So I'm pretty "swimmers shoulder" is a well known subject, and there's no need for me to explain it. Here's some background information:
Monday the 14th of November I had some right shoulder pain after my 100 yard freestyles swims. My coach was concerned about the pain, and started asking me questions. However I was unable to answer them because I only felt the pain after I finished swimming, and it was already the end of practice.
Tuesday the 15th there was no pain in my right shoulder, but instead my hand was going numb after about 14 100's and hand a tingling feeling. My coach was relieved saying that this is most likely a nerve issue instead of a muscle issue. She suggested I go see a chiropractor.
I haven't swam or workout-ed since then because I had my wisdom teeth removed, but now I want to get in the water but I'm also concerned about my shoulder.
My arm feels as if that tingling feeling can come up at an instant, but maybe thats just mental :D
So basically all I'm asking here is for some advise, and these are the options I have proposed, please feel free to add your own :)
Option 1: Skip Swimming again and go see a chiropractor, and use more money :bitching:
Option 2: Strap workout? There's this swimmer (girl) who's in my PE class who spends her time doing these strap workouts. I know its because of her shoulder because she had some serious injuries earlier in the year. Basically she grasps this tension strap attached to the door and just tugs. I heard this strengthens the muscles in the shoulder that swimming does not to prevent injury. If you know more about this please tell me, because I have the equipment, I just have no idea what to do XD
Option 3: Go to swim practice, and doggy paddle :anim_coffee:
Last season we had this swimmer who had some shoulder problems, and the coach told him to doggy paddle. I have no idea what this does, but I do remember it was because of his shoulders!
I'm still struggling with tendinitis in my right shoulder (my breathing side). I took off the entire summer and only started swimming again about a month ago. I second geochuck's statement about not doing anything which causes pain. This is not about pushing past your aerobic threshold. The pain in your shoulder is telling you to back off.
This year I've chosen to do some things differently.
Swim on my own instead of with a team. No matter how much you want to adapt, when you're in a lane with several other swimmers and the coach on deck is running a workout for the entire team, I think there is only so much you can do to bend the workout to your needs. In addition, I can swim at the local YMCA pretty much anytime I have the free time, instead of being tied to the schedule of a team.
Change my warm-up routine significantly. In my experience, most team warmups feature something like 200-400 yards swim/kick/pull. That's an awful lot of work to ask a sore shoulder to do while it's cold. My warm-ups now feature a lot of easy drills and kicking, rarely any pulling. I try to make the drills focus more on kicking, things like six kick switch drills or the backstroke equivalents or near equivalents. If my shoulder seems sore, I kick more or do some breaststroke, which doesn't tend to hurt my shoulder nearly as much as free or back.
Don't write down a workout. I've never been good at that anyway, but I think the act of writing down a specific workout tends to make you work through the pain. "Dammit! It says on my sheet that this set is 4x200! I have to complete it!" Of course, the downside is that my workouts tend to be kind of repetitive and boring, but that's a small price to pay for a healthier shoulder.
Kick more, pull less. I used to treat my zoomers as cheaters, and the pull buoy as my friend. Now the pull buoy is often left in my locker or at home, while I use the zoomers without guilt during warm-up or for aerobic sets. Even when swimming, the sets tend to be shortish and feature some drill aspect, not just "how fast can you go?" (a recent favorite is 8x50 golf free, summing the time and number of strokes to get my "golf" score).
Swim shorter workouts more frequently. It's rare that a workout now goes over 2,000 yards, but I'm trying to swim four or five days a week, depending on how my shoulder feels. When swimming with a team, workouts were more like 3,500-4,000 yards, and I could rarely make more than three workouts per week. If I missed a practice, I might only get in two swims during the week.
Learn to love Advil and ice. I never take ibuprofen before practice (not wanting to suppress the pain which signals that I should back off), but have no qualms about taking it afterwards. I also have reusable ice packs at work and home.
Listen to my shoulder. If my shoulder is giving me problems, there's no guilt in skipping a day, cranking up the amount of kicking, or shortening the workout.
I'm sure what I do won't work for everyone, but perhaps you can use some of these ideas to adjust your workouts so you can stay in the water and heal your shoulder.
Skip
I'm still struggling with tendinitis in my right shoulder (my breathing side). I took off the entire summer and only started swimming again about a month ago. I second geochuck's statement about not doing anything which causes pain. This is not about pushing past your aerobic threshold. The pain in your shoulder is telling you to back off.
This year I've chosen to do some things differently.
Swim on my own instead of with a team. No matter how much you want to adapt, when you're in a lane with several other swimmers and the coach on deck is running a workout for the entire team, I think there is only so much you can do to bend the workout to your needs. In addition, I can swim at the local YMCA pretty much anytime I have the free time, instead of being tied to the schedule of a team.
Change my warm-up routine significantly. In my experience, most team warmups feature something like 200-400 yards swim/kick/pull. That's an awful lot of work to ask a sore shoulder to do while it's cold. My warm-ups now feature a lot of easy drills and kicking, rarely any pulling. I try to make the drills focus more on kicking, things like six kick switch drills or the backstroke equivalents or near equivalents. If my shoulder seems sore, I kick more or do some breaststroke, which doesn't tend to hurt my shoulder nearly as much as free or back.
Don't write down a workout. I've never been good at that anyway, but I think the act of writing down a specific workout tends to make you work through the pain. "Dammit! It says on my sheet that this set is 4x200! I have to complete it!" Of course, the downside is that my workouts tend to be kind of repetitive and boring, but that's a small price to pay for a healthier shoulder.
Kick more, pull less. I used to treat my zoomers as cheaters, and the pull buoy as my friend. Now the pull buoy is often left in my locker or at home, while I use the zoomers without guilt during warm-up or for aerobic sets. Even when swimming, the sets tend to be shortish and feature some drill aspect, not just "how fast can you go?" (a recent favorite is 8x50 golf free, summing the time and number of strokes to get my "golf" score).
Swim shorter workouts more frequently. It's rare that a workout now goes over 2,000 yards, but I'm trying to swim four or five days a week, depending on how my shoulder feels. When swimming with a team, workouts were more like 3,500-4,000 yards, and I could rarely make more than three workouts per week. If I missed a practice, I might only get in two swims during the week.
Learn to love Advil and ice. I never take ibuprofen before practice (not wanting to suppress the pain which signals that I should back off), but have no qualms about taking it afterwards. I also have reusable ice packs at work and home.
Listen to my shoulder. If my shoulder is giving me problems, there's no guilt in skipping a day, cranking up the amount of kicking, or shortening the workout.
I'm sure what I do won't work for everyone, but perhaps you can use some of these ideas to adjust your workouts so you can stay in the water and heal your shoulder.
Skip
