Awhile ago, Terry asserted that there was an "epidemic" of shoulder injuries among young USS swimmers, which he asserted were all due to stroke defects. Is he right?
Lately, I've been polling parents of 12-15 year old girls and I have learned that they all seem to have nagging injuries, particularly shoulder problems: Tendonitis, scapular pain, knee pain, etc. From what I know about the practice schedules, I don't think the injuries are due to overtraining, although some put in yardage or have some pretty hard practices. None of the girls I know do doubles. They all appear to be in puberty, and perhaps the changes in their bodies account for some of this pain. I'm sure some of it is due to bad technique too. I see a lot of lack of sufficient rotation on freestyle for example. But it's very annoying. Everyone is in PT or pain. I worry that some of these girls, including my own, will quit because they are tired of battling pain.
Another thought. Elsewhere I read that one program started their girls on RC stuff beginning at age 10 and kids doing these exercises have had fewer shoulder problems. Should this be started at a young age? I know my kid is doing them.
I have also heard of this problem mainly among girls. I don't know boys with shoulder problems. But that is likely due to the fact that I know more girls because I have a girl.
Thoughts?
This is a good thread.
Thinking about stretching, etc before swimming, I think, yes, we want to be a little warm before stretching, but we also want to stretch before we get warm, too. Contradictory? Not really.
We need to do some moving of our shoulders before we start stretching or swimming. Swinging the arms lightly around, stuff like that. But we need to get our whole body going. I like to lay on my back with hands at sides and bring my one arm up over my head while I bring up the opposite knee. Then I do the other arm and knee, and go back and forth 20-40 times: easy, warms the shoulders and legs, gets the muscles on both sides of the spine going opposite directions, gets me ready for spinal twisting, also light, turning my knees from side to side.
Another part of warmup involves "firing" some muscle groups you are going to be using in your main workout. So I usually do some core strengthening, again not to hard. Finally I get to stretching extremities. By then, everything is pretty warm, but still, BE CAREFUL. You want to stretch your muscles, not pull your tendons or joints out of place.
The RC exercises mentioned earlier (page 2 by Gull?) are terrific. But I have trouble getting to them regularly enough. And before I found them, I found an in-water warmup routine that really is very similar. It was an article called (I hope I get this right) "dips, whirlpools, and shoulder thangs" by Emmett Hines of Houston H2O. I found it through this forum, and it has been terrific getting me ready for workouts.
Ease into everything hard with something less hard. Don't be in a rush. And remember that the perfect form you have at the beginning of your workout will not be so perfect when you are tired at the end.
This is a good thread.
Thinking about stretching, etc before swimming, I think, yes, we want to be a little warm before stretching, but we also want to stretch before we get warm, too. Contradictory? Not really.
We need to do some moving of our shoulders before we start stretching or swimming. Swinging the arms lightly around, stuff like that. But we need to get our whole body going. I like to lay on my back with hands at sides and bring my one arm up over my head while I bring up the opposite knee. Then I do the other arm and knee, and go back and forth 20-40 times: easy, warms the shoulders and legs, gets the muscles on both sides of the spine going opposite directions, gets me ready for spinal twisting, also light, turning my knees from side to side.
Another part of warmup involves "firing" some muscle groups you are going to be using in your main workout. So I usually do some core strengthening, again not to hard. Finally I get to stretching extremities. By then, everything is pretty warm, but still, BE CAREFUL. You want to stretch your muscles, not pull your tendons or joints out of place.
The RC exercises mentioned earlier (page 2 by Gull?) are terrific. But I have trouble getting to them regularly enough. And before I found them, I found an in-water warmup routine that really is very similar. It was an article called (I hope I get this right) "dips, whirlpools, and shoulder thangs" by Emmett Hines of Houston H2O. I found it through this forum, and it has been terrific getting me ready for workouts.
Ease into everything hard with something less hard. Don't be in a rush. And remember that the perfect form you have at the beginning of your workout will not be so perfect when you are tired at the end.
