Injury Poll: Swimming vs. Weight Lifting

Hum di dum. Hmmmm. Should I then quit all shoulder/weight/scapular stabilization exercises and let my shoulders rest and then swim like the natural fish that I am? Hum di dum. I do notice that lifting a 5-lb weight to the back while lying on my stomach, and 3-lb weights out to the side, again, while lying on my stomach, seems to be doing a number on my neck and back. A number of things. Shazam it is hot in this attic apartment in which I am quasi-self-employed! Drip drip drip. 93 degrees. I thought it was supposed to cool off today; thus I did not install my pretty ineffective air conditioner that works if I crawl around on the floor. Feel free to nominate me for longest postings and digressions for that poll someone started. Anyone want to know about my childhood? My earliest memory? Anyone concerned that I am bored right now and very hot? I do work. Really. :bed:

I voted for dryland, simply because I am a bigger klutz out of water than in. Have been my whole life. Perhaps it is the naturally inherent support that the water gives my body, and the resistance that prevents me from doing klutzy stuff faster! :D

Hum di dum. I do notice that lifting a 5-lb weight to the back while lying on my stomach, and 3-lb weights out to the side, again, while lying on my stomach, seems to be doing a number on my neck and back. Given your self-reports of injury, this statement is baffling to me. I question whether a competent physical therapist who is knowledgeable about sports-related shoulder injuries would be having you do these movements at all, let alone with these amounts of weight. I do a "T" exercise while lying face-down, lifting my arms toward the back while in external rotation, but I use only the weight of my arms for resistance. 3 extra pounds on each side would kill me. And I cannot imagine any reason I would ever try to lift a 5-pound weight up and over my head and backwards while lying on my front. It hurts just to think about it.

Swimming injures me. Weight Lifting allows me to prevent these injuries. There are times where I get injured while training dryland, it's part of the process. But usually, these microinjures are fairly minor and fade away real quickly. Injuries I typically get from swimming do not fade away as rapidly. The injuries I usually get from swimming are located in the rotator's cuff (free style), rotator's cuff / lower back (fly), and inside knees (breaststroke kicking). Dryland to prevent breaststroke related injuries (which for me, are the worst since I have very bad knees), I use the Squat, slightly modifying the width at which I anchor my feet. I hope it's going to work since I'd love to get back to serious IM training some day. Thanks for the poll.

I answered "weights/dry land" only because I had to stop running a few years ago because my knees are simply torn up. Cysts and missing meniscus (sp?) and now if I try to run anything longer than a mile, my right knee blows up like a puffer fish and for three days I limp. However, I've never hurt myself weight-lifting. My wife would say because I never push myself enough (she's a nut about lifting), but I would say it is because I lift safely. I lift twice a week, and mostly do "core" things. I never do any shoulders, as swimming gives me enough (TI people would say too much); I work on the muscles not stressed during FR swimming, like the biceps, but also back, triceps and my trunk. I have noticed improvements in both weight lifted and in my swimming, but the swimming increases could easily be attributed to my attention to technique.

Given your self-reports of injury, this statement is baffling to me. I question whether a competent physical therapist who is knowledgeable about sports-related shoulder injuries would be having you do these movements at all, let alone with these amounts of weight. I do a "T" exercise while lying face-down, lifting my arms toward the back while in external rotation, but I use only the weight of my arms for resistance. 3 extra pounds on each side would kill me. And I cannot imagine any reason I would ever try to lift a 5-pound weight up and over my head and backwards while lying on my front. It hurts just to think about it. I wondered about this myself. I had always been told to do isometrics out to the side and to the front, not weights. But I went to this PT and this is what she told me to do, and so I did it. I've gotten stronger but it is doing a number on my back and neck. As for the 5 pounds, I don't lift them up and over my head; I hold them with my arms straight back toward my feet, palms down, and lift them slightly off the floor, holding for 6 seconds, releasing, doing this 10 times (what you say you are doing I think isometrically). Hum di dum again. I think I will ditch these weight exercises and just do them isometrically. Thanks for the feedback. Digression: It is hard to find a PT who will take my insurance. That is the new reality with "health care for all" in Massachusetts. It is also hard to find specialists. All the ones who were recommended to me by my teammates would not take my insurance. But this is for another thread, that has already been posted, by Mr. Thornton. Self-employment has its drawbacks.

Most of my injuries are from outside of swimming and weights. Most of my dry land, when done with the team, are non-weight bearing. We do jumps, jump ropes, running, etc. None of those have caused injuries. The only injury I've had from either dry land or swimming has been bursitis from doing the One Hour Postal swim in 2003 and going in to bad form near the end.

Hum di dum again. Wonderful to see you back! An Isobellian hum di dum is worth a thousand logorheac Thorntonian digressions. With regards to air conditioning, I am pretty sure it's a bit like pain medication. Best to start when the pain is still manageable, otherwise it can get away from you, and all the oxycontin in the world will have a hard time settling things down. I say, the next time your garret reaches 91 degrees, turn on the AC. Waiting till 93, though admirable, is too late.

I answered "weights/dry land" only because I had to stop running a few years ago because my knees are simply torn up. Cysts and missing meniscus (sp?) and now if I try to run anything longer than a mile, my right knee blows up like a puffer fish and for three days I limp. However, I've never hurt myself weight-lifting. My wife would say because I never push myself enough (she's a nut about lifting), but I would say it is because I lift safely. I lift twice a week, and mostly do "core" things. I never do any shoulders, as swimming gives me enough (TI people would say too much); I work on the muscles not stressed during FR swimming, like the biceps, but also back, triceps and my trunk. I have noticed improvements in both weight lifted and in my swimming, but the swimming increases could easily be attributed to my attention to technique. I must say that I share your philosophy here. Years ago, I asked the strength and conditioning trainer at our Y for some lifting advice to improve my swimming muscles. He told me that I get more than enough of that from swim training itself, but that what I needed to train were the muscles that swimming didn't tap. Doing so, he said, would correct imbalances and help prevent injuries from repetitive laps. I don't know if this philosophy still holds, but it seems on these forums, the diehard weight trainers amongst us endorse lifting and drylands more as a way of enhancing swimming strength per se than to correct muscle imbalances and prevent injuries. By the way, Mr. Tyson, I am glad you are swimming now that your boxing career is over.

The only injury that caused me to miss training time in the last couple years was caused by doing pull-ups, so I voted for the weights/dryland option.