I've been very consistant with my training since last August, trying to make a big push for Spring Nationals in Indy. I've been swimming 4-5 nights a week 3-3500 yards a practice. Also been doing Crossfit workouts in the AM 3-4 days a week with one of those days working on Olympic lifts. With the Crossfit I have seen a marked improvement in my leg strength especially in the pushoffs from the wall. Lately I've been dealing with a little pain in my shoulders...nothing accute and not any pain through range of motion..more like a dull achy feeling. I've taken care of it with Advil and deep tissue massage every 2-3 weeks so its managed and not getting worse. I decided 2 weeks ago to stop doing straight up swim workouts 5 nites a week and instead alternate between regular swim workouts and just dedicated kick workouts. When i do the kick workouts I still do a solid warmup and the workout is 2-2500 yards of kick sets. i move into the slower lanes of my Masters Group to accomplish this. I seems to be helping with the pain and my kick is already improving big time. Has anyone else tried to do this type of training split???
Former Member
What events do you do?
I had a massage this weekend and man I felt great getting back into the pool last night.
Are you swimming state up there? I plan on coming up!
My events are 50's and 100 freestyle and butterfly with IM sprinkled in for flavor. I've also been know to do a 200free here and there but I split it very poorly. I tell you since I started getting a DEEP TISSUE massages on a regular basis it has really helped with recovery and injury. I'm only 35 but I'm still prone to joint issues and muscle pulls. The guy I work with at Crossfit has been helping me develop my Olympic lifts particularly the power clean/squat clean movements. If you get a chance watch a few videos of this movement and watch how close it is to the movement you make off a start and turns when straightening out.
I'll be swimming state but only on that sunday and only 2-3 events. Gotta get ready for Nationals :)
www.usms.org/.../indresults.php
I struggled this year a little. For 50free I'm anywhere from 24.5 to 25.5 in season but the last 2 years my taper has been good and I've gone 23.4 and 23.9. When I was 33 I struggled to break 56.0 in the hundred but had a monster taper and went 52.1. Maybe would have gone faster since my first 50 was 24.4 but I pulled a quad on the last turn and limped in. Been chasing that ever since. Pretty certain that with the work I've put in and the extra speed work with power wieghts I can taper to a low 51.0 100 free this year..maybe even faster :)
If you are experiencing shoulder pain, I suggest seeing a trained professional (PT, MD, etc.) for an evaluation.
Personally, I think you should re-evaluation the CrossFit training, as it may improve strength and decrease Body Fat %, but it may have increased your injury risk (cf. centerofoptimalrestoration.com/.../).
If performing CrossFit, you must ask yourself, is it worth the heightened injury risk and does it translate to swimming?
As far as kicking, if you have shoulder pain, discontinue using a board and consider this protocol (cf. www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../29211.asp).
I think you're putting in a lot of yardage on those shoulders if you are just training for 50s and 100s; putting in the 3500-yard workout every other day and alternating with days focused on kick sounds like a better idea. You might give the routine a couple of weeks and see if that doesn't give your shoulder joints enough recovery. I went through something similar not long ago and went back to the old hard day-easy day routine. Not wanting to lose too much fitness I increased the percentage of yards in kick and drill on my EZ days rather than reduce the total yardage by that much (I was working on long and middle-distance though), but it was enough a break on the shoulders to get them feeling semi-normal again. The whole hard day-easy day concept really works for me. Just be careful you don't exchange your shoulder problems for knee and hip issues!
Also, I would definitely scale back on the lifting in the weeks leading up to your goal event.
