I'm absolutely amazed at the amount of misinformation on swimming, especially on the internet. One website I saw instructing the specifics of the backstroke advocated a completely illegal turn.
A bodybuilder site said that depleting your stores of Glycogen by starving your body of it actually helped the body move faster. I'm not buying that. You can't swim without it.
Other sites like USA Swimming, have a lot of kids with a lot of questions who for some reason don't ask their coaches or parents. Lots of ear infection questions - which are fairly preventable by wearing a swim cap.
Early on in my learning I suffered a severe injury by practicing a drill recommended by one of the so-called experts in swimming technique, who shall remain nameless. That's led me to pay closer attention to sports medicine specialists and surgeons who swim.
Everybody's body is different and has specific limitations. For example, the Neer Test for your shoulders. The entire approach to pitch, catch, pull, etc... is highly individual. I trust top athletic coaches and top swimmers and doctors.
One site on backstroke listed something very technical which actually made sense and works wonders but after running a search a dozen ways through Google I found no one knew of it or spoke of it other than that 1 site!
Who do you trust? What are your thoughts on this?
Parents
Former Member
I'm with Connie. I have never trusted anyone completely, including "top" doctors and professionals. And here's why:
My junior year of high school, the usually mild but annoying knee pain exploded into the agony of not being able to finish a relatively enjoyable practice. I'd already been to two local sports doctors, who concluded I had Chondro Malasia(sp) which basically means arthritis under the kneecap. They recommended Cortisone shots for me, at 15, and when my mother refused, put me on Naproxin. The third doctor we tried was one of the top Sports Orthos in the country, located at Grant Hospital in Columbus Ohio. I was there for an hour, he saw me for 10 minutes, proclaimed me to have "jumper's knee" (or a girl's exagerration/growing pains) and prescribed more Naproxin, some PT and a flexible patellar band.
One month later I was lifted out of the pool sobbing at a regional meet and carried across the pool deck to a waiting trainer because I had come into the wall blacking out from pain. I got into the ortho surgeon who was the team physician for Columbus Crew soccer team, and she spent two hours with me, looking at my shoe treads, and when she discovered that picking up my heels relaxed my left leg into a 45 degree curve, ordered an MRI. My very first one.
70% of my left ACL was gone. Completely gone, and as the result of it being an extended injury that no previous doctor had seen, the remaining 30% stretched into a lax band of nothing. My knee, she estimated, had been operating completely without a major ligament (THE major ligament, really) for at least two years, and as a result, all of my knee's structures shifted to take on the extra work, damaging my Posterior Lateral Capsule (a trio of small ligaments located on the outside of the left knee, within the Posterior Lateral Corner) and the actual PL Corner itself.
She referred me to a surgeon at OSU, who thought the best way to cure this would be to send me to Michigan, where they would break my leg at the HIP, and rotate my femur to overcompensate my knee cap so it would shift my PCL and let it do most of the work for my missing ACL. I'm not kidding.
I finally had what was left of my ACL shrunk towards the end of 2001, and am now doing the best I can, though I will never be quite back to normal. Had the first, or even second doctor caught what the 4th doctor caught, and the 5th tried to fix strangely, I would have gone on to state finals my junior year, and attended one of the three D1 schools that were actively recruiting me.
I don't trust anyone but myself. If it doesn't work for me, or feel right, I don't do it. I won't risk it again, now that I'm just getting my swimming career back (slowly, but just watch me)
I'm with Connie. I have never trusted anyone completely, including "top" doctors and professionals. And here's why:
My junior year of high school, the usually mild but annoying knee pain exploded into the agony of not being able to finish a relatively enjoyable practice. I'd already been to two local sports doctors, who concluded I had Chondro Malasia(sp) which basically means arthritis under the kneecap. They recommended Cortisone shots for me, at 15, and when my mother refused, put me on Naproxin. The third doctor we tried was one of the top Sports Orthos in the country, located at Grant Hospital in Columbus Ohio. I was there for an hour, he saw me for 10 minutes, proclaimed me to have "jumper's knee" (or a girl's exagerration/growing pains) and prescribed more Naproxin, some PT and a flexible patellar band.
One month later I was lifted out of the pool sobbing at a regional meet and carried across the pool deck to a waiting trainer because I had come into the wall blacking out from pain. I got into the ortho surgeon who was the team physician for Columbus Crew soccer team, and she spent two hours with me, looking at my shoe treads, and when she discovered that picking up my heels relaxed my left leg into a 45 degree curve, ordered an MRI. My very first one.
70% of my left ACL was gone. Completely gone, and as the result of it being an extended injury that no previous doctor had seen, the remaining 30% stretched into a lax band of nothing. My knee, she estimated, had been operating completely without a major ligament (THE major ligament, really) for at least two years, and as a result, all of my knee's structures shifted to take on the extra work, damaging my Posterior Lateral Capsule (a trio of small ligaments located on the outside of the left knee, within the Posterior Lateral Corner) and the actual PL Corner itself.
She referred me to a surgeon at OSU, who thought the best way to cure this would be to send me to Michigan, where they would break my leg at the HIP, and rotate my femur to overcompensate my knee cap so it would shift my PCL and let it do most of the work for my missing ACL. I'm not kidding.
I finally had what was left of my ACL shrunk towards the end of 2001, and am now doing the best I can, though I will never be quite back to normal. Had the first, or even second doctor caught what the 4th doctor caught, and the 5th tried to fix strangely, I would have gone on to state finals my junior year, and attended one of the three D1 schools that were actively recruiting me.
I don't trust anyone but myself. If it doesn't work for me, or feel right, I don't do it. I won't risk it again, now that I'm just getting my swimming career back (slowly, but just watch me)
