General Discussion Triathlon Talk » School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries Rss Feed  
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2015-03-19 8:55 AM

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Subject: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries
So I have recently upped my swim distances for the new season. I am only planning to do sprint distances this year but want to breeze the swim as in the past I have stunk up the BOP.

Due to work and family I typically only get to the pool twice a week. One of those session I have been doing a steady state 2km swim (confidence building). And the other a variety of drills to improve head position, stroke efficiency etc.

Last week my right shoulder started to ache. Classic RC pain. So I have shortened a couple of swims. There is no real pain after. Just some discomfort. Later when I have the shoulder massaged I can find a quite a few killer spots front and back that send me into orbit when rubbed but provide relief. The shoulder is fine for other things. It still feels strong.

So really I need help on 2 fronts.

1)
What should I do about the shoulder?
a- Congratulations. You are finally aching a bit from your workouts. Suck it up and find a way to swim 3 times a week.
b- RC discomfort is worrying. You need to fix your stroke or it will plague you for life.
c- You are doomed.

Is there a good way to test between a significant injury and just some soreness?

2)
What on earth does this mean?
Power is generated from the hips and torso. Use your shoulders for your recovery and to generate additional arm speed.

To move through the water I need to move my arm from front to back. My shoulder is a huge part of that. Even if I focus on a good roll, reach catch and return. I know my shoulder would be stressed badly if I was trying to stroke through the water windmill style but I am not doing that.


2015-03-19 11:31 AM
in reply to: badmo77a


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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries
I'm fairly new to swimming so take this with a grain of salt.
It's hard to say if your stroke form/technique is the issue without seeing a video of your swim. But if I had to bet money on it i'd say it's likely form.
1) Make sure you have "wide tracks" when pulling - i.e. not crossing over the center line. pull outside your body not under it.
2) Make sure you have decent rotation to your pulling side
3) Elbow-lead recovery. When finishing the pull and starting the recovery first open up the armpit to allow the elbow to lead.

Hope that helps.
2015-03-19 11:37 AM
in reply to: badmo77a

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries
Stop doing the 2000 meter swim, yes it builds some confidence if you were doing a HIM but your not. If you can't swim short distance fast you'll never swim long distances fast.

Most of your swimming should be 200 or less especially since you are doing sprints which are at most 800-900 yards with a lot of them in the 400 yard range. Nothing wrong with swimming a little over the race distance once or twice when getting close to an event but there is no need to do it all the time.

If your technique is off it could be causing your shoulder pain. Most of the people I knew while swimming that had shoulder problems it was because of a wide stroke. You may have had injuries over the years that are now surfacing again as you get older. I have this with my right shoulder, which I control by doing some exercises to build muscle and support it. If I were you I would go see a good physical therapists and figure it out.

You engage a lot of muscles when you swim. The power generated when you kick mostly comes from the hips. The power generated in your pull mostly comes from your core. Of coarse you use your arms and shoulders but there is a lot of power coming from your lats, abs, peck, and obliques.
2015-03-19 11:47 AM
in reply to: badmo77a

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries
I'm going through rotator cuff tendinitis right now. My Doctor did a strength test to see if there was a significant injury. The strength was OK so these were his recommendations:

1) It's OK to keep swimming, but avoid the butterfly stroke and work on technique to avoid stressing the shoulder. I'm taking a few private lessons to help me make improvements in my technique. As a BOP swimmer, there is probably room for improvement in your swimming technique as well.

2) When it hurts use ice and ibuprofen to control any inflammation.

3) (Ominous warning) "If you want to keep swimming, you need to do some exercises to stabilize the rotator cuff by strengthening the associated muscles." He suggested resistance band exercises like these: http://ptclinic.com/medlibrary/pdf/208.pdf.He suggested I start with the first and third exercises in the pdf because they put the least stress on the shoulder.

So, the answer to your first question is a little each of "a", "b", and "c". RC tendinitis a common problem for swimmers, but it is significant and you should do what you can to limit future damage (technique improvements and exercises).

I have no clue what is meant by the quote in your second question.

Heal quickly!
Scott I.

---------------------------------------------

"Your not old until you start using age as an excuse" Joe Friel
2015-03-19 1:56 PM
in reply to: EchoLkScott

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries

Originally posted by EchoLkScott I'm going through rotator cuff tendinitis right now. My Doctor did a strength test to see if there was a significant injury. The strength was OK so these were his recommendations: 1) It's OK to keep swimming, but avoid the butterfly stroke and work on technique to avoid stressing the shoulder. I'm taking a few private lessons to help me make improvements in my technique. As a BOP swimmer, there is probably room for improvement in your swimming technique as well. 2) When it hurts use ice and ibuprofen to control any inflammation. 3) (Ominous warning) "If you want to keep swimming, you need to do some exercises to stabilize the rotator cuff by strengthening the associated muscles." He suggested resistance band exercises like these: http://ptclinic.com/medlibrary/pdf/208.pdf.He suggested I start with the first and third exercises in the pdf because they put the least stress on the shoulder. So, the answer to your first question is a little each of "a", "b", and "c". RC tendinitis a common problem for swimmers, but it is significant and you should do what you can to limit future damage (technique improvements and exercises). I have no clue what is meant by the quote in your second question. Heal quickly! Scott I. --------------------------------------------- "Your not old until you start using age as an excuse" Joe Friel

X2

 

I just went to my ortho cause I thought I had torn my RC. Turns out it was tendinitis in my shoulder and he gave me a shot and some strength exercises to do.

2015-03-19 3:46 PM
in reply to: badmo77a

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries

When your shoulder feels better I would suggest dropping the 2k swim and add more 50's and 100's.  If you need the confidence boost and are sticking to sprints do a few 500 sets.  If your schedule only allows you to get to the pool twice a week that's not enough time to use one of those swims as a long continuous swim.  If you really need it for some reason do it once a month.



2015-03-19 5:46 PM
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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries

Originally posted by badmo77a

So I have recently upped my swim distances for the new season. I am only planning to do sprint distances this year but want to breeze the swim as in the past I have stunk up the BOP.

Due to work and family I typically only get to the pool twice a week. One of those session I have been doing a steady state 2km swim (confidence building). And the other a variety of drills to improve head position, stroke efficiency etc.

Last week my right shoulder started to ache. Classic RC pain. So I have shortened a couple of swims. There is no real pain after. Just some discomfort. Later when I have the shoulder massaged I can find a quite a few killer spots front and back that send me into orbit when rubbed but provide relief. The shoulder is fine for other things. It still feels strong.

Having just had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff (3cm tear in the subscapularus tendon of my left shoulder), I unfortunately know more than I would like to know about shoulder injuries.  I swam competitively through high school and college and went on to coaching after I hung up my competitive Speedo - a total of 45+ years in and around swimming.  I was fortunate to have swam at a very high level.  Simply stated, if you have good technique, you pretty well protect yourself from shoulder problems unless you do something stupid - which I did.  I was warming up for a sprint triathlon and another competitor was warming up in the same area, he cut in front of me, and instead of slow down, I tried to radically change direction.  I pulled in a rather unnatural way which put extreme pressure on my shoulder and in lay terms, tore the rotator cuff.  I tell you all of that because when it happened, I had ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT I did something really bad.  The pain was immediate and intense and as fast as the pain came on, I lost the use of my arm even more quickly.

I won't say you don't have something going on with your rotator cuff, but it sounds to me more like a slight impingement or tendonitis, which is typically brought about by poor or improper technique.  Proper freestyle (front crawl) technique has a high elbow recovery.  To have a high elbow recovery, you either need incredibly flexible shoulders or you need good body rotation.  If you don't have one or both of those things, you are going to have sore shoulders.  You said you shortened a couple swims and there was no pain afterward, which kind of supports a slight impingement or tendonitis causing pain.

Of course, I am not a doctor.  Instead of thinking you have "Classic RC pain," you might think about going to a doctor to determine exactly what is going on.

Absent that, there are a couple of other things you might consider:

1)  Technique trumps everything else.  You can put in hundreds of thousands of yards/meters training, and if you technique is poor, you are wasting you time.  Take a hard look at your stroke technique.  You mention you were/are a BOP swimmer.  That by itself implies you can make some improvement in your technique.  Poor technique almost always means back of pack swimming and as often as not translates to shoulder pain.

2)  As Mike said, you really don't need to be doing long swims.  Back when I was swimming competitively, I was putting in 12-15,000 meters per day and I rarely swam anything longer than a 200.  Granted, it may have been 3 sets of 12 x 200 on short rest, but it was not a continuous swim.  On very rare occasion, and by rare I mean like once a month, we would swim a set of 400's.  You DON'T need to be doing long continuous swims.  If you suddenly started doing long continuous swims, especially if you didn't have the base to support it, that can easily lead to shoulder pain.

3)  You said you increased your yardage, but you didn't say from what to what.  In general, you need to be putting in a minimum of 1.5-2.0 times the race distance three to four times per week to be a MOP swimmer.  To be closer to the front you need to be doing 2.5-3.0 times the race distance three to four times per week.  (We won't talk about speed work which is another discussion entirely).  If you want to be REALLY fast, you need to be putting in 10 times the minimum distance I mentioned above.  Those training volumes are all general guidelines, however, like running, you need to ease into the higher volume.  Granted swimming isn't a weight bearing sport like running, however you run the risk of shoulder injury if you ramp your yardage up too quickly.  If you went from 2,500 per workout one week to 5,000 per workout a week later, you may be asking for trouble (just an example of a dramatic increase, I don't know what kind of volume you went from or to).

4) As Scott I. mentioned, visit http://ptclinic.com/medlibrary/pdf/208.pdf and work on strengthening your shoulders.

One final thought, if you have something really serious going on with your shoulder, you wouldn't be on BT asking questions about it.  You would be in an emergency room talking to a doctor about it because you would have no doubt it was something serious.  If you are concerned, the best course of action is to visit your health care provider and have an expert take a look and advise you.

Hope that helps.



Edited by k9car363 2015-03-19 6:01 PM
2015-03-19 6:40 PM
in reply to: badmo77a

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries

Originally posted by badmo77a

2) What on earth does this mean? Power is generated from the hips and torso. Use your shoulders for your recovery and to generate additional arm speed. 

True power in the freestyle stroke is generated by engaging the core muscles of the torso (back and chest).  In order to do that, you must have proper body rotation.  Proper body rotation originates in the hips.  Having proper body rotation frees the shoulders for a proper recovery which allows a higher turnover rate.

2015-03-20 9:05 AM
in reply to: k9car363

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Subject: RE: School me on Rotator Cuff Injuries
Excellent responses all.

Going to the pool at lunch to do some 100m sets. Working on rotation. Doing the long swim was all about finding some confidence. But I will likely now only do one a month. Or save it until things are warm enough for some open water.
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