Having finished another tri season and seen improvement in cycling/running I want to ask if people have issues with swimming injuries similar to mine.
Twice this year as I began to really start to feel good in the pool I did a hard workout that really overworked my arms. I’m no physiologist, so I can only describe the offending muscle as the small one on outside of your outer upper arm between the bicep and tricep. On the first instance it was after a near 4K workout that was as far as I have ever swam in one workout. The other happened after a main set of 5x500 that I swam pretty hard towards the end. After both workouts, attempting to lift the arm to the side produced shooting pains. Just when I was experienced a bit of a breakthrough I had to take time off, significant time for the first instance in February, and my early then late season produced mediocre to bad swim results.
Is this a problem with form or might I need to strengthen the arm muscles by some other means (weight lifting) to handle the stress of swimming? I have the classic pencil thin arms of a runner, but my friend has two daughters whose arms make mine look big and they are great swimmers.
It might be that muscle (sounds like your talking about your deltoids), but it might be the underlying structures like the rotator cuff, or other. It could be you ramped up too fast, or you need a coach to look at your stroke. If the pain persists you may want to have it examined.
Sounds like the supraspinatus (rotator cuff) which comes into the shoulder under the anterior deltoid.
Usually an injury here means you’re using this muscle to start shoulder rotation (probably using a fairly straight arm) instead of the lats. Try starting your stroke with about 15-20º of outsweep, then bend your elbow to bring your forearm across your body while pushing your elbow up slightly (if you’re rotating properly, your forearm will now be vertical in the water). This will increase your grip on the water and alleviate excess pressure on the suprasipinatus.
I had the same problem. When I tried to put some meters on my swim workouts I ended up always injured. I went to a doctor and he said I had to strengthen the arm muscles. The problem is maybe your technique (compared to you friend’s daughters). Maybe you swim on a way that punishes that muscle harder.
That was my problem, so I had to go to the gym and do some weight lifting. You should also consider stretching after EVERY workout. It will help you to prevent injuries and you will recover a lot faster so you can put some more mileage easily.
try to get some paddles into your workouts. Like every 2/3 days do 600-800 meters with paddles. This is a great task for you cause it will help you strengthen the muscle you use more while swimming.
Do it slowly… no rush, just roll thru the water with paddles.
