Stretches for Surfers – Upper Body

Stretches for Surfers – Upper Body

Joint Health & Movement Drills

Movement. That’s the key.

Modern living doesn’t require it. Convenience of technology has taken out the need to use your body. No longer do people have to move 3-dimensionally in their day to day living.

Then you combine that complete lack of movement, the lack of joint mobility, the lack of awareness of how to even move your body, with surfing, and that will create problems. 

You gotta move man! If you can’t, some pain problems can potentially arise, and those suck. Or if not pain, then you’re severely limiting your potential.

If you can’t move well, you can’t be strong in dynamic positions, and that will lead to a lack of power, or movement capacity.

If you can move well, if you can be strong in movement, then you have more potential.

You throw that potential onto your time in the water, and it allows for an “athletic buffer”. Your body has the capacity to move the way you want it to, and surfing requires a lot of movement.

Again, movement, that’s the key. Keep reading and watch the video, you’ll get a list of Stretches for Surfers focusing on the Upper Body, and how to restore movement.

A huge commonality we see (coaches, clinicians, trainers), is a lack of movement, and pain arising from it.

Your neck hurts? Maybe that’s because you can’t move your thoracic spine, and you only breathe with your neck.

Does your shoulder hurt? Maybe that’s because you don’t know how to move your scapula on the rib cage.

Stretches for Surfers – Upper Body Warmup & Joint Mobility

• Rib Rolls
• Thoracic Spine Mobility
• Self Assessment of Shoulder Range of Motion
• Scapular Movement on the Ribs
• Crawling
• Crawl Rotations / Thoracic Bridges
• Downward Dogs / Yoga Pushups

I want you to move. Start with the basics and simply reorient yourself with your body.

Establish the basic movement of the scapula on the ribs, and improving rotation of the thoracic spine and ribs, and then progress into more dynamic movement.

Explore new ranges of motion, and become strong in them.

If you can be stronger in more positions, and allow your nervous system to experience those new ranges of motion, and be safe and pain free in them, it’s building that “athletic buffer”.

This isn’t hard folks, but it does require time. There’s no quick fixes, but you can make dramatic changes over time. It just take consistent application. Consistent movement.

If you want to get more out of your body, continue to improve, and stay durable despite increased age, you better keep moving.

-cris