My daughter swims for USS Swim Club in Ohio. SHe has been dealing with a Rhomboid strain in her shoulder for almost a year now. This injury mostly occures when swimming butterfly. However repetitive motions for a prolonged period also seem to irritate the shoulder.
I am looking for advice because the problem seems to stem from Swimming butterfly. Long Course season started and she was doing very well - no shoulder pain until they swam fly in the last practice.
My questions are as follows:
1.) Is there a way that she can train and continue to provide additional strength with butterfly? Or is it best to just not deal with the butterfly until the shoulder is in better condition and closer to full recovery?
2.) What would be the best training method for a swimmer with shoulder injury?
3.) Is more laps always better training? Can she achieve the same benefit or better training by swimming less laps with a specific purpose during practice?
Coaching advice is welcome and appreciated - as I am concerned for her welfare. She has very high goals and I would like to help her achieve her goals without injury.
Thank you!
Former Member
I have already weighed in, but permit me to add some additional remarks.
This coach strikes me as too aggressive -- apparently he (she?) is willing to put your child's health at risk for the glory of titles and trophies. He is dead wrong about a layoff from fly not helping. In actual fact, it is the only thing that will help. "Working through" pain is a thoroughly discredited notion (according to all of the doctors I've seen).
It is quite possible that your daughter's shoulder pain is due to a subtle flaw in technique, in which case a sensible approach would be as follows: Stop fly altogether until the pain is completely gone; then work on fly technique; if that's okay, then go on to train. (I went through this myself with front crawl.)
It is also possible that your daughter's condition is simply a result of having shoulders that weren't made for fly (e.g., an excessively mobile shoulder joint). Proceed as above, and if no refinement in technique can eliminate the pain, then she should accept that fly is not in her arsenal.
During 25 years of running for exercise, I accumulated a number of small injuries. Back then it was standard to work through your injuries. As I got older (I am only 41), the aches and pains took more time to go away, to the point that now I have two permanently bad knees, a bad hip, and a bad foot. I spent 4 months last year in a wheel chair (I started on crutches, but that messed up a shoulder!). Today I can walk with a bit of discomfort, but only for short distances. I cannot run. All of this was avoidable, if I had had the wisdom and courage to listen to my body, and respect the message that the pain was sending me (and switch to swimming!).
I absolutely agree with the agressiveness of this coach.
I have had some luck with him. Had a little chat with him and we discussed her technique - he stated that there were subtle technique problems but nothing that should cause this pain.
We also agreed on not swimming fly for the remainder of the summer unless directed by her Sports Medicine doctor that it was okay. Needless to say - it was getting a little tense. He did not want to take her off fly and wants to train her as an IM'er, blah blah blah!
At any rate, it feels like we've made some progress in the area and it was much easier to discuss knowing some of your experiences and suggestions.
As in any sport - you don't want to train until fail. This coach specifically was discussing this theory with the kids at practice in dealing with dryland excercises. Some of the kids were doing too many push ups, etc. So upon hearing this I asked what the difference was doing push-ups to fail VS swimming laps (fly, etc) to fail? He then changed his tune a bit.
She has another doctors appointment coming up - hopefully he will be able to pinpoint what is causing the shoulder muscle to be irritated during fly. And, even though it has been a long process, maybe this is the last problem she will have to deal with and will be able to move forward when it is corrected.
Originally posted by jamiev
This year we have a new AGGRESSIVE coach. She went for four (4) weeks of practice without any problems with her shoulder and it seemed to be strengthening up pretty well.
I'd like to offer my tuppence, if I may.... I would offer the same advice as my husband (frequently) offers me: the coach works for your daughter- your daughter is not there for her coach...
I wish you and your daughter well...
