The Rearview Mirror Webs Paddling Gloves
In: The Rearview Mirror 16 Comments Thu 10th Feb '11
Tags: webs , glen winton , richard schmidt , tony moniz , richie collins , terry richardson , ross clarke-jones , sports science
The great thing about surfing is how simple it is; all you need is a surfboard to go out and enjoy the waves.
But pick up any surf mag and flick toward the back. There, filing the cheaper ad spaces, are accessories of all kind that claim to increase the surfing experience: balance boards, surfing skateboards, soft racks, fin systems, all manner of deck grip...
Of course some surfing accessories are a necessity - you wouldn't wanna hit Norwegian surf in nought but boardies - but for the most part they are superfluous to the act of surfing. In a few issues time the advertisement will disappear to be replaced by another new product: stick-on channels, fins with holes in them, spray on wax...
Some products make a legitimate-sounding claim which gives them a foothold in the market. Such was the case with Webs Paddling Gloves in the late-80's. Webs claimed to increase paddling propulsion so you could catch more waves. Greedy surfers (which is to say, all surfers) pricked up their ears and for a short time they were everywhere on the beaches.
A lot of pros began using them: Glen Winton, Terry Richardson, Richard Schmidt, Richie Collins, Tony Moniz, Brad Gerlach, Fabio Gouveia, and the ads moved from the back pages of the magazines to the premium-priced inside covers. Webs, it appeared, were here to stay.
But a couple of years after their arrival - around the early-90's - Webs began to disappear. Paddling gloves weren't quite as necessary as first thought. A surfer could forget to put them on and still have a great session. In this ongoing process of attrition surfing gets whittled down to its essential items
In the intervening twenty years sports science has leapt forward and found that webbed gloves don't give the paddling advantage first thought, and further, using them increased your risk of injury. Tim Brennan is a sports physiotherapist from Perth:
"From a physiotherapy perspective webbed gloves are not necessary to increase paddling power when surfing. It would seem to make sense that if you add webbing to your hand and essentially make your hand bigger you can catch more water and therefore pull through the water harder. But the paddling stroke is much more than just the hands and a huge amount of the 'catch' comes from the elbow and forearm and how well we can maintain their position in the water."
"The risk of injury comes when our biomechanics around the shoulder girdle and flexibility in the thoracic spine - and spine in general - is not adequate. Many surfers paddle through the water with a dropped elbow or a straight arm. This could be from poor stability around the shoulder, stiffness in the shoulder joint , poor thoracic extension or a lack of muscular endurance. The combination of these things will load the shoulder muscles excessively as the majority of the pull phase is spent pushing down rather than back. Adding resistance to the hand here will exacerbate this further leading to early fatigue, excessive tendon loading and injury."
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