I've only done it a couple times, and unfortunately tonight was one of them. I was being a little sloppy on a turrn and my heels smacked the top of the gutter. Nothing broken but I'll probably have a good bruise. Add this to lanelines (the plastic floats can be sharp when broken) and hand collisions with other swimmers to the list of hazards.
I did this trying a new back to *** turn about 8 weeks ago. It just stopped hurting this week. That is one of those truly painful, truly stupid injuries!
I would have sworn that I broke it. High heel shoes were the only thing that offered relief.
Years ago, one of my teammates hit both of her heels in a backstroke race. Unfortunately, they were metal gutters and she ended up with 9 stitches in one and I don't remember how many in the other : (
Lots of blood- yeck.
I was surprised that she was allowed to swim the next day. She did do all of her races. Go 'Creek!
My brother broke his ankle doing this a few years ago. When my mom told me, I was like "How do you break you ankle while swimming?" He had to explain it to me. Thing was he hit them hard a time or two before he broke the one, you think he would have learned. (I got the brains in the family:thhbbb:)
I think just about everyone has misjudged a turn at some point and hit their heels. Fortunately, I haven't done it since I swam in high school and I grazed my heels more than smacked them, but we had people who did real damage on a misjudged turn.
Not recently with the heels, but I have recently tangled my fingers in the lane line while swimming backstroke. Thankfully nothing broke, but my hand was sore for weeks. Bashing my wrist against a concrete wall while swimming butterfly in an outside lane resulted in another hand injury that took weeks to heal. Somehow I managed to do that to both hands this fall.
Swimming straight would probably help!
I haven't smashed my heels in many years(it is a rapid learning experience.)I did catch my finger in the lane line swimming backstroke a few years ago(another reason I hate that stroke) and it took months to heal.
Haven't done this yet. The club pool I practice in uses a 4" wide lane line that goes all the way up the wall and the bottom corner is curved. This gives the swimmer no other option than to sight for the wall:afraid:. I usually end up turning too early contacting the wall with legs extended.
