Are shoulder injuries caused solely by improper stroke mechanics? Can we avoid all pain using perfect technique? Can we throw away the ice pack forever? Or can shoulder pain be caused by other factors as well? Vote if you have an opinion.
I have doctors in my family, so ....:hug: :hug: :hug: :hug: to Gull.
I smashed a doctor like a guitar last January but a lawyer I swim with pummels me like a child daily.
And I should have made it more clear all along that the incidence of injury that I find so alarming is among younger swimmers, not the general soreness that I am well aware is part and parcel of being a middle-aged athlete.
Well, I'm glad that middle-aged "dessication" explains something. You could have told us that little fact a few posts ago and we could have been kissing earlier.
I'm distressed though that you see a trend in younger swimmers. I thought they were not doing tons of mindless yardage and that they focus on technique much more than we used to before we became sore middle-agers.
Gull, you're a doctor? What kind?
I believe Gull is the kind of doc we want if we are having a heart attack in the pool from overtraining. He is not the orthopod type. If he was, he'd get even more :smooch: on this forum.
Eliminating butterfly would probably be as sad and disputatious as eliminating butterfrog.
On another note, I was reading a disputatious TI-related thread and saw that Terry said (not quoting exactly now) that a PT told him that if you had to ice regularly you should "STOP" doing the activity altogether. I know some swimmers who love swimming and are in the hot tub icing regularly. They would quite sad to STOP.
Is this really true?
Which raises the question: if one's problems are caused by the stabilizing muscles getting fatigued, does doing a lot of dryland exercise of these muscles help or hurt? Or perhaps is there a way to build up these muscles without causing further fatigue that might actually make things worse? It would definately seem to argue against doing dryland before swimming.
Lindsay,
My Orthopedist and my PT have stressed that I NEVER do my rotator cuff exercises before I swim! ONLY after I swim. I need those suckers to hold my shoulder together!
Which raises the question: if one's problems are caused by the stabilizing muscles getting fatigued, does doing a lot of dryland exercise of these muscles help or hurt? Or perhaps is there a way to build up these muscles without causing further fatigue that might actually make things worse? It would definately seem to argue against doing dryland before swimming.
The flip side of that is that you can just as easily hurt yourself lifting if you lift after swimming because of muscle fatigue. Rotator cuff exercises are different they aren't really lifting in the sense you are talking about. Additionally, it's been discussed at length here that most top programs lift before they swim. I think it was Jeff (?) that said they did it the other way around one year at UT and lots of guys were getting hurt.
I believe I've posted several times that I do exactly that, which indicates I have not minimized the importance of anatomical factors. I have several times stipulated that it's a contributory factor. How many times must I do that?
Apparently we agree that anatomical factors are important contributors to the development of swimmer's shoulder/shoulder impingement. Sorry for the misunderstanding.:hug:
