I learned to swim as an adult a couple of years ago. When I started the front crawl, I would focus on being "long" in the water - i.e., really reaching with the forward hand on each stroke, and not pulling until the trailing hand entered the water (the TI front quadrant swimming concept).
But over time, my shoulders would bother me. And I recently learned that swimming with high elbows (envisioning your arm going over a barrel) is better for your shoulders. I was definitely dropping my elbows before.
The problem I'm having is that when I swim with high elbows, I feel like I'm not as "long" in the water, that I get less glide, and that generally, I have to work a lot harder (though my shoulders feel better). One obvious thing I've noticed is that with a high elbow stroke, I can't seem to keep my leading arm out in front until my trailing arm catches up.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
Edit: I should add that I'm a recreational swimmer, so technique that is easier on the shoulder is preferred to a technique that may be better for competitive swimmers but is more stressful to the shoulder joint.
really reaching with the forward hand on each stroke, and not pulling until the trailing hand entered the water (the TI front quadrant swimming concept).
But over time, my shoulders would bother me. And I recently learned that swimming with high elbows (envisioning your arm going over a barrel) is better for your shoulders. I was definitely dropping my elbows before.
There are two common injury modes that could possibly be at work, a video would show which one is in play from her it is hard to guess.
The first injury mode is having your arm extended overhead and your hand is actually higher than your shoulder joint. Often it goes with having your hand angled up.
It is terribly common in people overdoing the long stroke with catchup aspect of things. It is so common I wrote an article for people who do catchup to beware of this overcorrection.
acadianendurance.blogspot.com/
The basic idea is that you are putting a load on your shoulder when it is overhead. Your arms are not really made to do that - exert force with your hands fully overhead.
The second injury mode is that of abduction with internal rotation. Medically, this is the position folks worry about for causing impingement. Coincidentally it is the same position described as early vertical forearm by some coaches.
As noted earlier, if you swim with an overly long glide phase and then throw an attempt at high elbow catch on top of it. You are compounding things because A. your shoulder position is ripe for impingement, B. you slowed down so much that you have to reaccelerate your body, more force more loading.
For the length of the thread you haven't mentioned more shoulder problems though, so hopefully what you did is working for you.
really reaching with the forward hand on each stroke, and not pulling until the trailing hand entered the water (the TI front quadrant swimming concept).
But over time, my shoulders would bother me. And I recently learned that swimming with high elbows (envisioning your arm going over a barrel) is better for your shoulders. I was definitely dropping my elbows before.
There are two common injury modes that could possibly be at work, a video would show which one is in play from her it is hard to guess.
The first injury mode is having your arm extended overhead and your hand is actually higher than your shoulder joint. Often it goes with having your hand angled up.
It is terribly common in people overdoing the long stroke with catchup aspect of things. It is so common I wrote an article for people who do catchup to beware of this overcorrection.
acadianendurance.blogspot.com/
The basic idea is that you are putting a load on your shoulder when it is overhead. Your arms are not really made to do that - exert force with your hands fully overhead.
The second injury mode is that of abduction with internal rotation. Medically, this is the position folks worry about for causing impingement. Coincidentally it is the same position described as early vertical forearm by some coaches.
As noted earlier, if you swim with an overly long glide phase and then throw an attempt at high elbow catch on top of it. You are compounding things because A. your shoulder position is ripe for impingement, B. you slowed down so much that you have to reaccelerate your body, more force more loading.
For the length of the thread you haven't mentioned more shoulder problems though, so hopefully what you did is working for you.
