Hi All - I'm a late onset adult swimmer, meaning I hadn't been in a pool for decades but a few years ago got turned on to open water swimming. For the past couple of years, I was swimming 2 miles/day freestyle about 3 or 4 days/week, with a few open water lake/river/ocean swims in the summer. Not that I go particularly fast (those 2 miles take me just shy of an hour) but it felt so good! And it's the only sport I figured was sustainable and not overly demanding on my bum knees...
But now my 50 yr old shoulder evidently has decided that may not be such a good idea, and I've got a massive rotator cuff tear (as documented by an unequivocal MRI) and have been advised to have surgery.
Does anyone have thoughts on this? Anything I should do before or after surgery to skew the odds to get back into swimming and avoid re-injury?
Does anyone know a good rehab in Westchester County or NYC with someone who knows about swimming? I'd prefer to rehab smart and targeted, rather than otherwise... And I really need to get back in the water... I'm getting fat and sad! All suggestions very very welcome!
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Former Member
mine have always been slightly weak from swimming then about a year ago i dislocated my shoulder snowboarding - whoops. luckily no surgery. that still ended any swimming for the better part of a year. a couple of my favorite exercises was taking a medicine ball and holding against the wall with your palm and rotate clockwise for a while then counterclockwise. after that there was this small pvc pipe that was about 6 foot long or so with large washers fastened to the end of each side for weight. holding the pipe in the middle and shaking it vertically and then horizontally really worked out my shoulder.
mine have always been slightly weak from swimming then about a year ago i dislocated my shoulder snowboarding - whoops. luckily no surgery. that still ended any swimming for the better part of a year. a couple of my favorite exercises was taking a medicine ball and holding against the wall with your palm and rotate clockwise for a while then counterclockwise. after that there was this small pvc pipe that was about 6 foot long or so with large washers fastened to the end of each side for weight. holding the pipe in the middle and shaking it vertically and then horizontally really worked out my shoulder.
