I propose a thread honoring old age in which each person lists their current physical ailments and general excuses that prevent them from beating people like Paul Smith and Rich Saeger.
I will lead with a growing list of my own.
1. Shoulder pain
2. Heart palpatations
3. High cholesterol
4. Left hip stress fracture
5. Lower back pain (from shoveling snow!)
6. Wife and 3 kids.
Perhaps we can give an award to the winner and the biggest whiner at the end of this thread.
John Smith
My coach in a moment of insanity has decided that I am actually a (gasp) butterflyer :rolleyes: . I have always been a breaststroker, placing in state my senior year in highschool. Before my current coach (and my first coach in 25 years), I had never in my life swam more than a 25 of butterfly (I can swim it if I don't have to breathe :rofl: ). Anyway, in his continued insanity, he has been having me swim lots (now remember 'lots' is relative as my mind is adverse to butterfly) of butterfly during practice (> 200 yards, though not all at one time).
Now for the Aches and Pains part, my shoulders are sore!!!:help: He said to stretch them, but I am not sure how. Any ideas? I am afraid of ending up with some of the shoulder ailments that I have seen posted here.
Glad you decided to become a complete short axis swimmer! :lolup: Now, you do know this is a bit of a pandora's box here? :rofl: Maybe it won't be if a certain someone doesn't come to this thread.
If your shoulders are sore, Kathy, stretching is not all you need to do. In fact, some stretching is counter-productive and can make it worse. When starting in on fly, you need to start up very slowly. You can't just go insane, especially if you are just learning the stroke. Recipe for disaster. In fact, if you are just learning, you may want to use fins for awhile to help get the body position right. (Another controversial issue. Sigh.) I would advocate doing a lot of fly drills to help with technique (chest press fly, caterpillar, one arm -- do some searches here). Because you gotta have good technique to go faster. ;) (But even if you do, your shoulders can still hurt.) Most importantly, you need to do some rotator cuff and scapular stabilizing exercises pronto! Without these itsy bitsy muscles being strong, your body can't do fly (or other stuff, for that matter; mine don't like distance free). Go to the following threads to get info on shoulders, learn about the shoulder problems many of us have had and get exercises to do:
"Who has shoulder problems?" (started by Kaizen)
"Are shoulder problems due solely to improper stroke mechanics?" (by me)
"Shoulder clicking" (by Wrybosome)
"Buchberger 12" (by Wrybosome)
"Swimming Theories" (to see the real :argue: )
Happy reading! Take care of those shoulders!!
My coach in a moment of insanity has decided that I am actually a (gasp) butterflyer :rolleyes: . I have always been a breaststroker, placing in state my senior year in highschool. Before my current coach (and my first coach in 25 years), I had never in my life swam more than a 25 of butterfly (I can swim it if I don't have to breathe :rofl: ). Anyway, in his continued insanity, he has been having me swim lots (now remember 'lots' is relative as my mind is adverse to butterfly) of butterfly during practice (> 200 yards, though not all at one time).
Now for the Aches and Pains part, my shoulders are sore!!!:help: He said to stretch them, but I am not sure how. Any ideas? I am afraid of ending up with some of the shoulder ailments that I have seen posted here.
Glad you decided to become a complete short axis swimmer! :lolup: Now, you do know this is a bit of a pandora's box here? :rofl: Maybe it won't be if a certain someone doesn't come to this thread.
If your shoulders are sore, Kathy, stretching is not all you need to do. In fact, some stretching is counter-productive and can make it worse. When starting in on fly, you need to start up very slowly. You can't just go insane, especially if you are just learning the stroke. Recipe for disaster. In fact, if you are just learning, you may want to use fins for awhile to help get the body position right. (Another controversial issue. Sigh.) I would advocate doing a lot of fly drills to help with technique (chest press fly, caterpillar, one arm -- do some searches here). Because you gotta have good technique to go faster. ;) (But even if you do, your shoulders can still hurt.) Most importantly, you need to do some rotator cuff and scapular stabilizing exercises pronto! Without these itsy bitsy muscles being strong, your body can't do fly (or other stuff, for that matter; mine don't like distance free). Go to the following threads to get info on shoulders, learn about the shoulder problems many of us have had and get exercises to do:
"Who has shoulder problems?" (started by Kaizen)
"Are shoulder problems due solely to improper stroke mechanics?" (by me)
"Shoulder clicking" (by Wrybosome)
"Buchberger 12" (by Wrybosome)
"Swimming Theories" (to see the real :argue: )
Happy reading! Take care of those shoulders!!
