Warm Up?

If your shoulders are getting tired just in warmup, you might be doing it too fast. I agree with Paul that you might want to throw in some drills. Gliding works well for me, too -- try to focus on a nice loooong glide with good body position and perfect stroke. I need at least 1K in before I can swim fast. I get some shoulder twinges here and there and if that happens, I often switch to fist swimming for a bit.

I like a swim/kick/pull grouping during warmups. I would like to get in at minimum 600 yards total, preferably more like 1000. I'm not that fast (1:30/100yds is a good aerobic pace for me). The swim is pretty easy, typically half free, half back and ***. I frequently can feel tightness in my right shoulder, hence the real easy focus. I like to use my zoomers for half the kick chunk. It allows me to get my heart rate up easily without requiring me to stress my shoulders (5-10 SDKs per length). I also throw in some breaststroke kick to see how my knees are feeling. Finally, during the pull chunk I generally speed up a bit and see how my shoulder is feeling. Typically, the tightness is gone by this point. If not, I take it easy a bit more. Skip

My first 600 of a warm-up could more realistically be called "wake-up." There is no rhyme or reason to what I do.

I guess it is a case of 'different strokes...' I like a brisk warm up. I start off with a 500 free which I always aim to bring in under 7 mins. That is below a 1:25/100 pace SCM. Sometimes I go even faster. (I have brought it in at 6:22 before, but it is more often a 6:40 something). I usually follow that up with a much slower 300 of the other strokes before I move onto my main set. I focus on good form and strong swimming in my warm up. I seem to get into my main set much more quickly with a faster warm up.

When I first started back swimming after 23 years I also started getting my old friend Shoulder Pain back. Now I stop at least 3 times in the middle of my warm up and stretch thoroughly. My warm up is usually a 500 free, 300 kick, 300 pull...speed depends on how I feel that day. After each "set" of warm up I stretch my entire body. If I feel myself tightening during the workout I will stretch my arms again, especially after using a board with a kicking set. Since I've started integrating all of the stretching, my shoulder pain has stopped.

Our pool is closed this week (they're putting up the air-supported dome). Our coach e-mailed us some workouts that we can do on our own. Here are the warmups from the three workouts (written for SCY). Choose the intervals that are appropriate for you: Practice #1 - I.M. Workout 300 Free Swim, 30 seconds rest 300 I.M., Kick / Drill / Swim by 25 6 X 50 Choice @ :50 or :55 or 1:05 (2 easy, 2 med, 2 fast) Practice #2 - Freestyle 300 Free - Swim Easy, 30 sec rest 200 Pull - Negative Split, 20 sec rest 100 Kick - 50 Easy / 50 Fast, 10 sec rest 6 X 50 Freestyle Kick @ 1:05 or 1:15 or 1:30 (2 easy, 2 med, 2 fast) Go as fast as you can on the last two. Practice #3 - Mix 400 I.M. S.Ki.D.S. (Swim / Kick / Drill / Swim by 25), 30 sec rest 300 Free Right Arm / Left Arm / Swim by 25s, 20 sec rest 200 I.M. Right Arm / Left Arm by 25s, 10 sec rest 100 Free Swim 80-90% effort

All great advice.. So right now I am not swimming with a team due to scheduling and having just started. I will once the home and work schedule balance to allow me. Stupid question: are your warmups with rest? I am going for my 500-600 without stopping, doing flip turns at both ends when I can, sometimes pausing just enough to turn myself around without the flip.

If you are having "twinges" of pain in your shoulder and elbow, and if it "sometimes hurts" to raise your arm laterally, you need to think about more than just warmup. Otherwise, and I speak from bitter experience, you will eventually have trouble thinking about anything except how bad your shoulder and your elbow hurt. Do not ignore those warning "twinges" and do not think that a little warmup, or a little change to your warmup, is all you need to do to address them. I suggest that you go see a sports PT or chiropractor now, before you are in pain that stops you from swimming. You probably need to develop (and stick with) an exercise routine to make sure the small muscles stabilizing your joints are doing all they should be doing, but a professional can help you determine why your joints hurt and what you should do about it. You may also need to make some stroke alterations. But do not ignore joint pain when you are young, because it does not get better with age. Good point, I should call my doctor's office and get a referral to PT. No sports chiropractor's (at least that I know of) in my area (Southern/Central New Hampshire). I really went from not being in the best of shape to doing some weight training with aerobic to swimming and now I pretty much just swim 5-6 days a week for 45-60 mins a day.

I am a no pain swimmer. I start my warm ups at a very slow rate of swimming. After 100m I steadily increase my speed until I am at about a 25seconds for 25 m pace for my last length of the warm up. It takes me about 300 to 400m to start to feel like swimming. After that comes my workout. I reverse the cool down swim by swimming down to slow from a 25 sec 25m to dead slow. If anything but my legs hurt I do not swim hard. My legs always hurt. I might add that I only stretch my calf muscles when they feel strained to almost cramping when I swim.