Hi all,
Here's my concern : Being a windsurfer for over 30 years, I like to ride with the wing fully sheeted in (or closed?).
I can't find the proper technique to reach this "full power" posture with my two arms fully extended (like in windsurf).
I fact my rear arm has to bend a lot in order to close the wing.
Repeated sessions triggered an elbow tendonitis I can't get rid of.

I've been using a F-one swing 4,2 for about 6 month now and I like most features of it.
I've only had brief tries with other wings (Duotone and Naish) and it was before my elbow started to ache.
So I can't tell if this is specific to the Swing.
Would an extra external handle solve this problem (i'm 183cm / 6ft tall)?
What do you think?

The ? good" news is : due to home confinement measures in Europe, I'll have time to rest my arms.
Hardly satisfying.

Try a 5

Elbow tendinitis can occur with any repetitive activity that involves the forearm muscles. It comes in various forms such as "tennis elbow", "golfers elbow", etc. Treatment is rest, stretching and strengthening of the forearm muscles.

I thought the F-One Wing came with harness lines. Are you not using them? If not, maybe it's time to start and take some strain off your forearms.

I'm so happy right now not to have to wear a harness!
But you're right this might definitely be a solution.

I know it sounds like blaming the gear for my bad habits but I can't help thinking the efficency of the Swing could be improve.
"high propulsion with low muscle energy".
I'm curious to have Duotone users feetback : can you maximise the wing traction without bending the rear arm?

I havent winged since January. I got so addicted, went so hard I ended up with arm and hand pain so bad I would stay up at night. I was really unfit and have hit the gym since slowly building muscle but being careful.

I'm really hesitant to start again, I'm hoping it was tendonitis not early onset rheumatoid arthritis. Sux as I have a 6m Gong Dong almost about to be delivered.

I got it bad after winging 6 months. I now use a harness and it's gone away.

Hi mate. I treat multiple people a week with TE. I have found 9/10 times it's due to lats being over worked, NOT forearm. by what your saying as your "sheeting in", that's using your lats. If your getting wrist and hand pain then sure that will be coming from the forearm. But if it's elbow pain, it's more then likely coming from your back or shoulder.get the foam roller out and smash your lats and you should be good as gold.

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kemp90 said..
Hi mate. I treat multiple people a week with TE. I have found 9/10 times it's due to lats being over worked, NOT forearm. by what your saying as your "sheeting in", that's using your lats. If your getting wrist and hand pain then sure that will be coming from the forearm. But if it's elbow pain, it's more then likely coming from your back or shoulder.get the foam roller out and smash your lats and you should be good as gold.

i agree wholeheartedly :)

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Pierre74 said..
I'm so happy right now not to have to wear a harness!
But you're right this might definitely be a solution.

I know it sounds like blaming the gear for my bad habits but I can't help thinking the efficency of the Swing could be improve.
"high propulsion with low muscle energy".
I'm curious to have Duotone users feetback : can you maximise the wing traction without bending the rear arm?

There is room for improvement in Wing designs as most of the wings currently on the market suffer from the "back-hand overly sheeted in" syndrome. I've been part of a team testing some proto-types and it was one of the issues that we focussed on. Next gen wings will improve in this respect.

The only time I got tennis elbow was from my very short windsurfing career on a 25 dia boom the narrow grip caused the issue . I've never had it since but very hard to get rid of initially . What helped me was straightening my arm out and bending my hand backwards unassisted . It works really and you can also buy a ball with bands that go around you fingers to put on more pressure. Works extremely well (see attached pic) My opinion is the very narrow grip on the Handel on the wings is the issue.

re the wings I've been fortunate enough to test the new Duotones . Echo light weight boom and Unit boomless . Both amazing new wings with so much more start power and now smooth control wings with no more rag dolling . These wings have a very stiff sheet with very little luff combined with a tamer leading edge make these new wings absolute game changers and super light even with the boom . I'm a long time rider of the std Duotone boom and found the pressure on the back arm is much less on the boom compared to the handles even on the new wings . Regardless of wing brand you still need to twist your hand and grip hard on the narrow handles . Plenty of riders have no issue but if you are prone tennis elbow issues this will contribute to it.

If your rear arm is bent try moving your front hand further back.. I found doing this lets me wingding more straight armed like I do when windsurfing..

My 6m Naish Wing-Surfer is so well balanced with my front hand on the third handle from the front and my rear hand is on the second rear handle.

I got rid of my golfer and tennis elbows doing push ups on my fists , got them from windsurfing and supping in the past.

I have been winging almost every day the last 4 months and have no problems until now using F-one swings....

Folks, please use common sense if you have the type of elbow pain we are discussing. It is pretty simple. The forearm muscles attach at the 2 bony points on your elbow, the epicondyles. This attachment is a relative weakness in the human body (as is the carpel tunnel, appendix, lower back, etc, etc) so if you over work the forearm muscles repeatedly, that attachment will get inflammed and painful=epicondylitis. The treatment is rest, stretching, and then forearm strengthening. Claims of benefits from treating other parts of the body for epicondylitis are a combination of placebo effect and rest (while you are getting these treatments, you are resting your forearm muscles).

Pain while using a particular brand of Wing ding does not necessarily mean a design flaw. Your particular anatomy, fitness and how you handle a specific wing all come into play.

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Camarillo said..
I got rid of my golfer and tennis elbows doing push ups on my fists , got them from windsurfing and supping in the past.

I have been winging almost every day the last 4 months and have no problems until now using F-one swings....

+1 on pushups. 100 a day keeps my neck and elbows sweet

Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Makes sense that there's more to it than just the forearms.
I have plenty of time right now to work on stretching and pushups.
Sounds less fun though.

I wen't for the Swing to get something completely different from the windsurf gear I know.
Sure I'll pay more attention to ergonomics when looking for a future upgrade.
The Swing offers very limited options for moving your arms around and find the most efficient posture.

On this picture, I feel like I'm the rider on the right with the Naish
And I'd much rather hold my wing like A.Aguerra in the background ;-)

Don't poo poo the harness.

The gen 2 wings smoke the gen 1. I have tasted the future. I'm going so freaking fast upwind and heeling the board to windward like a kite foil racer. I'm thinking the little kite foils, on wing board, just might be in our future. Performance is going to be off the charts, and as that happens the harness will be required.

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DWF said..
Don't poo poo the harness.

The gen 2 wings smoke the gen 1. I have tasted the future. I'm going so freaking fast upwind and heeling the board to windward like a kite foil racer. I'm thinking the little kite foils, on wing board, just might be in our future. Performance is going to be off the charts, and as that happens the harness will be required.

Please tell us about the gen 2 wings you have tried.

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Pierre74 said..
Thanks for all the feedbacks.
Makes sense that there's more to it than just the forearms.
I have plenty of time right now to work on stretching and pushups.
Sounds less fun though.

I wen't for the Swing to get something completely different from the windsurf gear I know.
Sure I'll pay more attention to ergonomics when looking for a future upgrade.
The Swing offers very limited options for moving your arms around and find the most efficient posture.

On this picture, I feel like I'm the rider on the right with the Naish
And I'd much rather hold my wing like A.Aguerra in the background ;-)

Here's a video showing how you should be using a wing.

I got elbow tendonitis a few years ago from kiting. In addition to everyone else's good suggestions consider your diet. Im not going to say what to eat or not to eat but search for inflammatory foods and see which of those foods you can cut back on as well as adding anti inflammatory foods to your diet. This is what I believe solved my problem. Good luck.

I've got the same issue whenever I foil, SUP or wing. The issue is inflamed tendons, from my WORK habits, not my surf habits. Posture and RSI. It's bloody painful, especially if I bang my elbow on something like a door frame!

The fix for winging is to actually to fix your work problem. Stretch and strengthen, and improve posture. And take a course of 5 days voltaren. That's what my physio told me. It does get better if you focus on it.

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Pierre74 said..
Hi all,
Here's my concern : Being a windsurfer for over 30 years, I like to ride with the wing fully sheeted in (or closed?).
I can't find the proper technique to reach this "full power" posture with my two arms fully extended (like in windsurf).
I fact my rear arm has to bend a lot in order to close the wing.
Repeated sessions triggered an elbow tendonitis I can't get rid of.

I've been using a F-one swing 4,2 for about 6 month now and I like most features of it.
I've only had brief tries with other wings (Duotone and Naish) and it was before my elbow started to ache.
So I can't tell if this is specific to the Swing.
Would an extra external handle solve this problem (i'm 183cm / 6ft tall)?
What do you think?

The ? good" news is : due to home confinement measures in Europe, I'll have time to rest my arms.
Hardly satisfying.

Struggled with this from the 80s windsurfing 00s kitesurfing. Only solution is straight arms so a bit over powered is better. No issues with wingding yet

How's the progress. Any good results?

I rode with straight arms for 6 months because I know better. Didn't matter. I still got tendinitis. 66 year old tendons.

Harness is the solution.

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PeterP said..


There is room for improvement in Wing designs as most of the wings currently on the market suffer from the "back-hand overly sheeted in" syndrome. I've been part of a team testing some proto-types and it was one of the issues that we focussed on. Next gen wings will improve in this respect.

Glad to read that this particular point is beeing taken into account for Gen2 wings.
Any "hint" on the brand you've been testing for?

On the pushup/stretching front, it's all good!
I got my daily exercise routine pretty dialed now and it works!
By the way, I fount out it was a golf-elbow I was suffering from...
Another thing that may have helped : I haven't been into the water for over a month now (not my choosing).
And it seems that we're good for another 4 dry weeks here in France.