Couldn't really find the answer anywhere else, so here goes.

When I am paddling, the places I notice pain/fatigue are the inside of my elbow (i.e., on the opposite side of my arm) and the centre of my arm immediately below the shoulder (Google search calls it my "deltoid").
In both causes the pain disappears when I get out of the water, and it is never a problem with any other activities.

Without seeing my technique, are there any suggestions as to what the cause might be?
Paddle length seems OK, but I am using an older paddle with a larger blade and this is what I suspect to be the problem, or at least contributing.

Thanks,
Scott.

You are probably right about the blade size issue. And you've probably got yourself an overuse injury.

So, I'd suggest getting a more forgiving paddle (smaller blade and more flexy shaft), and paddling less until it gets better. If you carry on paddling despite injury you'll probably end up not being able to paddle at all. This kind of injury is unlikely to go away of it's own accord. It will just get worse until you won't be able to paddle at all.

Gentle stretching and mobilising exercises can help too. A qualified physiotherapist would be able to advise you, and their advice is usually worth the money ten times over.

inside of elbow, usually referred to as golfer's elbow (Ironically paddler's elbow works well too). The forearm flexors (palm side) muscles attach right on to one bony prominence and that join can become irritated. Most common causes in SUP are gripping too hard with your bottom arm / pulling with your bottom arm. Try to really relax the fingers on the bottom arm gripping the paddle and really work on 'sinking the paddle' with your top arm in the stroke. That deltoid area pain is the classic area you can get pain with a few things such as bursitis / impingement, rotator cuff tear or tendinopathy, a C5 nerve root impingement and bout another 10 things!!! Most likely is impingement due to poor control of your scapula in loaded positions.Certainly a smaller blade and a shaft with more flex will make life easier and is a great start.

Both great responses from area and physio, just to add something that I've found has worked for me, when you start paddling for wave ease into it, don't jam it in there and pull like crazy as this can cause the vibration which leads to the "golfers elbow affect" positioning for wave is a much better alternative than sprinting to each wave.

Excellent responses - thank you all.

To clarify, both aspects are only noticeable when I am paddling, and disappear as soon as I am out of the water. I have never noticed them in any other activities.
The other part to it is that I only notice when I am downwinding, I don't recall the pain during a surf session but I expect that is due to the pauses in between paddling. Actually, as an afterthought, I am also using a slightly smaller blade in the surf - possibly then a combination of the 2 factors.

Carter, I think you may be right about pulling with the bottom arm, I already have a very relaxed 'finger' type grip.

Have always thought about having someone film a small amount of my paddling so that I (and others) can critique it, I have little doubt that I could be doing things better / more efficiently, but probably need someone to point it out.

Thanks again,
Scott.

Go buy now a light paddle with a narrow blade!
If it hurts when paddling, you are going to develop a tendinitis, and it will take months to cure.

Ive had similar pain myself when using my 100% carbon paddle when doing long distances,
I switch to a flexy small diameter wave paddle for a while till it calms down .
do bicep curls .




















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Scott79 said...
Excellent responses - thank you all.

To clarify, both aspects are only noticeable when I am paddling, and disappear as soon as I am out of the water. I have never noticed them in any other activities.
The other part to it is that I only notice when I am downwinding, I don't recall the pain during a surf session but I expect that is due to the pauses in between paddling. Actually, as an afterthought, I am also using a slightly smaller blade in the surf - possibly then a combination of the 2 factors.

Carter, I think you may be right about pulling with the bottom arm, I already have a very relaxed 'finger' type grip.

Have always thought about having someone film a small amount of my paddling so that I (and others) can critique it, I have little doubt that I could be doing things better / more efficiently, but probably need someone to point it out.

Thanks again,
Scott.

It's always a good idea to get technique training. But that might not be the source of your problem. You might just be paddling too much too soon, or you've just acquired an injury some time by over-doing it on one occasion and not noticed it. You are going to have to let your body mend itself, and then not repeat whatever it was that caused the problem in the first place (eg. paddling too hard with too big a blade).

All athletes get injured at some stage. Mo Feitas and Connor Baxter have both had back injuries for instance. I think Connor has even had surgery for his , which isn't usual in someone so young. We all have different biomechanical weaknesses in our bodies and when you stress a system the weakest link tends to go first. It may be that you've found your weak spot just the same as Mo and Connor have found there's. Who's to say? Maybe if you "improved" your technique so it's as good as Connor and Mo's, you'd then need back surgery too!

It takes a long time for the body to adapt properly to regular new demands, and it takes a long time to recover from overuse injuries. So the trick is to listen to your body and take appropriate action. At the moment your body is saying "give me rest, and buy a paddle that is kinder to me".

Some technique improvements just allow you to put more strain on your body. For instance if you learn to get a really good catch when you sink your blade it allows you to pull much harder without the blade slipping. This makes you faster, but it also puts your body under greater strain. So you might even find that if you improved your stroke your body would blow a gasket even more. You have to build up slowly to these things and give your body time to build the new material it takes to support the extra strain you are putting on it (eg. tendons and ligaments, muscular and vascular support etc etc).

To a substantial degree, maintaining and developing fitness is about the art of avoiding injury. Get injured and you'll lose it many times faster than you can gain it.

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Area10 said..

Maybe if you "improved" your technique so it's as good as Connor and Mo's, you'd then need back surgery too!

Trusting this is tongue in cheek..... Connor's technique might be effective and fast if you're under 25 but it is a recipe for disaster for your back. I reckon it would be the technique of choice for back surgeons. Keep them in business for years.

Could be an age issue.......how old are your arms?

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Tang said...

Area10 said..

Maybe if you "improved" your technique so it's as good as Connor and Mo's, you'd then need back surgery too!

Trusting this is tongue in cheek..... Connor's technique might be effective and fast if you're under 25 but it is a recipe for disaster for your back. I reckon it would be the technique of choice for back surgeons. Keep them in business for years.

That was my point. Faster is not always healthier. Mo and Connor are held up as examples of people who have fast techniques - and the evidence is clear. But despite their youth and fitness, both have had debilitating back problems. How many very healthy living people have recurrent back problems in their early twenties? Hardly any. So IMO it could well be because their techniques might be fast, but that they also trash the body, long-term. They have made the decision that the wins are worth it. But for those of us who are not professional or semi-professional competive athletes, maybe we might decide that the technically best stroke is the one you can maintain without injury (unlike Mo and Connor, perhaps).

Just like fast bowlers in cricket. Some bowlers actions are just not sustainable long term

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GizzieNZ said..
Could be an age issue.......how old are your arms?

Arms are mid 30's, should have plenty of paddling left in them!

I also suffer from golfer’s elbow, but mine is a little different from yours. I will sometimes feel it when I am paddling, but it is usually much worse sometime after I’m finished on my board.

I really began to notice my elbows getting sore last year and ended up taking most of last winter off from paddling. I spent a lot of time using heat and ice to treat my elbows over the winter and it worked fairly well. Going into this past summer my elbows felt almost 100%. I then did two things to start the summer off. First off, I changed my paddle. I had been using a Werner Nitro in medium, which I believe has somewhere around a 100 sq. inch blade. I switched that off for a new Werner Trance 85. The second thing I did was go for regular massage. Went probably every two weeks and as part of the massage had the masseuse pay special attention to my elbows. For almost the entire summer my elbows were really good. Every once in a while they would still get sore, but not near as bad as previously and if they did get sore, they would recover much more quickly than they used to.

Fast forward to the start of this winter and all of a sudden my right elbow has gotten substantially worse. I noticed it one day when the wind was up and I was exerting a lot of effort. Right elbow got quite sore after that, but with a little time and a massage it seemed to be O.K. again. And then a couple of weeks ago I went out for about a 12 km. paddle and my right elbow was extremely sore. To the point where I went back to using heat and ice to treat it, which I haven’t done for about a year. I can feel a substantial difference from the heat and ice treatments and I’ll be going for another massage in a couple of days.

Because my symptoms are returning, I have just ordered a new paddle. I ordered the ZRE adjustable, 75 sq. inch blade with the flex shaft. If this doesn’t work I really don’t know what else to do. As far as paddles go, the only other thing I could think of after this is maybe the Werner ergonomic paddle??? Just not sure.

What I can tell you is this. Heat and ice, and rest, do work. So my suggestion would be to take some time off from paddling. As for treatment, immerse your elbow(s) directly in ice for 10 or 15 minutes and then put them in heat for the same amount of time. Repeat this two or three times. Do this procedure once or twice per day, depending on your schedule. I also read that you should do this in conjunction with taking ibuprofen, but I didn’t use it.

Good luck with all this. It really is not a lot of fun when you love a sport and your body does not cooperate!

I'm new to SUP but grew up paddling canoes and sea kayaks. I haven't felt shaft stiffness to make much difference (for me personally) compared to blade shape and size. A stiffer shaft with a paddle that pulls more even like a QB Trifecta 86 really helped with my left shoulder... that and an occasional massage. lol. I think blades with a wider catch where the pull is heavy at the beginning put more pressure on your shoulder initially and thus your arm could be effected. The two are inseparable as far as that tendon goes - if one is stiff so is the other. There are obvious things you can do wrong paddling and maybe you are pulling too much... but some of the technique stuff you hear from experts (I don't mean here) reminds me of PSIA and skiing instruction... they try and say only one way is correct... and I know that to be false from watching the pros paddle.

The benefit of having an adjustable paddle is that you can "pilot" different methods even during the course of a session.
When I feel that I am placing to much strain on the rotator cuffs I just reduce the paddle length to head height and work different muscles.
As you get older you need think about sustainability as well as performance.

Band exercises really help with sore shoulders youtube a couple and try them. I was getting sore a sore right shoulder from gym. Doing regular band exercises before a work out really really helped. Warming up the muscles will also make a big difference.

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colas said..
Go buy now a light paddle with a narrow blade!
If it hurts when paddling, you are going to develop a tendinitis, and it will take months to cure.

Am definitely at the point of realisation that I need a replacement paddle - without question. I am not in a location to try a large number of paddles though, so without necessarily going into specific brands, any recommendations on blade size?
I know it is largely personal preference/paddle style/feel etc, but if I am coming from a 100 (it may even be 105) square inch paddle, I am thinking along the lines of 90 square inches but not sure a 10% reduction is adequate?

For the record, I am currently using a 2013 Fanatic Carbon 40.

Thanks,
Scott.

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Scott79 said..
so without necessarily going into specific brands, any recommendations on blade size?

To give you an idea, at 95kg, I am quite happy with a 7" wide, 83 square inch paddle, 371 grams for 1m63 (cut short for sufing)

80-90 sq inch range should be fine. But perhaps the shape of the blade matters more than the area. Blades shaped like the Quickblade Trifecta, where the tip of the blade is relatively narrow, are generally more forgiving on the body than blades where the widest part of the blade is the tip. I use an 86 Trifecta when I want to take it easy on my body, but in some ways it could be even easier if for instance the blade angle was bigger at the tip, and there wasn't a scoop... But anyway, try a paddle where the vast majority of the area of the blade isn't right at tip of the blade. Blades like that tend to catch hard, and that can be wearing on the body. The taller slender blades tend to be more forgiving.

Thanks again, shall look into the 80-90 sq inch range. A few people have indicated that blade shape plays a critical role so I will definitely be looking towards something more narrow and slender.

Scott.

I had a Kenalu 84" paddle which had a 70 flex shaft (whatever that means) but it was pretty flexi! I had absolutely no problems with any sore joints, arms or shoulders. Then I lost it and had to use my backup ECS adjustable which was much stiffer and my shoulders started hurting. Someone lent me a Sunova paddle (another adjustable) and over the last few weeks I've been waking up with a really sharp pain in my right elbow even though It has a really small blade (not sure what size). It is a pretty stiff shaft though. I bought a Jimmy Lewis (Quickblade shape) fibreglass fixed paddle. My pain has subsided again. It's a good cheap option. I'm still waiting for another Kenalu which is pretty pricy but does the job too of relieving my 58 year old joints! That's my experience for what it's worth...

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Suporator said..
I had a Kenalu 84" paddle which had a 70 flex shaft (whatever that means) but it was pretty flexi! I had absolutely no problems with any sore joints, arms or shoulders. Then I lost it and had to use my backup ECS adjustable which was much stiffer and my shoulders started hurting. Someone lent me a Sunova paddle (another adjustable) and over the last few weeks I've been waking up with a really sharp pain in my right elbow even though It has a really small blade (not sure what size). It is a pretty stiff shaft though. I bought a Jimmy Lewis (Quickblade shape) fibreglass fixed paddle. My pain has subsided again. It's a good cheap option. I'm still waiting for another Kenalu which is pretty pricy but does the job too of relieving my 58 year old joints! That's my experience for what it's worth...

Cheers mate.
I had a look online at the JL glass paddle, but don't think I could see myself with those colours! In another thread I saw some plain coloured ones, but they may be last years I am assuming.
Have got a couple in mind, the Kenalu is one of them.

Scott.