GF, this is my first post in over a year, but I haven't been riding - was standing on the side of a slope in Chimbulak Kazakhstan waiting for my son to catch up to me - we were both on skis. A snowboarder came out of nowhere - hit me so hard that I came out of my bindings and did a full flip in the air... two broken legs below the knees. 3 operations and 8 months in a wheelchair.

But that's not my point - someone asked about exercises. I am sure there are plenty of you out there that have gone through the pain of physio and getting back on your feet, so won't deal with that. Would just like to say that the most effective exercises I found were really pretty simple, got me back on my feet and hopefully, ready for getting back out on the water this summer.

- kettle bell or power bell - great for building core strength and over all fitness - youtube is full of short exercise videos that can give you a good range of things to do. because it uses your legs, back and butt or your 'posterior chain' it covers the muscle groups you use for kiting.

- TRX suspension training - one of those never miss another workout things if you travel alot. Great over all fitness tool - not so much for the legs, but core and upper body get hammered. like the power bell, forces you to use and coordinate alot of muscles at once - same size as a shaving kit.

- As luck would have it, my wife teaches Ayengar Yoga - it's great because it makes you think about alignment - getting your bones and muscles in the right place to work against each other. A good instructor can tell you what parts of your body are out of whack and give you poses to work on to get aligned and stop other injuries that compensation causes. A good yoga session can kick your a$$ and for me, it actually reduces pain in my knee joints.

- I am now looking at inversion tables - some people swear by them - but I don't know. My wife says yoga can do more for me than any inversion table... I kind of like the idea of just hanging there and letting gravity do its thing. If anybody has tried these, share your thoughts.

Whatever you do - don't stop moving, don't stop pushing yourself. As they say in this part of the world - movement is life and life is movement. - good luck, db

i have a slipped upper femoral aphifisys (deformed hip) from years of wakeboarding (staerted in 1996) and kitesurfing i also have a lump of bone on the ball of my hip which is being shaved off with keyhole surgery. i also have arthritis on the joint and the worst bit is im 22 and this has f..ucked me over for a year allready.
how it happened was livng in greece and tarifa for 4-5 years and riding every day for 4 hours or more i was a sponsered rider and trained hard for competitions so went in all conditions but the bump and jump chop of tarifa combined with 40 knot winds reall took is toll on the back leg knees and hips. now im pretty screwed and looking forward to a new hip a 30 if im lucky. i was a kite instructor aswell but due to dickhead attitude in amongst the industry i stopped it luckily i can still work as a fisherman but i live in pain from the swelling sometimes i cant sleep with the pain being so bad. the worst thing is it makes sex a pain sometimes, but i can deal with that hahaah.... yah so my body is screwed i walk with a constant limp and its painful.

however it was worth it, when i could fit into a small harness (seems a long way ago) my landings were hard and my riding was prety legit and powered i allways wore a suicide leash with no releases and took bails like a man never letting go of the looping kite which also fu9cked my shoulders. i also damaged my liver and smoked my way through alot of brutal moroccan hash in tarifa. i cant really kite anymore and i feel like an old man kitesurfing ruined my life but there were happy memories of loose chicks far to many drugs and hard riding every day, fortunately to say i am still not partying every night and might survive. 5 years of epic life with a screwed hip and bad knees back and shoulders to show was far better than being a weekend warrior for ever....

if you read this and thought shit that sucks the only thing you can do is go ride and make it count. a hard smash is so much better than a hundred gayleys. dont be a gayley.....

Hey guys i'm in the same boat , I live in Canada , so COLD water, nasty chop, and my knee all joints in pain too.
Try to visit doc. but seems like NOBUDY wanna help you , they start push you to the surgery but i'm sure it couse not because kiting ,it just bad nutrition ,
I start eat meat once a week , more grapefruit, no beer at all ,, lots of fresh sqeezed juice
( I think it was problem with urine acid (not shure how it call in engl.)) and more sweat, so body will get rid of those cristals in ur joints)
I'm roofer 39 y.old so after half year i start feel beter hope I'll keep working and kiting bit longer

first off someone asked about inversion tables...they are great IF you can be completely relaxed on it. for most people this means taking a session or two to get it set right for your height and needs and starting a bit slow. not just flipping upside down the first try. this will tighten your muscles, just the opposite of what you are after. start with slightly upside down for a minute or two and work your way over to full inverted. some people take to it immediately, some take a few days to learn to trust it and the "weird" feeling and still be relaxed. helps a lot with the neck and low back and circulation in general, does very little for the hips however.
As for the rest of this, as was said before, doing too much of anything will mess you up.
but how much is too much if you really want to push the edge?
Simple, when you do any exercise or activity you are breaking down muscle.
when you rest overnight you are rebuilding, IF you have the proper nutrition absorbed into your system. eating well is not enough, you must absorb and transport and absorb into the cells themselves.
So, you can push as hard as you can recover, whatever that is for you and it can be changed in a number of ways for better or worse. if you push harder or more often than you can recover at the moment, it will mess you up.
seems most posters on here got this already, nice...

Must disagree with the idea of inversion boots or tables. Recently one of my friends wife who is 35 y/o found her c1-C2 vertebral bodies were damaged and most likely from Yoga head stands, etc. Now I believe you can find a book about the dangers of yoga that was just written. When inversion boots first came out there were several cases of glaucoma. So why people think hanging up side down or having a chiropractor twist their neck at 100 MPH is good or physiological is all wrong. See a proper physical therapist and forget the outlying therapies. All words from a physician and my daughter who teaches yoga.

Sounds like you started hammering your body a little young (you're only 22 now so were wakeboarding at 6 years old?). That condition is generally caused by stress when bones are still developing. Part of the reason you can't enter long distance running events under a certain age.

Looks like you really lived life to the max for a few years I used to be reckless on a bmx many moons ago, luckily didn't end up with long term injuries. I'm 40 now so don't mind the odd gayley now and then. Still love it when it's nuking though!

You've got a lot of life left to live yet, hope you manage to get sorted out. Being partially mobile and in chronic pain at 22 doesn't seem worth the trade off for the hardcore fun you had

as was stated earlier and more than once, too much of anything will mess you up (including yoga and inversion and chiropractic). Done appropriately they can help a lot.
on a side note, i have friends who have been injured by "proper" PT's.

just sayin

Our bodies are amazing. They provide us the ability to do amazing things and they can heal themselves of so many injuries and ailments. The problem comes when we don't respect our limitations. That is true for every sport. It even means respecting our body when we are at rest. I know a lot more people that have screwed up there back and neck sitting in an office chair than kiteboarding or doing yoga.

Each of us has the choice of how we are going to treat our body. We can respect the body and progress towards achieving our goals or we can thrash ourselves and never live up to our potential. The problem a lot of people have is that they don't take time to learn how to care for their bodies properly. They just want to go hard and party hard and hope that a PT or a doctor can fix what they screwed up. Ultimately, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. You can blame whomever you choose, but you have the gift of one body.

Completely agree fernmanus,

We ignore that the medical industry is like any business and the more procedures they/we do the more the industry and individuals make. Many elective procedures we allow do nothing for us - and many problems we can overcome on our own with common sense and/or continuing exercises, personal therapy, and life-style changes.

It has always been true that there is only one chance in three that surgery will be successful - 1/3 improve the problem, 1/3 do nothing, and 1/3 get worse - not good odds!

I'm 60, and I've been kiting for about 4 years. I mow the lawn a lot, and tend to limit my sessions to mostly short duration (less than 2 hours of time on the water, though sometimes that's just one session). I don't do any formal conditioning. I haven't been to a gym in over 5 years. Don't feel the need. I just don't do much the "easy" way. When I built 1/4 mile of fence through some woods last year, I didn't use a power auger or stump grinder--just "Don Power". When I cut wood, it's with a hand saw or axe. When I split wood, it's with a splitting maul--not a hydraulic splitter. When I clear snow, I spend as much time with a shovel as I do with a snowblower, etc. That's my version of "cross training". I just don't do things the easy way, do a variety of activities, and try to be reasonable about intensity and duration. I may not do things "lightly", but I don't take things to the extreme. I'm in the best shape I've ever been. I also use a seat harness, for the reasons others have stated.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Don