Low Back Pain Fix for Surfers

I hadn’t surfed in over 7 months.

Yes, you read that correctly. The “surf strength coach” guy hadn’t surfed in over 7 months.

Life necessities, travel requirements, seeing family in Colorado, it all culminated in a 7 month long dry spell.

Literally, not a single time in that duration did I touch a surfboard.

What’s also relevant to know is that I have a pretty jacked up lower back and neck. Years of sport, accumulated injuries, lifting like a moron in my 20’s, and a life well-lived have lent their fair share of injuries and spinal pathologies. My MRI reads as if I’m a candidate for surgery. I HAVE to “stay on top” of my back health and durability, and if I neglect it, the pain WILL come back, especially with lots of surfing..

So 7 months of no surfing, and I’ve got 3 months of coaching camps in the Mentawais starting in February of 2024. I needed to be ready, not only for the onslaught of surfing that was about to commence, but the simple need of not having a back flare up during a coaching camp. Come on!… I’m that surf strength coach dude… I should know what I’m doing.. haha 🙂

I began specific trip prep in October of 2023, and for the most part I stay on top of my overall back health with the use of ELDOA, stretching, core training, and other stuff I’ve found to be relevant for my particular issues.

If you surf, you need ELDOAs, they’re a key to long term back health and durability ——> Surfers Back Solution🌊

But here’s where it all went to shit…. And resulted in the worst back flare up I’ve had in 2 years during my 2nd surf back in Bali, 10 days before our first coaching boat trip. This flare up was so gnarly that I had to spend an entire day laying on my back staring up at the ceiling, as any movement, or standing in the field of gravity (being upright) caused gnarly pain.

I have no doubt that this will resonate with you (if you’ve had back issues), you’ll learn a few things regarding my flare up, how I dealt with it, and what I did to move forward and get back to surfing quite quickly.

My flare up also perfectly demonstrates that accumulation of stressors that result in flare ups, meaning there are series of life events that stress the structure of the body, or the nervous system, that eventuate in a back flare up. Tying a shoelace and flaring up your back is a common example of this. Folks will often blame the bending to tie the shoe as the catalyst, but that was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, after an accumulation of potentially years of stressors.

So here’s my flare up story, the accumulation of stress events, and my recovery.

In November I got mold-bombed. You’re probably scratching your head on this one…

Long story exceptionally short, I’m one of the unlucky humans that is EXCEPTIONALLY sensitive to mold and various environmental allergens. This began with not only a child-hood of living in Florida, where nearly everything has some type of mold, but also living in Bali and then Australia in homes with Stachybotrys (that’s the really really bad black mold). So I react terribly to nearly all molds nowadays.

So I’m in an Airbnb in Colorado and I get hammered with mold. It must have been in the AC duct system and I turned the heater on. Fumes!

I’m a full mess, brain fog, my guts go weird, extreme fatigue, systemic inflammation… a pile of a wasted human.

Needless to say this halted trip-prep training.

I got out of the Airbnb, into a mold-free house, and started to recover, but it often takes me a few weeks to feel like a physically capable human again.

Around mid-December I’m starting to feel better and beginning to get back into some training with a bit of intensity.

The next bout of crappy luck came with a food-poisoning from an Indian food joint. It crippled me for 24 hours. Death 🙂

The bad thing about this is that it flared up a previous Gastritis issue I had gotten the year before from a bacterial infection during some gnarly overseas travel.

Gastritis SUCKS. Because of this severely inflamed and painful stomach, I had to heavily curtail training due to my inability to consume enough calories over a number of weeks.

I know, this sounds like bullshit, but it’s a true story and an unfortunate run of bad-luck events, and goes to show how a low back pain flare-up is generally a culmination of events.

So December…. Training is pretty minimal because my muscular system is just weakened from my gastrointestinal system, and I just can’t handle more physiologic stress or inflammation.

It’s now January and I’m on a plane in 4 weeks headed for Indonesia.

I’m back in Florida by this time and starting to do some minimal training, consisting of Cardio, ELDOA for my lower back and neck (check out the Surfers Back Solution program), and specific training for my upper body to prep tissues and muscles for paddling.

January 21st I had to fly down to the Dominican Republic for 6 days of learning from Guy Voyer, the insanely brilliant osteopath who in fact created ELDOA.

[bp_quote author=”” text=”ELDOA stands for Elongation Longitudinaux Avec Decoaption Osteo Articulaire, or LOADS (Longitudinal Osteo-articular De-coaptation Stretching). ELDOA are postural exercises that you can do yourself with the primary goal being to increase the space within a chosen articulation. As the ELDOA “create” space, there is an improvement in joint mechanics, increased blood flow, reduced pressure on the discs, a reduction of pain, spinal disc rehydration, better muscle tone, improved posture, and a sense of well being and awareness.” style=”block”][/bp_quote]

It was an amazing experience, but guess what….. more bad luck.

Another BIG mold-bomb.

The first day I walk into the facility where they’re holding the course, I immediately smell damp mustiness. That’s my alarm signal, and I’m spot on correct about 85% of the time.

By day 4 of 6 I was again a full fledged inflamed, mast-cell activated, brain fogged, delirious human.

**Again, bear in mind I’m hypersensitive. Most people were just complaining of a stuffy nose, whereas my body goes into full fledged hyper-vigilant immune system reaction, and shuts down numerous bodily restorative functions because it thinks it’s fighting for survival.

By day 6 I was a zombie, and getting on a plane back to Florida.

Keep in mind that I’m mold-bombed (again… a severe physiologic stress), sitting in a class room for 8-10 hours a day for 6 days, and then sitting on planes back to Florida.

To top it all off I’m back on airplanes to Indonesia 2 days later!

Huge timezone changes, 40+ hours of sitting in planes and airports… Orlando, Dubai, Bali…. Over 40 hours of travel.

And finally I’m in Bali with a body that is just trying to recuperate and stabilize its systems.

Do you think my muscles and ligaments around my spine were ready for heavy surfing!?!?!

Of course not.

That much travel, sitting in planes and airports, combined with all the classroom time, and major disruption to the circadian rhythms, that alone is enough to inflame a body and bring about vulnerability to a “fragile” low back.

Add in all the other health stress I had accumulated, which halted efficient trip prep training, and I’m a perfect recipe to blow a back out.

It’s now my first surf back in Bali on a fun wave up the west coast. I opt for a buddies 6 4”, so I can just cruise on it like it’s a Cadillac, rather than hopping on my tiny 5 8” twinny or 5 10” shortboard.

***That’s actually a big tip for my low back crew out there. If you’ve not surfed for a bit, really bump up your length by a substantial amount, and your volume by 2-4 liters. It will take stress off the spine and help ease into your surfing.

It was a fun surf, nothing too strenuous, but walking back to the scooter I could feel a bit of tension in my right low back area around the QL attachments.

I go do my ELDOA and stretching process to keep my spine happy, and chill for the rest of the day.

Day 2, a bit of stiffness which was expected, but nothing too bad. My right low back is talking to me a bit, but nothing severe. I stretch it out, get warmed up, and it’s feeling “ok”.

We hop in for a surf, and I can suddenly feel how out of shape I am.

The paddle fatigue was nuts. I felt like a beginner surf-tourist battling white-wash and never having paddled before.

I felt like I hadn’t surfed in 7 months… oh wait…. I hadn’t 🙂

Gassed, out of breath, and that right side low back keeps tightening up….

I do one really good turn surprising myself, which a buddy even complimented me on, and I felt the tweak happen. Uh-oh. I keep surfing…

I surf for about an hour, and on my walk back to the scooter I know my back is pissed.

It progresses in pain through the day, resulting in me walking around like a stiff old man. You know the feeling unfortunately.

I run through my protocols, but I know the damage is already done. It’s time to see how bad the spasm and pain is going to get. I know I can’t immediately relieve this flare-up, so it’s going to come down to how quickly I resolve it.

The next morning is pretty rough.

I don’t have any nerve pain thankfully, but I have a severely pissed off back. My favored pain-free position is laying on my back with my legs elevated to take the pressure off the sacral base and my pissed of L3 L4 L5 low back segments.

Breathing feels good for it.

Moving around and walking… not so much. In fact, it feels terrible.

I have to be on a boat coaching surfers in about 10 days. Time to get to work!

Low-back Pain & Surfers – Pain Reduction

The first priority in MY scenario is to stop pissing off the tissues.

**I say MY scenario because this is what works for me. I have no idea of your particular pathology or pain driver. Some of this may be relevant, some of it may not. What is relevant is the post-pain training which I’ll touch upon later in this article, and you can learn in detail in the Surfers Back Solution. However this immediate “in-pain, here’s what I did” process is for ME, and may or may not apply to you. Consult with your physician… or hire me 🙂

If there is pain, there is inflammation. Inflammation of tissue generally equates to pain. When using the term tissues, I’m referring to anything and everything. It could be muscle, ligament, disc, facet joints, nerves…. Tissues and structures of the body.

I need to bring down inflammation and help to reduce pain, fast.

It’s time to CHILL.

I proceed to lay on my back for the majority of the day.

Not only does this inhibit unnecessary movement, but it gets my spine out of the field of gravity. Gravity is compression. It is a vertical line of force driven down through the body which should be dispersed by the spine and its various tissues and architectures.

If there is an acute pain issue and tissue trauma, gravity can “worsen” things because the inherent stabilizing structures of the spine aren’t quite doing their job and muscles are going into protective contracture, known as spasm!.

I’m also eating anti-inflammatories. Despite however “holistic” you may be, there is most certainly a time and a place for pharmaceuticals. Allow those chemicals to do their job and stop rampant inflammation so I can get back into movement, because movement is medicine.

My primary interventions will include ELDOA’s, but first I need to just chill and get everything to calm down. I utilize the L5S1 ELDOA posture, but with my knees softened as much as needed to make my back feel good, and no strong effort. I simply lay there, relax, and allow my spine to lengthen.

I will stay in this posture for 10-20minutes at a time, allowing my spine to “decompress”, and relaxing my nervous system with calm breathing. I’m doing this multiple times a day. This also supports pumping of the tissues via diaphragmatic contraction (breathing).

This “chill” L5S1 posture is not “active”. It’s the same posture as what you’ll see in the video below, but it’s calm, non-tensioned, and completely relaxed.

Again, the video is the active L5S1 exercise, which should be an integral component of your training and back-health intentions, but at this current stage of pain it’s likely too intense.

I have seen the L5S1 ELDOA eliminate peoples low back discomfort. It should be a commonly used, implemented, and practiced exercise in all athletes and especially ALL surfers. Our sport, and our modern day lives create optimal scenarios for back problems, and an L5S1 ELDOA, if done well, is a juggernaut at improving spine durability and restoring function.

The L5S1 ELDOA, and also the L4L5 and L3L4 ELDOA’s are vital mainstays in my personal practice, and they likely should be in yours as well.

Learn them in the 👉 Surfers Back Solution program.

Getting Out of Back Pain – Breath

Breathe.

The act of intentional and specific breathing not only pumps the tissues of the “core”, but if done in a particular manner can elicit a contraction of all of the spinal stabilizing muscles.

When pain is present, the nervous system actively inhibits muscle function. Some things spasm in an effort to protect, and often small muscles that provide stability to the spine stop functioning optimally.

Part of my process in dealing with this flare up is to pump tissues to push fluids in and out of tissues, bringing in necessary nutrients for repair, but to also get my ISSS (integrated spinal stabilizing system) firing again to induce IAP (intra-abdominal pressure). This is done with DNS, Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization methods.

Fancy acronyms for getting my core to work in order to support and stabilize my spine.

I incorporate this style of breathing into both my L5S1 chill posture, and also laying on my stomach.

For me, when pain was hyper-acute, the most comfortable position to perform this DNS style breathing was laying on my back. By the second day I could progress to laying on my stomach, which is obviously a crucial posture since I needed to be laying on a surfboard in just a week or so.

I was using this specific type of breathing off and on throughout the day. The more I can pump tissues the better.

Surfers and Low Back Pain – Micromovement in a Pool

Get in a pool!

I’ve already mentioned how gravity loads the spine and can exacerbate pain symptoms in an acute flare up.

Well, what happens when you get into water? You float! You decompress and offload pressures being placed on the spine! This is an amazingly helpful tool and can be of huge benefit when dealing with acute pain.

Being in a pool offers an opportunity to begin incorporating movement to not only begin contracting muscle tissues, but again, an opportunity to pump tissues.

Movement is medicine!

On day 2 of my flare up I started implementing micromovements of 100% pain free flexion and extension of the spine.

I knew I didn’t have a severe disc issue, and that my pain was perhaps some disc irritation, but not neural impingement (thankfully), but quite likely a highly pissed off facet joint.

I knew I needed to begin pumping the facet joints of the lumbar spine, but to do so with a focus on flexion rather than extreme extension (for now). This helps to “open” up the facet joint, but as repeatedly mentioned, pump tissues.

Think of flexion as rounding as if you’re going into a yoga Childs pose, and extension being the arched position of the spine when paddling.

I would only move as much as I could with nearly 100% pain free range of motion, which would increase over the coming days. The available pain free motion may be minimal, just a few millimeters perhaps, but its a start! I would do this in the pool with up to 50 reps at a time. High rep, higher volume, pain free range, all in an effort to pump tissues and restore movement.

I had to eventually regain the capacity to extend (arch) my spine, because I needed to be able to paddle, but for now I simply needed to reduce pain, further decompress the irritated facet joint via small amounts of flexion, and get all the tissues to CHILLLLLLLLLLLL.

Being in a pool takes the spine out of the field of gravity, so it’s a great opportunity to introduce movement on a de-loaded spine.

Over time the range of motion of the flexion / extension will begin to increase and you’ll begin restoring the much needed spine mobility. As surfers, you need full access to spinal extension and flexion.

Surfers Low Back Pain Solution – Out of Acute Pain

What is outlined above was a large portion of what I did for 3 days, and it yielded amazing results.

Getting out of gravity in the pool, and laying on my back.

The chill L5S1 posture.

DNS style breathing in various positions and progression into core activation movements.

Micro-movements of the lumbar spine, both on dry land as well as the pool.

The acute pain had subsided, and what was left was a dull ache. I could walk pain free, but had to be intentional with my spine position, aware of my breathing and core-function, and careful with my foot strike when walking. I couldn’t risk jarring my low back, or placing it into a compromised position.

Since I was out of acute pain, and was also on a timeframe, I had a lot of work to still do and needed to implement more exercises to regain full function.

At this point surfing was 100% out of the picture. It was simply too much load, too much extension, and too much demand on the spine. But I needed to begin implementing exercises that loaded the spine towards the direction of surf function.

Eldoa – The Surfers Back Solution

ELDOA: At its fundamental intention, it is a method of exercise intended to decompress and make space at a specific vertebral segment.

Compression, or the forcing together of two objects, is generally causative of pain in the spine.

Think of the arched paddling posture of surfing, and sustaining it for prolonged hours. That sustained extension compresses certain structures of the spine, potentially creating tension, muscle spasm, and compression of joint structures (facet joints), or even foramen (hole) where the nerve exits the spine.

The opposite of this extension would be flexion. Consider the position of sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day. Tuck the tailbone under and slouch the low back, now collapse the upper back, round the shoulders, and jut the head forwards. All the while gravity is weighing down on your spine and all of its inherent structures. This is another form of compression. Compression of discs, the potentiation of disc bulges, and possible irritation of nerve roots.

A large majority of spinal pathologies, injuries, and pain generators are rooted in some form of compression.

ELDOA is a fully-integrative, fascially oriented, exercise that aims to undo compression, establish proper posture of the spinal column, and develop a robust low back (and the rest of the spine).

The magic of ELDOA is that it is specific to a vertebral segment.

Let’s say you know that you have a problem at L4L5, and L3L4, as this was the case for me actually.

There is an ELDOA for L4L5, aimed at decompressing that spinal unit and its associated joints.

There is an ELDOA for L3L4. ——> The Surfers Back Solution

There is an ELDOA for every specific segment of the spine. This is an incredible exercise potential, for not only having a pain-free spine, but also maintaining longevity in the sport of surfing.

Over the next several days, and for the entire duration of our surf coaching camps….. ELDOA EVERYDAY!

I’m not kidding in the slightest. E.V.E.R.Y.D.A.Y!

I had a pre-surf routine that consisted of Osteo-articular warmups, which you can learn in the Surfers Back Solution program. This is a warmup process that targets specific joints (hips, SI joint, facet joints, knees, shoulder joint), and prepares them for movement.

I had a post-surf routine that consisted of ELDOA’s for my particular low back issue, as well as Myofascial Stretches to further release muscular tension around my vulnerable low back.

I finished everyday… EVERYDAY… with an L5S1 ELDOA.

And most importantly, I paid close attention to my back, its symptoms, its recovery, its tenderness, its feelings of robustness, and modified my surfing, my stretching, and my ELDOA-ing based on how it felt.

I surfed for the next 8 weeks, non-stop, with not a single flare up.. and got absolutely SHACKED 🙂

If you’re a surfer with a spine, you need to invest in the knowledge of ELDOA. They have the power to save your surfing. ——> The Surfers Back Solution