I have finally come to the conclusion (after 15 months) that perhaps I should actually stay out of the water for a while to allow my poor elbows to heal. I have had "golfers elbow" ever since Nov 4, 2009, when I very stupidly tried to race a highschooler during a sculling set. Not a day goes by that I am not in pain, despite two cortisone shots in each elbow (man, those hurt!) lots of stretching, and countless number of celebrex pills down the throat. I've tried Icy Hot, Bio Freeze, Accupuncture, etc. So for the question: if I take 3-4 weeks off to heal (assuming I actually do heal) and only do kicking during that time, how long do you think it will take me to be back to "normal" (or where I am now) again? Today, despite pain, I went 4200 LCM in about 75-80 minutes (check my flog if you want the workout) and I sincerely intend to compete at the LC nationals in August.
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Former Member
It's amazing how much little exercises can do – glad you're feeling better Celeste! Thank you for the kinesio tape suggestion, I'll look into it.
Also I found that for me doing these exercises to the point of muscle failure seem to work better then just doing the same exercises “lightly.” So I would do a set of 15 reps 3-4 times a day. I would adjust the rubber band strength where on every repetition I could slowly extend the wrist for 15-20 seconds and on the last repetition the muscle would pretty much give up.
The swimming definitely adds a bit of pain back – before swimming I am mostly pain free but after swimming I do feel it a bit. But with this pain reduction rate I hope I will be completely pain free next or next-next week.
– Andrey
It's amazing how much little exercises can do – glad you're feeling better Celeste! Thank you for the kinesio tape suggestion, I'll look into it.
Also I found that for me doing these exercises to the point of muscle failure seem to work better then just doing the same exercises “lightly.” So I would do a set of 15 reps 3-4 times a day. I would adjust the rubber band strength where on every repetition I could slowly extend the wrist for 15-20 seconds and on the last repetition the muscle would pretty much give up.
The swimming definitely adds a bit of pain back – before swimming I am mostly pain free but after swimming I do feel it a bit. But with this pain reduction rate I hope I will be completely pain free next or next-next week.
– Andrey
