Congrats to Peter Mendia Making Feb's Surfer Cover!

West Palm Beach Pro Pete at PumpHouse, Sandy Swell

 

Aerial Surfing and Injury Prevention

Preventing Ankle and Knee Injuries

Coach Craig CSCS, ACSM-CPT, CPTS

Like a viral infection, the aerial attack has swept over the surfing nation. From inverted slob grabs to the rodeo flips, air innovation has slowly crept it's way into all facets of surfing. Whether you like it or not, airs are here to stay and probably continue to march into further progression.

While surfing, surfers target their launch ramp, compress, extend, launch, and land. Air heights can vary depending on the force produced by the wave and the surfer himself. The higher you fly, the harder you will fall. Landing an air is the tricky part due to the fact that you land on a surface that is constantly changing and is unstable. Quite often our center of gravity during a landing is not centered between our feet which leads to awkward recoveries (especially if inverted or rotating in the air). Knee and ankle injuries are stacking up in numbers because of the critical landing phase of an air. Unfortunately a good sprain or strain can keep you out of the water for a good ten weeks.

How can we prevent these knee and ankle injuries from occurring?

Since no wave is ever the same, it is safe to assume that no landing will ever be exactly the same. As mentioned earlier, our center of gravity will most likely vary on every landing. But we do know one thing for a fact, that when an individual lands from jumping, their “gluteus maximus”, aka their butt or glutes, should be the primary muscle that decelerates the body while landing. Without deceleration (slowing down), we would end up flat faced on the ground.

The glutes should be responsible for taking care of deceleration, BUT yes there are other muscles that can assist. In fact the hamstrings are often referred to as the glute's "assisters". If the glutes are inhibited or weak, these hamstrings along with other muscles, have no choice but take on the most of the workload when decelerating. Since the hamstrings aren't anatomically designed to take on deceleration alone, undo stress can be transferred down to the ankle and knee joints. This stress will eventually lead to strains, sprains, or even breaks.

So point being, we must make it a priority to strengthen the glutes. It is the most powerful muscle in the lower extremity of our body. These muscles cross over one joint (the hip) thus making it a mono-articular muscle.

The glutes have several functions. First, they allow for hip extension. Without hip extension we wouldn’t be able to walk, run, or jump. The glutes also assist in lateral stabilization of the hip and knee joint. They are also responsible for external rotation of the femur. Last but not least, it allows for DECELERATION of the body.

There are tons of exercises out there to strengthen the glutes. Squats, dead lifts, or even leg presses are all great. But why not get to the meat of things and actually use an exercise that functionally trains the glutes to decelerate. Training the glutes with an exercise that mimics deceleration (like that which is used in landing airs) will provide better and faster results.

One such exercise is the reaching lunge. This particular exercise trains the glutes to decelerate from the forces of gravity. Heck you don't even need to go to a gym or need any equipment to perform it.

The video provided will give visual instructions on performing this movement. Watch the video before reading onward...

1. The first exercise is the forward reaching lunge. Now in the video I am holding a medicine ball, but if you have never performed this, go ahead and use your fingertips to reach out. The beginning position is in lunge position. Both knees are flexed and you have about one to two feet between each foot. Make sure the front foot is flat, and the back foot has the heel off the ground. Perform the exercise by reaching forward and keeping the front foot flat. Make sure not to let the front foot heel come up as it will might lead to unnecessary loading of the front knee. When the body comes forward allow the back to round and flex. The video shows me reaching almost to the floor but beginners should take caution. Start by reaching forward to hip height, then move to knee height, ankle, then eventually to the floor. It is all about progression. If it hurts or feels uncomfortable, regress to a higher point. Remember safety first.

2. The second exercise is the lateral reaching lunge. It is performed a little different from the frontal lunge. Surfers should start with the feet apart, slightly wider than the shoulders. If you look into the mirror your body should form an "A frame” with your arms on the side. Unlike the frontal lunge, both feet will be flat on the floor all throughout the movement. Remember start with reaching to hip height then slowly progress downward to the low point. Notice that the trailing leg should remain straight.

To sum up, reaching lunges are probably one of the best dynamically active and functional exercise to fire up the glutes. Since the reach is performed in the lunge position, it allows you to strengthen each side (whether the right or left glute) independently. Everybody has a weak and strong side, therefore each glute should be trained equally with this exercise. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any concerns or questions, we are happy to answer back.

Copyright 2012 Aloha Fitness of Palm Beach Company, Surf Kinetics, Kinetics Performance Corp.

A Great Dawn Patrol Dynamic Warm-up

Here is  a great video for those early risers hitting the dawn patrol. It works and it is a fully TRUE dynamic warm up! Here are three simple exercises put together to warm up all of your surfing muscles before surfing.  It allows the body to move in all three planes of movement that is found in surfing. They will target the core, shoulders, and hips. Make sure you do these at home on a hard surface. We do not recommend performing these on unstable surfaces like sand.

Here is the breakdown:
20 reps of the chopper
20 reps of rotation
20 reps of the diagonal chop

The video will demonstrate all the exercises separately. Be sure to execute these exercises slowly at first . Get used to performing these with proper form. Then when you got that down take the tempo of the exercises up a notch and keep building up speed. Speed with proper form is a key component here. You want to get at tempo that mimics the speed you demonstrate in your surfing maneuvers. We do apologize for the poor audio quality, we are currently working to fix this disaster!

If you feel any pain what so ever, STOP and consult a physician or regress the intensity of the exercises. Feel free to contact us at alohafitness73@hotmail.com .

Surfing and Ankle Flexibility

 Ankle Flexibility High performance surfing requires great ankle flexibility.  From landing airs, to massive rail-to-rail cutbacks, a healthy ankle joint is crucial for moving freely in all planes of motion. Severe stiffness in the ankle complex will limit any surfing performance unless the muscles of the ankle are properly lengthened.

The ankle complex consists of many different muscles.  These muscles work together to allow the foot to produce the four movements of the ankle that are used during surfing:

 1. flexing of the foot [Dorsiflexion]

 2. movement in the ankles that allow the toes to point [Plantar Flexion]

 3. rolling the ankles outward [Eversion]

 4. rolling of the ankles inward [Inversion]

Active Isolated Stretching [AIS] is a unique approach to stretching the ankle muscles, or any muscles for that matter, that works effectively and efficiently.  AIS uses active movement and  reciprocal inhibition to gain increased flexibility of an isolated muscle.

That is a mouthful but here's a simple exercise to see how it works:

* Lie on your back and prepare yourself for the hamstring stretch.
 * Grab a leash and loop it around one foot. We will be using the leash simply to guide the leg with our hands.
* Lift the leg straight up and towards the chest. Your quads ( front thighs ) along with your other hip flexors are the muscles contracting to bring up the leg. By contracting these hip flexors, you send neural messages to your brain which then sends them back to your hamstrings asking them to relax (reciprocal inhibition).
* When the leg gets to the point where it cannot travel up anymore, just slightly pull the leash to move the leg a little closer to the chest for assistance.

Reciprocal inhibition relaxes the muscle being stretched [the antagonist muscle] by contracting the opposing muscle [the agonist muscle].  Muscles are more apt to lengthen while relaxed. AIS uses shorter holds - about 2 seconds - unlike static stretching which involves holding a stretch for about 20 - 30.  Researchers have found that holding a stretch for longer than 10 secs triggers the "stretch reflex", an automatic body response that  causes the muscle being stretch to contract.  This phenomenon is the body’s defense mechanism for preventing muscles from being over stretched or being ripped apart.  AIS requires the stretch to be held for only 2 seconds.  The muscle then is returned to it's neutral position, and then back to the stretch again.  This process is repeated for about ten repetitions.  Holding a mild stretch for no longer than 2 secs makes it less likely that the stretch reflex will be activated.

Before surfing, the general rule of thumb would be one set of 10 repetitions on a specific muscle for a warmup before surfing.  On days when you do not surf, multiple stretching sets are great for increasing range of motion.

The video provided here shows Giorgio Gomez stretching his ankle complex with use of a rope.  The rope provides great assistance throughout the stretch exercises.  Any boat store or hardware store sells these ropes.  Remember to hold each stretch for 2 secs, no longer.  Use the rope to give about a half a pound of pressure to assist in the stretch.  You should "feel" a mild stretch;  NOT a painful and intense stretch.  Remember you are trying to avoid stimulating the stretch reflex.  Also, it is essential to contract the opposing muscle that is being stretched.  Reciprocal inhibition is the name of the game here.  AIS in time will increase the range of motion in the areas you desire, BUT it must be done on a daily basis.  Notable gains in ankle flexibility will come in time to further enhance your surfing.

Well the future of surfers training as athletes is here, but Australia has beaten us to the game (for now).

Lacey Does It Again!

Miss Flynn takes the first place seed at a stock SUP race out in Jupiter this past weekend.  Congrats to her and her ever growing medals! Kinetic Performance is preparing her for the big race out in California this September. Here we go!!!

Will standing on this help your surfing?

Balance...balance...balance.


He is actually doing a great job here.  I found this on the web while browsing.  But I do see it incorporated in a lot of surfing exercise programs out there.  Actually there are about a half dozen balance devices claiming to improve balance on a surfboard.  Unfortunately in the picture above this is a dangerous and downright ridiculous thing to do on a Stability Ball.

To put it plainly, an unskilled  surfer must spend many hours in the water to learn how to balance on a surfboard. I have yet to see any device out there that simulates balancing on water.  It's almost impossible to  mimic surfing on land in the absence of water.  Water is a 3 dimensional element, always changing.  Not to mention all the other equations that are missing  in surfing like different variables of flotation devices,  the speed at which you are traveling, the amount of energy that's behind the wave (short vs long swell periods), etc.

You want to improve your balance, get in the water, and get used to your equipment!

 For you already skilled surfers especially the competitive surfers, don't worry about training your balance in the gym.  And here is why:
The board under your feet has become stable, almost like you are standing on the ground.  Think about it...do you really worry about losing your balance while weaving down the face or performing a maneuver? You have already done all the homework, it's LANDING moves that becomes a problem , especially new tricks. Why? Because your body is put into a new position that it is not used to, thus causing an imbalance in your center of gravity.  That's where repetition after repetition comes in.



Here at Kinetic Performance, we train surfers to increase their power and responsiveness. How?

1. By focusing on making certain core muscles as tight as possible during any manuver (allowing better recoveries).
2. By unilaterally training the hip musculature to become as powerful as possible.
3. And constantly training the glute muscles to decelerate, decelerate , and decelerate!