Overcoming Adversity
A sports injury can be an overwhelming experience, and
many athletes stop training because of the pain. This is
understandable, but if you can overcome your injury and
learn how to strengthen the inherent weakness, you could
become a stronger competitor.
Once you've gone through an injury you gain a deeper
understanding of your limitations, and grow a stronger
appreciation of your abilities. Somewhere in the back
of your mind you realize that all this could be taken
away, so you train smarter and perform better.
Most masters will encounter some sort of injury along
the way, but staying determined to get through the negative
experience will become your greatest strength. Nothing feels
better than having the ability to perform once again. Still
having bounce in your step and fuel in your tank goes quite
far in a post-injury performance.
The result is a more balanced athlete, especially throughout
the training process. Small gains have a deeper value, and
the joy of swimming becomes the primary focus, as nothing
is taken for granted.
At the end of the day, trying to see this perspective may help
to overcome the adversity you encounter when coping with an
injury.
Good luck and Happy Swimming,
Jonathan Miller
For me, it depends upon the injury, and the motivation behind training. I'm a bit prone to lower back problems, perhaps due to heavy lifting. The first time my back went out, I stayed away from lifting for 3 weeks, and gradually got back into it. As of late I do what I can to keep rom and flexibility going, even if I'm just going through the motions. The back is a crazy thing, you can deadlift 405 for reps one day, then throw it out the next lifting a bag of potatoes.
Swimming has been wonderful for my lower back, even butterfly. I'm knocking on wood so far as shoulders go, but then, I don't have to swim 10k yds a day either.
:applaud::groovy::applaud::groovy::applaud::groovy:
Perhaps you need more core work to prevent your back from going out.
Maybe… I do ball crunches, saxon side bends, side twists with a 15lb bar, hanging leg lifts, incline crunches. I'll do one abdominal exercise and one oblique exercise 3 x a week. For lower back I'll do good mornings, reverse hypers, and romanian deadlifts. But yeah, I probably should be hitting the abs more.
I just find it curious that it could take something as innocuous as bending down to pick up a pencil and "BAM", your back's out.
:wave::cheerleader::wave::cheerleader:
All very true... but just subjectively speaking, when I have injuries that keep me out of action, my main thought often is "okay, can I just skip this growth experience and get back to what I want to do?" ;) Takes a bit of time to come round to recognizing that I have to take care of the injury first. Should mention I'm more a runner than a swimmer, although I've gotten more active in swimming in the past couple years--and the swimming has helped me avoid running injuries for the most part and shortened the recovery when I do get injured. Thank God, no swimming injuries, and I hope it stays that way!
You are so right. I'm going through my second swimming injury. Unfortunately, I didn't listen to my body with the first one.....even though it was screaming at me. Ended up having to have shoulder surgery and a long, painful, scary rehab. When I got my swimming ability back, I was indescribably happy and relished the pure joy of being able to swim again. I trained hard but, smarter and ended up doing close to my best teenager times!
I'm injured again and doing everything I can to get back in the water. PT 3 times a week and lots of stretching and home exercises. Yesterday my PT said I could swim very easy for 15-20 minutes! I did and it felt so great. I still have some work to do because I am achy today. But, the pure joy of swimming and feeling the water move accross my body......priceless!
