Early-Vertical-Forearm

To recover I plan to limit my swimming and weight training to what isin't painfull, ice and advil. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. :bow:I'm not an expert by any means on this topic but I do have some personal experience to share in case it may be helpful. My left shoulder has fully dislocated about a dozen times. First time was in 1993, the last time was in 2002. At one point it was so bad it actually fully dislocated in my sleep. After two emergency room visits, I eventully learned to reset it myself. Never had surgery, but in my experience weight training has helped my left shoulder termendously. "Knocking on wood" no major problems for over 5 years and I started swimming 1.5 years ago. Before, I would never be able to such an activity. I am very cautious with the stroke and movements and probably will never be able to backstroke, but what allowed me to try swimming out were several years of resistance conditioning. Without it I would have never attempted a freestyle stroke. First, even though weight training is nessesary for my shoulder health, there are several movements I avoid totally - dumbell/barbell military press, and bench press. If I did a set of these, I am certain the next swim would result in shoulder inflammation. For me, shrugs have seemed to keep the shoulder supported, and lateral raises with very light weights are good too as well as other dumbell/cable exercises. I also watch footage of Popov until movements are memorized to the point I recognize them when I get close. I do this in the mirror -shoulder position, rotation, everything but the kick. I think I found an EVF position for me that doesn't hurt or makes noise, but most importantly, as my form developed more (EVF), there was less shoulder irritation. Like it was more natural. Now this is working for me, my shoulder problem could be very different than yours - needing something else. But you may find it helpful to step back and evaluate what specific movement is aggrivating, lift weights cautiously avoiding bench and upright presses, and get some feedback on your stroke. I also avoid pain medication while working out to keep me from injury, unless something does go wrong and I need to decrease inflammation.

My right shoulder shortened my second workout yesterday to 30 minutes. There is no clicking or popping, just a painfull resistance in the joint. I had the same thing earlier this year when I began daily swims/workouts. I only did what didn't hurt and it went away. I'll have to resort to that again, which may mean a lot of kick sets and dry land work for a few days...hopefully no longer. It looks like an overnight transition to the new stroke technique is more than my 58 yr. old shoulder joint will allow me...duh. It looks like I will need to briefly rehab my shoulder, work back slowly to where I was, then gradually introduce a higher elbow stroke in smaller increments. To recover I plan to limit my swimming and weight training to what isin't painfull, ice and advil. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. :bow:

I've been coaching for over 30 years and have inherited swimmers with shoulder problems. One of my distance swimmers had "swimmer's shoulder" so bad that he couldn't swim without pain. Anyway, George Block, the past president of the American Swimming Coaches Association put on a clinic and helped the swimmer alleviate his pain. George told him to exit his hand from the water so he could see his palm. It looked awkward (he could enter it normally) but the pain disappeared. The impingement or pain was created when his hand exited the water and by changing the exit strategy, the pain disappeared. My swimmer had to practice the new exiting strategy and he often lapsed into the old style of recovery that caused the pain but I knew that my swimmer could swim pain free if he desired (sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't???). Think about how your hand exits the water and see if some changes might alleviate the pain totally. No one should swim with joint pain. Good luck!!

I wasn't sure I would be able to swim today, but after applying hot and cold, 8 advil and this rotator cuff exercise: YouTube - Rotator Cuff Exercises for Pain Relief / Shoulder Pain Relief I was able to swim very ez without discomfort with a stroke more like I'm accustomed to. I will continue the same routine and gradually over a period of weeks engage an earlier forearm. My theory is the extra load I was applying (added efficiency) with the new forearm position (extreme) was loading up my shoulder more than it was accustomed to. I expect a speedy recovery and don't think I will miss a workout! :bliss: I will try the palm exit technique and will post later progress. Thank you all for your valuable advice!

I interpreted it as palm facing inboard.

I tried this at practice wed night, it takes somr thinking as to when to start the pull.

George told him to exit his hand from the water so he could see his palm. It looked awkward (he could enter it normally) but the pain disappeared. When you say 'he could see his palm' is that so the swimmer could see his palm or the coach could see his palm? If it's the swimmer, I have no idea how that is possible for the swimmer to see his palm on exit if the hand is exiting at or near the hip. I'm very confused by this statement.

Awesome video! I've never seen it done quite like that. I'd like to use this video. Do you think you could get me in touch with the author. Thanks Tom

Here you go: 7 Minutes to a Healthy Shoulder and Rotator Cuff by David Wicker at Ko Olina Hawaii. Owner: whitetigerhawaii I am continuing to do these exercises and combined with alternate heat and cold, and 4 advil 2X 4 hours apart before swim, shoulder is much better. :banana: Thanks again.

I started having shoulder and arm pain last May and had to take some time off. Since returning, I've been making a big effort to avoid the overuse problems. A big part of my strategy is adjusting my stroke. I've been working on my EVF. I believe that one of the main causes of my pain has been related to my position at entry, so EVF goes right along with that. It has taken me a while, but I'm starting to "get" it. For me the key word in EVF is EARLY. I have to focus on the word early, on getting that vertical forearm sooner! Anyway, it has been helping me a lot as far as avoiding pain as I work to get back into shape!!!!