force down during the Lift Phase of the underwater armstroke (i.e. when your arm is extended in front of you). When your arm is extended in the Lift Phase and you apply force down, the primary muscles that are being used are the rotator cuff muscles. These muscles are small and commonly not developed in many people and their main purpose is to stabilize the shoulder. They are not power muscles in other words. If they are used as power muscles they are more susceptible to injury, especially if they are not developed. On top of this, they do not provide power because they are small stabilizer muscles. Therefore, applying force down in the Lift Phase increases the likelihood of major injury to these stabilizer muscles, and they don’t provide any additional power to the stroke.
Problem 3: Dragging Back Half of Body and Board
Most common cause #1: Positioned too far back and don’t know it
We all know what this looks like in the extreme case – the nose is sticking way up out of the water. But what most surfers don’t know is that even when the nose is closer to the surface of the water, you could still be too far back. When the body is positioned incorrectly on the board, we lose a lot of efficiency. It wouldn’t matter how strong or powerful we are, if we are dragging the back half of our board and body deeper in the water, we experience increased resistance and drag and then need to use more energy to move the same distance. The less drag we can incur, the easier it becomes to move through the water and therefore, the less energy we use, and that’s the whole point. Conserve energy so that we can use that energy to catch more waves and ride them the way we want.
Most common cause #2: Body is fatigued from arching back
Being far up on the board so that the board is as horizontal as possible is the most efficient way to move through the water – except when we are using a lot of energy maintaining that position. If the back is arched so that your body can be further up the board, then think of all the energy you are using maintaining that position. After a while paddling around, most surfers end up fatiguing so much that they either move back on the board or they drop their legs to rest the neck and back muscles. When either of those two occurrences happens, we end up dragging the back half of our body and board lower in the water (and thus adding more drag).
Take Home Points
Just being aware of these problems will instantly help surfers become more efficient. But imagine what it would be like to train your brain and body so that you don’t have to constantly think about it. You could go out and not worry about many of these common mistakes. Just go catch waves instead. Sound good?
How do we solve these problems? Well, I’ll leave that discussion for next time. But for now, go out and see if you are making any of these common mistakes. Just by being aware of them will help you immensely.