After a few months of rest and a quick stint of PT, Matt Banting is back in action after his Tour ending injury in 2015. Now on a mission to redefine and finetune his surfing, Matt talks about his road back to the waves.
Photography: Peter Boskovic
I hyperextended it by basically doing the splits on my board trying to land an air. This happened July 8th 2015. I only remember that because it was the day before the JBay comp started. The actual diagnosis was that I dislocated my knee and over stretched all my ligaments. Luckily I didn't snap any of them. On top of that I received internal bone bruising to the two biggest bones that connect the knee. They pretty much slammed together on impact.
The first doctor I saw gave me 10 weeks, we were both being very optimistic. Then I got home to Australia and saw Chris Prosser (WSL Doctor) for a second opinion. Soon as he saw me he told me I was going to be out for a lot longer then first expected.
Even after a lot of rehab I still couldn't do a squat. It wasn’t really until late October that I could bend my knee with weight on it. I started surfing again early December 2015 but the surfing wasn't enjoyable. I still had a lot of minor pain and I was constantly worrying I was going to injury myself again. My knee just felt like it was going to snap with any kind of turn or twist. But injuries heal and I started enjoying surfing pain free in January.
I did a lot of physiotherapy with Chris Prosser combined with a Strength & Conditioning program with Pete Roberts in Lennox Head. Pete has been great, he put me on a bunch of different programs that have really accelerated my recovery.
I want to find my groove again. Both in competition and freesurfing. Obviously I’d love to do well on the CT and make the top 10. But outside of the WSL I really want to film a lot more, do more trips and put out good clips online. But mostly, I just make up for lost time.