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.
posted by Swim4me
Welcome aboard Kathy!! Did you get that Cruise, Allen, and Blowfish?!! We just turned another one!!....We are very happy to have our newest butterfly member Kathy!
Newmastersswimmer
Thank you so much for the Welcome, however did you catch that my coach is insane!!!!:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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!!
I felt a disturbance in The Force, as if a million hair follicles cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
No need for clippers or light sabers. This is not an improvement thread and only attracts whiners. The Force may remain undisturbed.
I would like to add the following threads -- just for you two clowns with sore shoulders. Here's a :hug: for your boo-boos.
"Shoulder injuries"
"Shoulder surgery"
"Shoulder question"
"Recovering from shoulder surgery, feeling crummy"
"Shoulder problem"
"Time to start full stroke swimming again"
Safe to say, technique alone will not save the day. I say that with the utmost confidence. I'm holding clippers. I can also always resort to some creative writing. I don't believe I've written a poem about shoulders yet. Those 10 x 200 flys I did may have fired me up.
Yesterday my shoulder seemed much better so I tried a little fullstroke breaststroke. That felt fine so of course I tried a little faster. I thought I didn't do too much and felt fine until I got up this morning. My shoulder was a little stiff,but the more I tried to loosen up the more it hurt.Back to kicking only for another week.:( :(
My coach in a moment of insanity has decided that I am actually a (gasp) butterflyer . 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 ). 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). posted by Swim4me
Welcome aboard Kathy!! Did you get that Cruise, Allen, and Blowfish?!! We just turned another one!!....We are very happy to have our newest butterfly member Kathy!
Newmastersswimmer
Maybe it won't be if a certain someone doesn't come to this thread.
I felt a disturbance in The Force, as if a million hair follicles cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
My coach in a moment of insanity has decided that I am actually a (gasp) butterflyer...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.
Kathy, You won't find any sympathy from me if you decide to follow his path. I will offer you one time only, a soothing shoulder massage and a pep talk, but you will have to swear off of fly and return to breaststroke.
;)
I felt a disturbance in The Force, as if a million hair follicles cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
"Watch out for the clippers......."
No, I did not get a haircut today. Nor have I shaved.
