I have been swimming lots o yards and my shoulders are hurting. Last year I went to therapy, and got some good execizes that helped. Now the pain is in another area (Trapezius, teres major, rear deltoids). I know I am a bit OCD but I hate stopping training. Should I cut back on yards and increase weightlifting? What about deep tissue massage? Anyone have any thoughts?:confused: This is starting to get depressing.
An extremely common topic on our forum here. The thing that has helped me most during times of shoulder travail is to get zoomers and kick most of practice. It's actually a much harder workout in many ways. And it lets you keep in the pool and stay up with your teammates--this regular camaraderie is, I believe, essential to many committed swimmers' mental health.
As your shoulder pain decreases, you can let your arms go through the motions without actually pulling with much force. This, for me, is a way to keep the range of motion good without aggravating the underlying tissues.
Eventually, you start pulling a little harder and finally put the zoomers away till the next episode.
Other things that have helped me:
ice after practice
never use kick boards
don't do strokes that are particularly pain provoking--in my case butterfly and backstroke
realize that the vast majority of shoulder problems are self limited (i.e., will go away on their own provided you don't keep the aggravation level high).
tell yourself as well that there have been many, many injured swimmers who switched to a kicking emphasis for whole chunks of the season--and ended up doing really good times, and sometimes PRs, during the end of the year meet
good luck and don't despair!
if you are anything like me, with hypochondriacal tendencies, focusing on minor discomforts, odd clicks, etc. only make pain perception worse.
An extremely common topic on our forum here. The thing that has helped me most during times of shoulder travail is to get zoomers and kick most of practice. It's actually a much harder workout in many ways. And it lets you keep in the pool and stay up with your teammates--this regular camaraderie is, I believe, essential to many committed swimmers' mental health.
As your shoulder pain decreases, you can let your arms go through the motions without actually pulling with much force. This, for me, is a way to keep the range of motion good without aggravating the underlying tissues.
Eventually, you start pulling a little harder and finally put the zoomers away till the next episode.
Other things that have helped me:
ice after practice
never use kick boards
don't do strokes that are particularly pain provoking--in my case butterfly and backstroke
realize that the vast majority of shoulder problems are self limited (i.e., will go away on their own provided you don't keep the aggravation level high).
tell yourself as well that there have been many, many injured swimmers who switched to a kicking emphasis for whole chunks of the season--and ended up doing really good times, and sometimes PRs, during the end of the year meet
good luck and don't despair!
if you are anything like me, with hypochondriacal tendencies, focusing on minor discomforts, odd clicks, etc. only make pain perception worse.
