I went for my first swim in a strong current Monday: 27min upstream (towards the end, my forward progress was barely perceptible), 7min downstream (exhausted, so not working coming back).
My trapezius muscles were/are exhausted.
Some friends are telling me I should feel it in my lats, not my traps.
Should my traps be sore, or is this indicative that I am swimming “wrong”?
If the latter, any suggestions/drills on how I can correct?
I’m doing a swim focus now, will be trying to build up to 20-25k/wk … don’t want a ton of volume doing it wrong.
My old Masters coach says there is nothing grossly wrong with my technique - so nothing readily apparent from observation.
If it matters this is the end of my 2nd year trying to swim, and I am very slow for the amount of effort I’ve put into it: 101min swim at IMTX (no wetsuit), 88min swim at IMCdA (wetsuit).
Yeah, you’re doing something wrong. Not sure what, though. Might just be related to swimming against a current, that changes your stroke a bit.
Thanks, Paulo. Not sure what to do about it, then. Guess I’ll keep going forward for now; hopefully either the volume takes care of it naturally or I at least get a better idea what “it” is.
Cheers.
Did you breath normally or were you lifting your head more then normal? Were you wearing a wetsuit? Had you completed a long ride prior? My completely uninformed opinion is that you used a different recovery motion in your stroke for one reason or another. David K
Did you breath normally or were you lifting your head more then normal? Were you wearing a wetsuit? Had you completed a long ride prior? My completely uninformed opinion is that you used a different recovery motion in your stroke for one reason or another. David K
As far am I’m aware, my breathing pattern was normal; there wasn’t much chop to disrupt my swimming. Sighting was easy, swimming against the shoreline; I rarely looked forward to see the distance to the dam. A little strength work (my upper body is pathetically weak) that morning, nothing else, due to plantar fasciitis.
But if it is just due to the strong current, and not something I do wrong in general, that would be good news. A female Masters coach said the fact that I’ve never had sore lats was strongly indicative I was swimming with my shoulders, given the amount of swimming I’ve done starting from zero and my gender - she couldn’t see from my swimming what I was doing that was so unusually bad. But then another Masters coach said BS. I’m unusually slow, I hurt in the wrong places and possibly not in the right places, but not sure what to do with that information. Swim more, learn more about swimming technique, go through the FF course, hope it all works out I guess.
So I hope you are right. Thanks for the thought.
Edit: I forgot to add, no wetsuit. Swimming is more fun without.