An investigation into the most common type of injury amongst professional surfers and their chosen modes of treatment.

Item

Title
An investigation into the most common type of injury amongst professional surfers and their chosen modes of treatment.
Author(s)
Bonzon, A
Abstract
Introduction: Competitive surfing originated in Hawaii around 1960, and it was not until the middle of the 2Oth century that interest in the competitive aspects of the sport started. The unphysiological posture adopted while paddling by the professional surfers could be the origin of some of the pain encountered on those athletes This quantitative undergraduate study investigate the origin and possible causes of this pain. Aims: - To primarily carry out an analysis and evaluation of the most common complaint of pain by professional surfers (PS). Than secondly explain the pain they are complaining of due to the change in their biomechanical posture and forces that are used during the practice Of professional surfing. Thirdly to scope what is the most common professional services used for PS when they have any kind of pain, to also see if Osteopathy is an option to deal with these problems Furthermore to create an awareness about Osteopathy in the professional surfing world And lastly to find out if PS do any kind of physical preparation to avoid any Kind of problem, and if they do, to find out exactly what the most popular form of exercises Methods: This survey used a on-line, tick box questionnaire to start with, but also PS were interviewed directly at surfing locations Further emails have been sent to France (to the person responsible for the French Federation of Surf) and Australia (to the ASP, Association of Professional Surfers), however not many responses where acquired from these emails, which can be found in appendix A The study was aiming at around 50 subjects that had to be professional surfers, either male or female between 18 and 35 years of age. Internet research was done via: SwetsWise website, Cochrane website, Google scholar and MEDLINEIPub Med Key words- “professional surfing AND/OR injuries, surfing AND/OR pain, surfing AND/OR injuries, professional surfing AND/OR osteopathy, surfing AND/OR Osteopathy. Results: from 103 responses (96 males and 7 females), the most common age range was 33-37 (33%) very close followed by 28-32 (32%). The most common area of pain was the lower back with 42 responses (40.8 %) and secondly the shoulders had 15 responses (13.6%) and thirdly the neck with 14 responses (13.5 %), then in regards to this pain we had 42 responses (40.8%) saying that the pain was mainly after surfing, but on the other hand 33 responses (31.3%) had the pain only during paddling. Furthermore from the statistical analysis the author had two tables that were statistical relevant, Table 5 showing some association with the age of PS and if they do extra training activity, and table 9 that shows that there is an association with the professional that you see if the PS heard from osteopathy before. Discussion: It is important to observe and appreciate the unphysiological posture maintained by the PS while paddling, in that position we can observe the extension that is maintained while the surfer is paddling Indeed the hyper extended position of the lumbar and cervical areas can lead to long term injury, discomfort or pain and it will be a different process for each person. However from this questionnaire the author could observe an increased presentation of lower back pain, followed by shoulder and neck pain. According to Mackinnion SE, Novak C8 (1997) "Repetition of movements does not allow muscles, tendons, or ligaments sufficient recovery time and, therefore, can damage these structures". Furthermore, the author linked those surf pains to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), this disorder generally affect the back, neck, and upper limbs, once again those areas mentioned to be common for RSI are very closely related to the most common areas affected in PS according to this questionnaire. Moreover RSI may occur as a result of sports and recreational activities once again making surfing quite likely to lead to RSI. According to Greenfield , (1989). The particular sequence in the chain and potential for injury are determined by an individual's unique neuro-muscuIo- skeletal compensatory response to altered forces on the tissues However from the paddling motion we can observe the three main complaints and relate them to the possibility of an RSI. Primarily in the lower back, all the muscles are holding the lumbar in extension. While they have to contract they also have to deal with some slight side bending and torsion required for the paddling motion, with hours and hours of repetition this could lead to RSI.
presented at
European School of Osteopathy
Date Accepted
2013
Date Submitted
20.1.2015 16:42:48
Type
osteo_thesis
Language
English
Submitted by:
62
Pub-Identifier
15439
Inst-Identifier
1229
Keywords
Surfing injuries.
Recommended
0
Item sets
Thesis

Bonzon, A, “An investigation into the most common type of injury amongst professional surfers and their chosen modes of treatment.”, Osteopathic Research Web, accessed May 17, 2024, https://www.osteopathicresearch.com/s/orw/item/725