Injury layoff of a week or so--ho long to regain form?
Former Member
I have a friend who has a shoulder injury (mild but enough that she doesn't want to risk delaying recovery to swim). Have any of you had layoffs from swimming due to injury or other issues and when you came back to the pool did it take you long to regain your form. She is freaked a bit because she loves swimming and is so afraid she will lose all the fitness she has gained over the last few months. She has done short swims of 1750 or so, maybe once a week. So not a significant layoff. But maybe a week or so. Any help or positive encouragement is welcome!
thank you!
At the risk of sounding contrarian here, I think that it's important to realize there are injuries and there are injuries.
Which brings me to my larger point: I think we are too quick to baby our shoulders. I used to agree wholeheartedly with Ande--err on the side of caution. But then I started to realize that when I would have a somewhat sore shoulder and err on the side of caution, its rate of improvement was no faster, or slower, than if I just continued swimming with some minor modification. Indeed, the discomfort usually got better faster if I didn't stop swimming.
Here is what I recommend: get some fins and continue to swim with your team, using the fins to "de-weight" the effort of your pull. If you have to, just let your sore arm go through the range of motion of the stroke without actually putting any power into it at all. I don't know of any doctor who recommends not moving a shoulder that has suffered a slight tweak. You may want to avoid sprinting, but there is usually no reason to get out of the pool and/or stop all motion.
If you shoulder is so sore that you can't even go through the range of motion, then you might have a more serious problem. But as Dr. Richard Hawkins, MD (of the legendary Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Colorado) once told me, the vast majority of shoulder problems will heal on their own provided you don't just bludgeon the joint. I'd caution conservatism about MRIs and the like, and even more conservatism if such unearths (as they usually do) some sort of lesion that requires an expensive repair.
I pretty much agree with Jim. I hurt my shoulder in early August, probably a partial separation. I did keep swimming, used fins, cut back a bit to 3-4 sessions per week and did not push the shoulder too hard for about 3 weeks. I did stop swimmming fly and bk altogether, because the rotations hurt, and no lifting. I did start easy bk after about 4 weeks and may now start fly after about 6 weeks.
I also found when swimming OW that the strap of my sleeveless wetsuit aggravated the shoulder injury by pushing down on the supraspinatus shoulder stabilizer muscle at the top of the shoulder blade (especially after about 2k) and this apparetly pulled on the tender shoulder joint. This might also be a problem if i were female swimming in suit with tight shoulder straps pulling down. If your friends female, she might want to stay away from tight racing suits and swim in a suit that doesn't pull on her shoulder.
Within about 4 weeks of the injury, my shoulder survived a 2 day pool meet, one sprint tri, and a 1.5 mi OW race . I haven't seen a Dr and have reasoned that as long as it was getting slowly better, it would heal without intervention. I found that swimming helped keep the injury from freezing my shoulder and seemed to loosen it (it generally feels better after i swim). Some minor pain remains and i think it wil be about 8-12 weeks before injury sensation is gone completely. But, im an old guy :cane: and heal slower too.
Of course, this is my shoulder injury and there are probably 50 different ways to injure your shoulder and everyone has different tollerances for injury and pain. But, as jim indicated, don't feel that you automatically need to completely stop swimming or seek surgery for a shoulder. You may be able to maintain your conditioning, use the time to recover a bit and work on technique, dps, sdk, turns etc., and just hold back on the hard stuff. :2cents:
At the risk of sounding contrarian here, I think that it's important to realize there are injuries and there are injuries.
Which brings me to my larger point: I think we are too quick to baby our shoulders. I used to agree wholeheartedly with Ande--err on the side of caution. But then I started to realize that when I would have a somewhat sore shoulder and err on the side of caution, its rate of improvement was no faster, or slower, than if I just continued swimming with some minor modification. Indeed, the discomfort usually got better faster if I didn't stop swimming.
Here is what I recommend: get some fins and continue to swim with your team, using the fins to "de-weight" the effort of your pull. If you have to, just let your sore arm go through the range of motion of the stroke without actually putting any power into it at all. I don't know of any doctor who recommends not moving a shoulder that has suffered a slight tweak. You may want to avoid sprinting, but there is usually no reason to get out of the pool and/or stop all motion.
If you shoulder is so sore that you can't even go through the range of motion, then you might have a more serious problem. But as Dr. Richard Hawkins, MD (of the legendary Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Colorado) once told me, the vast majority of shoulder problems will heal on their own provided you don't just bludgeon the joint. I'd caution conservatism about MRIs and the like, and even more conservatism if such unearths (as they usually do) some sort of lesion that requires an expensive repair.
I pretty much agree with Jim. I hurt my shoulder in early August, probably a partial separation. I did keep swimming, used fins, cut back a bit to 3-4 sessions per week and did not push the shoulder too hard for about 3 weeks. I did stop swimmming fly and bk altogether, because the rotations hurt, and no lifting. I did start easy bk after about 4 weeks and may now start fly after about 6 weeks.
I also found when swimming OW that the strap of my sleeveless wetsuit aggravated the shoulder injury by pushing down on the supraspinatus shoulder stabilizer muscle at the top of the shoulder blade (especially after about 2k) and this apparetly pulled on the tender shoulder joint. This might also be a problem if i were female swimming in suit with tight shoulder straps pulling down. If your friends female, she might want to stay away from tight racing suits and swim in a suit that doesn't pull on her shoulder.
Within about 4 weeks of the injury, my shoulder survived a 2 day pool meet, one sprint tri, and a 1.5 mi OW race . I haven't seen a Dr and have reasoned that as long as it was getting slowly better, it would heal without intervention. I found that swimming helped keep the injury from freezing my shoulder and seemed to loosen it (it generally feels better after i swim). Some minor pain remains and i think it wil be about 8-12 weeks before injury sensation is gone completely. But, im an old guy :cane: and heal slower too.
Of course, this is my shoulder injury and there are probably 50 different ways to injure your shoulder and everyone has different tollerances for injury and pain. But, as jim indicated, don't feel that you automatically need to completely stop swimming or seek surgery for a shoulder. You may be able to maintain your conditioning, use the time to recover a bit and work on technique, dps, sdk, turns etc., and just hold back on the hard stuff. :2cents:
