You Know Your Boat Inside Out.
But Your Body Is a Mystery.
You know exactly when to bear away in a gust. You can read a wind shift before most people see it. You can debrief every race in detail and tell your coach exactly where you lost time.
But when your back seizes up on day three of a regatta, or your shoulder starts grinding after a heavy training block, or your hip has been nagging for months and you can't quite figure out why.
Because sailing injury isn't a common area of expertise. Most physiotherapists have never sat in a hiking position for four hours. They've never felt what it's like to trapeze through chop in 25 knots. They don't understand what your body is actually being asked to do, so they can't fully understand what's gone wrong.
Aisling Keller does. She's a Chartered Physiotherapist on the RAPID team and a former elite competitive sailor who represented Ireland at international level for over a decade.
Book Your AssessmentThis is the right place for you if:
- You're a competitive sailor - dinghy, skiff, or keelboat - dealing with pain that's affecting your performance or your ability to train consistently
- You've had an injury that settled, went back sailing, and then it came back - often worse than before
- You feel fit and strong in the gym, but something breaks down when you're actually on the water
- You've been told you have a 'slipped disc' or 'back strain' but you're not sure what that actually means for your sailing
- You're managing an overuse injury - hip, shoulder, lower back, knee - that's been building gradually and you can't figure out where it's coming from
- You want a rehabilitation plan that understands the difference between an ILCA, a 49er, and a keelboat, and builds your programme around the actual demands of your class
- You want to come back to sailing stronger than before, not just pain-free
Free Guide:
Why Many Sailors Relapse After Rehab
(And How to Avoid It)
If you have ever:
- Returned to sailing and flared up again
- Felt strong in the gym but not on the water
- Struggled through multi-day regattas
This guide will help you understand why.
Inside, you will learn:
- Why sailing injuries keep coming back
- The biggest mistake sailors make when returning
- What “race-ready” actually means physically
- How to rebuild your capacity properly
👉 Download the guide here
We won't send spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
Meet Aisling Keller
Sailing Injury Specialist, RAPID Physio Dublin
Aisling Keller is a Chartered Physiotherapist at RAPID Physio in Dublin 12, and the only physiotherapist in Ireland who brings both elite competitive sailing experience and specialist clinical training to the treatment of sailing injuries.
She started sailing at around nine years old and went on to compete for Ireland at international level, training abroad during winters, racing across Europe, and working towards a place at the Tokyo Olympics. She knows what a podium finish costs physically. She knows what back-to-back regatta days feel like in a hiking boat. She has sat in a trapeze for long enough to understand exactly what that position demands of the hip, the shoulder, and the trunk.
She also knows what it's like to push through pain when you don't really understand what's going on, and to wish, in hindsight, that someone had explained it properly and helped her manage it better.
That's now exactly what she does for other sailors.
Aisling qualified from UCD and has since built her clinical practice around rehabilitation and performance physio. She joined the RAPID team specifically for its collaborative, evidence-based culture, a team of Chartered Physiotherapists who share knowledge openly and hold each other to a high standard.
She brings something genuinely rare: a physiotherapist who will look at your injury, understand your sailing class, and build a plan that's designed for what you actually need to get back on the water and perform.
Why Sailing Injuries are different and why that matters for your rehab
Class-specific sections. This is where Aisling's knowledge really shines and builds instant credibility with sailors.
Most sports have a relatively predictable set of injury demands. Sailing doesn't. The physical demands of racing an ILCA in a big breeze are almost completely different to trapezing a 49er, which is almost completely different to grinding on a keelboat. A rehabilitation plan that doesn't account for that isn't really a sailing rehabilitation plan.
Here's what each discipline actually asks of your body:
Dinghy Sailing (ILCA, 420, 470)
Hiking in a dinghy is one of the most physically demanding things you can ask your body to do, and most people outside of sailing have no idea. You're holding a gruelling position using your stomach, hip, and thigh muscles, for minutes at a time, repeated over and over, across hours of racing. Your lower back is taking enormous force the entire time - compressed, twisted, and held there, in all kinds of sea states and wind conditions.
This isn't just "core strength" that's required. It's a very specific type of endurance that no gym programme comes close to replicating. Lower back pain, hip and groin tightness, and knee pain from the extreme angles of the hiking position are the most common patterns we see.
Skiff and Foiling Classes (49er, 29er, Nacra 17)
When you're out on the wire, your whole body is working hard to keep you stable and in control, especially through every transition, where you go in an instant from holding a static position to moving fast and powerfully. Your hips and inner thighs are under constant demand. Your shoulders and grip are working overtime to handle the boat in unstable, unpredictable conditions.
It's dynamic, reactive, and relentless. Shoulder pain, hip and groin strain from wire transitions, and lower back soreness that builds quietly across a season are the patterns Aisling sees most often in skiff and foiling sailors.
Keelboats and High-Performance Grinding Classes
Grinding and trimming demand repeated, high-force pulling through the upper body, day after day, race after race, with very little time to recover between them. The load is cumulative and unrelenting, and fatigue sets in earlier than most sailors want to admit. The rotational demands of trimming also put significant strain on the lower back over a multi-day regatta.
Shoulder pain, including rotator cuff problems, AC joint issues, and bicep pain, is the most common pattern, alongside lower back soreness that builds as the event goes on.
Sailing injuries are almost always overuse injuries that develop gradually, not sudden traumatic events. That means they can sneak up on you across a season, and they often go unaddressed because there was no obvious 'moment of injury' to point to.
How Does Sailing Rehabilitation Work at RAPID?
At RAPID Dublin, we follow a clear, evidence-based progression called the RAPID Framework to take sailors from injury all the way through to returning confidently to racing, with a programme built specifically around their sailing class and performance goals. No generic exercises and no rehab that ignores what the sport actually demands.
Here's how the process works, step by step:
Diagnose - Understanding the Real Problem
We start with a full sailing-specific assessment, identifying not just where it hurts, but why. That means assessing the actual demands of your sailing class, understanding the load patterns that have built up over your season, and identifying the specific strength, endurance, or movement deficits that are driving the problem. You leave the first session knowing exactly what's happening and why it matters for your performance.
Initiate - Early Loading and Confidence
We begin progressive loading early, restoring baseline strength and endurance, rebuilding confidence in the affected area, and introducing class-specific positions in a controlled environment. For dinghy sailors, that might mean the hiking bench. For skiff sailors, land-based trapeze work. For keelboat sailors, position-specific conditioning that mirrors the grinding or trimming demands of your role.
Progress - Building Sailing-Specific Strength
We build real sailing performance increasing load duration, introducing power and speed, and adding fatigue-based work that starts to replicate what a training day or regatta actually feels like. This is where the gym work connects to the water work.
Accumulate - Building Regatta Capacity
We build multi-hour, multi-day capacity, simulating regatta loading patterns, layering cardiovascular and sailing-specific strength demands, and progressively exposing the body to back-to-back sailing days. This is the stage most sailors never reach in conventional rehabilitation and it's the one that matters most for preventing re-injury in competition.
Return - Earning Your Return to Racing
Return to racing is based on objective readiness testing, hiking endurance benchmarks, trapeze or hoisting tests, back-to-back loading tolerance, and a structured return-to-sailing plan with clear weekly progression. You don't guess your way back onto the start line, you earn it through your progression.
Common Problems We See
- Lower back pain during hiking
- Shoulder pain with trimming or grinding
- Knee pain during long sessions on the water
- Fatigue early in regattas
- Repeated flare-ups after returning
If this sounds familiar, the issue is usually not just the injury.
It is that your body has not rebuilt the specific capacity required for sailing.
What happens at your first appointment?
Your first session with Aisling is a Injury Assessment at RAPID's Dublin 12 clinic. It runs for 45 minutes and covers:
- A detailed history - your sailing background, your class, your training load, what's been happening, and what you're trying to get back to
- A sailing-specific physical assessment - Aisling will assess your injury in the context of what your body actually needs to do on the water
- A clear explanation of what's actually going on - in language that makes sense for a sailor, not just a patient
- A personalised rehabilitation plan, emailed to you the same day, built around your class and your performance goals
No generic advice or exercises from a standard handout. A plan built for a sailor, by a sailor who became a physio.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my back hurt so much when I'm hiking?
I feel fine in the gym. Why do I keep breaking down on the water?
Do I need to stop sailing completely while I'm in rehab?
I've been told I have a slipped disc. Is that what's actually wrong?
Is there a physio in Dublin who actually understands sailing?
I'm not an elite sailor, is this relevant for me?
Book an Assessment with Aisling Keller
- Understand what is actually driving your issue
- Get a clear plan to return to sailing
- Know exactly what your next steps are
