Since being with W Ross MacDonald Swimming it's been a busy start to the season with a new schedule, new pool, new routine, and new lane mates. With the end of the first full regular week coming to a close I thought this would be a great opportunity give my followers and readers an update on my shoulder and the latest information I know.
The pain in my shoulder hasn't went down much since the summer months of training and competing. Through the month of August pain was minimal with a few bad days but most good. Going into Camp AK-O-MAK I knew and my coach knew we had to be EXTREMELY careful with everything I was going to participate in knowing this shoulder will flair up with pain could dominate if a sudden stress or increased movements were taken. Now my pain tolerance is high and it takes a lot of pain to make me uncomfortable. I could tell something was going wrong because a 1 KM swim and a hour and a half canoe paddle made the pain come back and as a result I wasn't to swim, canoe, lift anything, or do anything that could damage the shoulder more.
I'm lucky to have an awesome team filled with people that are willing to go out of there way to ensure a swimmer is cared for. One of the team doctors took a look at the shoulder and recommended further assessments be done to ensure nothing is broken or torn.
First was an ultrasound last week which reviled a small tear (3 mm by 3 mm approx) in the left rotator cuff. As bad as that news sounds there were positives that came out of it.
1) This pain I have been having for 5 months really has been something and not just thoughts in my head or tendinitis or nothing.
2) The tear is small enough it can be fixed with intense therapy and care
3) I WILL be able to swim again (No timeline given, could be a few days, a couple, weeks or a couple months, depends all on how the body responses to treatment)
Second up (yesterday) seeing Steve Hill a well known and highly recommend sports therapist who has worked with international athletes in many different sports. He provided some stability exercises for my back as my shoulder blades are weak and need strengthening before the shoulder can be fully dealt with. The prognoses from Steve was simple, listen to your body, do your stability exercises regularly and always be aware of what was going on and figure out limits that can happen at this time. Next appointment is next week so the ball is rolling quickly with Steve and good news was given. Right now there is a lot of tape involved to get the ball of the shoulder rolled forward and the shoulder blades back and the lower back sitting straight instead of bent.
Third was seeing the shoulder specialist today. The morning began with 4 X Rays being taken to get a different idea of what's going on in the shoulder. The doctor wanted to compare ultrasound images from last week to the new X Ray images from this morning. There is a small white spot on the shoulder bone, it is unclear if it's inside the bone or on the outside of the bone and we don't know if it's connecting to anything.
The doctor today was able to give some great answers to some questions.
Q: Will surgery need to be performed on the shoulder to repair the damage done?
A: No, the tear is so small surgery is not the route to go. Intense therapy is the way to go and listening to the therapist as yourself to when pain comes on and taking the proper steps to ensure you aren't causing more damage.
Q: Is there any timeline on when I can take a stroke again?
A: I wouldn't be surprised if you could take a stroke now. I would say if you feel comfortable, and ready to take some easy strokes you probably can. If you are going to do that, make sure even if you feel the slightest of pains or something isn't right STOP right away and return to kicking.
Q: Do you know a cause of this injury?
A: Most sports related injuries likely come from something within the sport. (I mentioned earlier that I figured over training and lack of attention to detail would probably be causing this pain) After this reply I gave the doctor, he mentioned likely poor technique overtime and not being aware of what was happening or given proper direction by coaches could be a reason for the injury.
Q: How long is the road to recovery?
A: There really is no time frame with this kind of injury. It all depends on how the body reacts to the therapy and how invested you the patient are into getting better. There will be good days and bad days. This could be a few weeks or maybe a couple months, we just don't really know.
After discussing further the doctor recommended I go for an MRI to ensure all angles of this shoulder problem are covered, and to ensure nothing has been overlooked. The doctor believes the MRI won't show anything but he would like one done to ensure everything is good to go. Unsure at this time when that will be scheduled in but hopeful for the next couple weeks.
So for now there is a lot of tape going on, I was making the joke this morning at swimming my back looks like a treasure map with all the tap and the big X is where the gold is. Lots of kicking going on and a lot of being careful. I'm ready for this road to recovery and hope to be back in the water training hard with my teammates instead of doing kick for everything. But I know doing all this kick will only improve my kick, build strength in my legs and make me a better swimmer. I'm in for this long haul and will do anything and everything in my power to get better as quick as possible BUT as healthy as possible. Stick to my Twitter @tmac_swim14 for the very latest on this injury and for more awesome things swimming related, school, news, and so much more. I'll try my best to be back before the end of the week with another blog post. Have a few ideas rolling through my mind of what I'd like to write about, and of course if you have a topic and you want my view on it let me know via email, comments, Twitter, or Facebook and who knows your topic may appear on my blog. :)
Thursday, 18 September 2014
Sunday, 7 September 2014
2014-2015 Swim Season
I have begun the 2014-2015 season with W Ross Macdonald Swimming after deciding to leave the Brantford Aquatic Club after a year and a half. I will now mostly be training out of the 6 lane 25 yard pool at W Ross Macdonald school in Brantford, with some 25M water workouts at WGSC as well weights at the Gretzky center. This season I am working on 3 major things that I think will help improve my swimming as well allow me to excel to heights I could have never reached before.
1) Training Using USRPT (Ultra Short Race Pace Training)
Now this is simply training at race pace and goal race pace during workouts. I am still looking into research in this area of training and I will say it is tough to research because most North American coaches don't like or believe in this type of training. One may stop and say well hold on this swimmer isn't a 50 swimmer. To answer, I'm not a 50 swimmer and USRPT isn't just used for 50 swimmers you can swim any race from a 50 all the way to a 1500 using this training method. It's simple and thinking about it for a while now, it's makes so much more sense to be training at race pace. This will allow the swimmer to have an idea of where there at going into a meet. Yes those crazy 'where did that swim come from'? will still happen but at least training at race and goal pace will ease that. This season I will be using the USRPT formula to improve 50, 100, 200, 400 free, 50, 100, 200 back and 200, 400 IM. On paper the plans look incredible, now it's seeing how things will shape up in the water and I can not wait to get started.
2) Technical Training
In order to be an efficient as well fast swimmer technique has to be up to pare. At this stage in my swimming technique took the back burner while mileage was up front and important. Now it's all about returning to the basics of swimming and getting those little 'over looked' items under control and solid. 3 cameras that are live via 15 second delay will run at every single workout to allow all swimmers to see what the coaches see. Also iPad's can be used from different angles, close ups, and the use of the 'Coaches Eye' app to draw lines, zoom in on technical errors, and slow motion for even more correction. Huge improvements have already been made in an extremely short period of time, but there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of correcting ahead of me.
3) Body Awareness
A lot of you may know I have been dealing with an on and off shoulder injury since late April. This made the end of the 2013-2014 season a challenge filled with emotions, frustrations, anger, and discomfort. Any injury really makes one stop and doubt, feel down, left out, and unprepared to train and race. This season I'm trying to drop the negative and think positive on this injury. This weekend at camp I learned quickly that an injury doesn't just go away in a couple weeks, I did a lot of running and only a small amount of swimming. There was a lot of icing going on and physio stretches are making a full time come back. Heading into the season, this week with dry-land starting up I have to be careful and over cautious to ensure no new injuries develop as well monitor the existing one from all angles. I plan to start with easy swimming before dry-land to ensure everything is fully warmed up and ready to go before hitting the gym. At first it will be a lot of modifying, not doing some exercises, and maybe having to add exercises my teammates might not be doing, This is all alright because I'm looking at the future and understanding that this isn't going to be forever that it's a minor setback in the plan sometimes plans have to be changed, revised, and rethought.
Finally, I want to end off with a huge thank you to everyone at WRMS for the warm welcome. I mentioned this to the seniors at the camp fire Saturday night "I may have just joined the team, and I may only have been with this new group of people for a few short days, but it feels like we have been together for years". Honestly the support in this club is unlike any club you'll ever step foot into, it's great to know I can go to any swimmer and just be myself and not worry about being judged. I can't wait for what the season has to hold for everyone else and I look forward to getting to know everyone on WRMS more and making new memories that will last a lifetime!
1) Training Using USRPT (Ultra Short Race Pace Training)
Now this is simply training at race pace and goal race pace during workouts. I am still looking into research in this area of training and I will say it is tough to research because most North American coaches don't like or believe in this type of training. One may stop and say well hold on this swimmer isn't a 50 swimmer. To answer, I'm not a 50 swimmer and USRPT isn't just used for 50 swimmers you can swim any race from a 50 all the way to a 1500 using this training method. It's simple and thinking about it for a while now, it's makes so much more sense to be training at race pace. This will allow the swimmer to have an idea of where there at going into a meet. Yes those crazy 'where did that swim come from'? will still happen but at least training at race and goal pace will ease that. This season I will be using the USRPT formula to improve 50, 100, 200, 400 free, 50, 100, 200 back and 200, 400 IM. On paper the plans look incredible, now it's seeing how things will shape up in the water and I can not wait to get started.
2) Technical Training
In order to be an efficient as well fast swimmer technique has to be up to pare. At this stage in my swimming technique took the back burner while mileage was up front and important. Now it's all about returning to the basics of swimming and getting those little 'over looked' items under control and solid. 3 cameras that are live via 15 second delay will run at every single workout to allow all swimmers to see what the coaches see. Also iPad's can be used from different angles, close ups, and the use of the 'Coaches Eye' app to draw lines, zoom in on technical errors, and slow motion for even more correction. Huge improvements have already been made in an extremely short period of time, but there is still a lot of work to do and a lot of correcting ahead of me.
3) Body Awareness
A lot of you may know I have been dealing with an on and off shoulder injury since late April. This made the end of the 2013-2014 season a challenge filled with emotions, frustrations, anger, and discomfort. Any injury really makes one stop and doubt, feel down, left out, and unprepared to train and race. This season I'm trying to drop the negative and think positive on this injury. This weekend at camp I learned quickly that an injury doesn't just go away in a couple weeks, I did a lot of running and only a small amount of swimming. There was a lot of icing going on and physio stretches are making a full time come back. Heading into the season, this week with dry-land starting up I have to be careful and over cautious to ensure no new injuries develop as well monitor the existing one from all angles. I plan to start with easy swimming before dry-land to ensure everything is fully warmed up and ready to go before hitting the gym. At first it will be a lot of modifying, not doing some exercises, and maybe having to add exercises my teammates might not be doing, This is all alright because I'm looking at the future and understanding that this isn't going to be forever that it's a minor setback in the plan sometimes plans have to be changed, revised, and rethought.
Finally, I want to end off with a huge thank you to everyone at WRMS for the warm welcome. I mentioned this to the seniors at the camp fire Saturday night "I may have just joined the team, and I may only have been with this new group of people for a few short days, but it feels like we have been together for years". Honestly the support in this club is unlike any club you'll ever step foot into, it's great to know I can go to any swimmer and just be myself and not worry about being judged. I can't wait for what the season has to hold for everyone else and I look forward to getting to know everyone on WRMS more and making new memories that will last a lifetime!
Monday, 1 September 2014
Final Week of Camp
Friday I wrapped up another summer at the Woodstock YMCA Summer Camp and it was a huge hit. The campers got to do a special addition of 'Big Day' and not only did all the campers enjoy the change the staff thought it was a great way to end off the summer.
Campers got to listen in to a drumming presentation as well play them. The way these drums are made is so cool. Glad I was able to help make a drum and go around with a finished product so the campers could play them. The smiles on the campers faces when they were making different sounds was awesome. :)
Dot painting was the craft for the day. Many different shades to use as well different tools to create whatever you want. This camper painted one of my favorite ones. These campers are creative and can do a lot of cool crafts.
Bannock making was also a huge hit. It is simply a dense bread that cooks over the fire and of course it's tastes even better with sugar and jam. The campers got to go into the woods and break one of the camp rules and find a stick they wanted to use for the cooking. Overall the campers listened to the rules about how long we wanted the sticks and didn't abuse the stick rule which was awesome to see.
Close up of the drum that I was holding and letting the campers play. So sweet seeing them make different sounds and wondering why? how? about the drums. Friday was a great learning day not only for the campers but for me as well. It was a fantastic 4 weeks at camp and an even better 2 year at camp. Fingers crossed I can return for a little bit of next summer. We will have to see how schedules work out and such. Wish all the campers the best at the school this year and I hope you all enjoyed Woodstock YMCA Summer Camp 2014! :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)