This Solves My SCIATICA As I’ve talked about previously, I have struggled with sciatica and related knee pain for years. A lot of physical therapists have suggested doing stretching and rolling, but this actually aggravates the nerve that causes the sciatica (which we have covered in a previous article). Recently, I found a doctor in El Paso, Texas, who hosts a video on YouTube about effective sciatica therapy. Instead of stretching and rolling, he has people do exercises that shift the pelvis to relieve the pressure on the nerve. Two exercises in particular are super helpful for me.       One involves shifting the way you stand and pushing your pelvis forward. The other is done lying on your back with your feet on the ground, and lifting your butt off the ground in a bridge form. Not only has this helped my sciatica tremendously, but it has also helped relieve my knee pain, which was related to imbalances in my buttocks.     I recently bumped into a friend Dyanne who has had sciatica issues for 41 years, ever since giving birth to her daughter. Like me, she had done years of stretching and rolling under a physical...

An acquaintance of mine recently went into a running store in a landlocked state on the mainland to have his gait evaluated and get some recommendations on shoes. After putting him on a treadmill and filming his gait, the professional at the store asked, “Are you a surfer? You run like someone who has spent years on a surfboard, with your feet pointing slightly away from each other and more weight on your back foot.” My acquaintance found this pretty amazing. Not only had he been surfing his entire life, but the runner who recognized this lived 1000 miles from the ocean. How had something as simple as a running gait given away the fact that he surfed? As it turns out, the way that we stand on our surfboards—with one leg behind the other and a rotational twist in our hips—can really mess with our hips and throw them out of alignment. And since our hips are the main hinge around which the body bends, this can affect a lot of other areas in the body. The hips are directly connected to the glutes (the biggest muscle in the body) and the lower back, and this is typically where...

How Sugar Causes Inflammation and Messes With Our Bodies Photo by Valeria Boltneva  As many of you know from my blogs and newsletters, I’ve been struggling with some joint pain over the past few years, mostly from injuries that I’ve picked up from surfing and other activities. I actually have a number of friends who are in the same situation, and we often chat about our injuries and pain and how to do away with it. The other day I was chatting with a friend in the water, and he mentioned that his acupuncturist told him that one way to reduce or even eliminate pain is to cut out foods with processed sugar. Many of our joint injuries are exacerbated by inflammation, and as it turns out, sugar causes added inflammation in the body. I have spent the past few weeks cutting sugar out of my diet, and it does seem like my pain has gotten a bit better. Meanwhile, I told another friend of mine who has chronic hip pain about my new sugar-free diet, and she tried the same thing and also found that her pain was reduced. She wasn’t sure if it was because of cutting back on...

How Surfing Can Mess Up Our Hips and Butts—and How We Can Deal With It An acquaintance of mine recently went into a running store in a landlocked state on the mainland to have his gait evaluated and get some recommendations on shoes. After putting him on a treadmill and filming his gait, the professional at the store asked, “Are you a surfer? You run like someone who has spent years on a surfboard, with your feet pointing slightly away from each other and more weight on your back foot.” My acquaintance found this pretty amazing. Not only had he been surfing his entire life, but the runner who recognized this lived 1000 miles from the ocean. How had something as simple as a running gait given away the fact that he surfed? As it turns out, the way that we stand on our surfboards—with one leg behind the other and a rotational twist in our hips—can really mess with our hips and throw them out of alignment. And since our hips are the main hinge around which the body bends, this can affect a lot of other areas in the body. The hips are directly connected to the glutes...

Surfer’s Eye—Treating and Preventing Pterygium   Photo Credit to commons.wikimedia.org   Recently I’ve noticed that my eyes are irritated and red after surf sessions, and I eventually decided to go see my ophthalmologist about it. After checking out my eyes, they told me that I have something that is very common in surfers—so common, in fact, that it’s been nicknamed “surfer’s eye.” My eye doctor diagnosed me with a pterygium, which is a growth of pink, fleshy tissue on the conjunctiva, which is the clear tissue that coats your eyeball. Sounds pretty gnarly, huh?! As crazy as it sounds, it’s likely that many of you reading this also have pterygiums growing. Men between the ages of 20 and 40 who live in the tropics (and especially near the equator) are the most likely demographic to develop pterygiums, and the incidence goes way up if you are a surfer. The reason for this is because pterygiums are caused by excessive exposure to sunlight, as well as wind and dry eyes. Sound familiar? Between the tropical sun, trade winds, and salt water here in Hawaii, we are all prime candidates for pterygium growth. Fortunately, even though they look pretty rough, pterygiums aren’t super...

 Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide - Legged Forward Bend) While we like to call ourselves surfers, the reality is that we spend the majority of our time paddling, not riding waves. And paddling surfboard is hard work. Particularly with shortboards—but even on longboards as well—we spend hours flexing our lower backs and upper legs in order to support a more efficient streamline through the water so that we can paddle faster and catch more waves. All of this flexing can lead to strained, tight muscles in our upper legs and lower backs—basically our entire core. And of course, our core is the foundation of movement and posture in the body, so anything that stresses the core affects everything we do. This is why it is so important for surfers to maintain healthy lower backs and upper legs. After years of holding the paddle position, we probably have pretty well-developed muscles in our core—but that strength needs to be balanced by flexibility. This month’s yoga pose, prasarita padottanasana, helps maintain that balance so that we can move efficiently and painlessly both in the water and out. Prasarita Padottanasana is also known as a wide-legged forward bend—one of the most aptly named poses in...

Yoga Poses That WillHelp you Surf Better During challenging times, sometimes the best thing to do is to look for the silver lining. The months of March and April were hard for a lot of people, due to illness, lost jobs, financial difficulties, and the global pandemic/economic shutdown as a whole. To make matters worse, in many places around the world, surfers were restricted from paddling out and enjoying the natural healing that the ocean provides to our bodies, minds, and souls. But during times like this, when our daily routines are upset and we are unable to do the things we love to do the most, we have an opportunity to branch out and broaden our lives by learning and embracing new, healthy practices. Over the past couple of months,more surfers than ever turned to yoga as a physical practice that they could do while sheltering at home—and that kept them fit and flexible for when the surf was once again accessible. Hawaiian South Shore’s favorite yoga teacher Kilty Inafuku (www.kiltyyoga.com) has been leading donation-based online classes throughout the COVID-19 crisis, helping people stay grounded and healthy during this difficult time. Today, she talks to us about why yoga...

The SEVEN Forms of REST and Why They Are Important As athletes who tend to pursue their sport on a daily basis, surfers have a number of recovery needs, including proper nutrition and rest. But do you ever feel like no mater how much sleep you get, you are still exhausted? That’s because there are actually seven different types of rest that people need. The first is obvious—and one that we talk about a lot. Physical rest is just as important as physical activity, even for professional-level athletes who do endurance sports and other activities that require a lot of training. As it turns out, physical training is basically pointless unless you give your body the opportunity to recover and repair itself after the training—and that typically involves adequate sleep and days off from training so that your bodily systems can rebuild and become stronger. Physical rest can include passive rest (such as sleeping) as well as active rest (such as yoga, massage, and stretching). But physical rest is only a small part of the equation. Mental rest is also important, because the brain controls your body’s hormones, and stress hormones such as cortisol can have a deleterious affect on...

A Short, Pre-Surf Yoga Practice to Help You Shred Harder and Recover Faster 📷@kiltyyoga Surfing is an intensive, full-body activity that involves repetitive motion (paddling), weird, posture-related tension (lower back tightness), frequent twisting (hips and neck), and unbalanced weight distribution (back leg versus front). Taking that into consideration, it’s no wonder that our bodies often feel tweaked after we surf. One of the best things we can do to prepare our bodies to shred during each session and recover quickly after we paddle in is to integrate a short, effective yoga practice into our daily surf routine. This can be done in the morning when you wake up, shortly before paddling out, or after your session is complete—or all three, if you want! By focusing on flexibility, core strengthening, and balance, it’s possible to tune our bodies into the surfing activity, helping us rip into our 80s, and even longer! Hawaiian South Shore’s resident yogi Kilty Inafuku suggests the following poses for surfers looking to limber up their bodies and improve their surf skills: 1) Thread the Needle: For this stretch, start on your hands and knees, with your wrists under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Your...

YOGA POSE OF THE MONTH: MALASANA The yoga pose of the month for May is one that directly improves our ability to surf better. After all, that is exactly why many of us get into yoga. We want to become stronger, fitter and more flexible so that we can better enjoy our hobbies and sports and perform at a higher level. Although this pose is one that can help you surf better, yoga is intended to do something far more important, like helping us live better. Whether you’ve been practicing yoga for years or are just getting into it to help improve your cutback, try to open your mind to the holistic benefit that’s achieved through consistent practice. Who knows, maybe you’ll find that yoga doesn’t just change how you surf but also how you approach life in general. Malasana (also known as garland pose or squat pose) is sort of a funny-looking asana, but it’s a powerful one that has the potential to benefit you in many ways. Not only is malasana a grounding pose that helps you to relax, but also it has many physical benefits, such as stretching the hips, groin, and low back, improving digestion and metabolism,...

UTTANASANA YOGA POSE Greg Long once said that anyone who is serious about big wave surfing and doesn’t do yoga, is fooling themselves. The reality is, that the logic applies to surfing of any type. Not only does yoga keep us limber and prevent injuries, it also increases core strength and teaches us to breathe properly. These are two fundamental building blocks of good athletics. To keep us surfing and living at our full potential, local yoga teacher and life-long surfer Kilty Inafuku will lead us through a yoga pose of the month. This month’s pose is intended to help us wake up with ease and prepare you for the day. This move will energize you as you head out for an early surf session, before the sun comes up and the crowds clog the lineups. Uttanasana is one of the foundational asanas (poses) in yoga. It’s a forward bend that serves as a stable, supported “inversion.” While you are not actually standing on your hands or shoulders (as in some of yoga’s inversions) you still get the benefit of reversing gravity. With your head below your heart you will enjoy a rush of energy to your head that will energize...