Rehab swimming continued: Fine muscle tuning

- by Terry Laughlin

I turn each set into a quest to wring as much stroke length and speed as I can from minimum muscle. At times I feel like an automotive engineer tirelessly tuning an engine to tease out a bit more horsepower while still increasing fuel efficiency.

As I continue recovering from rotator cuff surgery, I’ve become more and more convinced of the extraordinary potential for an “impediment or handicap” to produce priceless revelations, if you approach your training restrictions intent upon seeking the learning opportunity in every swimming experience. And by comparing this rehab experience with an earlier one, I’ve also realized how much my swimming has been transformed in recent years.

In May 1996, I was broadsided at an intersection, while driving in Anchorage AK. I suffered mainly aches and bruises…plus a partial rotator cuff tear from a heavy impact on my left shoulder. After months of physical therapy and two cortisone shots brought no relief, I was “scoped” that fall. Though I was able to resume swimming within a week, it took a full year to feel as if I’d regained the stroke I had prior to surgery. The difference this time is remarkable.

My recent surgery for a full tear – my right shoulder this time – was much more invasive, and as I’ve recounted, I was enjoined by the surgeon not to swim for three months. Instead I was back in the water practicing balance drills within six weeks, doing switch drills a week later, and training at my normal weekly volume (but not intensity) within nine weeks.

Now that I’ve been swimming full Masters practices for two weeks, I’ve been struck by how different my post-surgical swimming experience is compared to nine years ago. Where previously I felt significant weakness for six or more months, this time I feel as if I’m already about 90% recovered less than three months out – despite more serious surgery and being nearly a decade older. The reason? In 1996, even seven years after founding TI, I was still an arm-dominant swimmer (i.e. stroking mainly with arm and shoulder muscles) and thus severely handicapped by a weakened shoulder. As my stroke has evolved, I now use my shoulder muscles mainly to stabilize my arm at an effective angle for trapping the water, while using core muscle to move past that “anchor point.” So a shoulder injury, which has always been considered a crippling handicap for a swimmer, is instead a minor and relatively brief inconvenience.

Even better, the requirement to swim gently in rehab has been valuable. I’m swimming as much volume as before surgery but stroking with a very light touch, to allow my shoulder muscles to gain strength gradually. Typical for a competitive swimmer though, swimming gently doesn’t diminish my desire for results. I turn each set into a quest to wring as much stroke length (considerable) and speed (moderate) as I can from minimum muscle. At times I feel like an automotive engineer tirelessly tuning an engine to tease out a bit more horsepower while still increasing fuel efficiency.

My specific focus has been to emulate something I’ve seen in underwater video of Ian Thorpe and other world-class freestylers. In virtually every instance, they begin the stroke by seeming to pin their elbow to the surface, while the hand and forearm rotate toward the bottom. (To imitate this action, stand behind an upholstered armchair and extend one arm over the back, resting your elbow on the top. Keeping your elbow in place, rotate your hand down until hand and forearm are pressed against the chairback, with fingertips pointing down.) That action traps a large volume of water behind the hand and forearm, while maximizing leverage from the very beginning of the stroke. The earlier and higher in the water you can put your hand and forearm in a near-vertical position, the farther you’ll travel when you drive the other hand past them.

Seeing my stroke on video over the years I’ve noted that my catch fell well short of that. I’ve improved my catch (and balance) considerably since I began working on the “clock position” focal point (illustrated on the FME DVD and Drill Cards) but felt there was still significant room for improvement. Light-pressure swimming has provided the perfect opportunity to make such subtle adjustments.

Subtler stroke adjustments are virtually always achieved with groups of small muscles. Retraining fine muscle movements takes keen attention and great patience. Because such muscles are relatively weak, it takes more repetition to memorize the action, at slower speeds and with undistracted attention. This particular stroke adjustment depends on training my posterior deltoid muscles (back of the shoulder and upper arm) to do something I had not asked them to do in 40 years of swimming. My entire focus now is to begin laying down new muscle memory. Every correct stroke will reinforce the new pattern. Each incorrect one will reinforce the old way.

This is where light pressure “rehab” swimming becomes ideal. As speed increases, so does drag, which means the muscular force required will be greater. If I attempted to train at my regular speed and intensity, my posterior delts wouldn’t have the strength to stroke the new way, and I’d end up falling into old habits. But each low-pressure correct repetition will contribute to increasing their muscle endurance. With each passing week, I’ll acquire a bit more speed naturally, as those muscles gain strength. Through patience, I’ll be able to keep the technique as I swim faster.

I’m going to resume racing in just a few weeks, starting my open water season with a 5K race in Hilton Head SC on June 4 and another in Cape Cod three weeks later. I’ll swim those races exactly as I’m training at that time, applying whatever degree of pressure in the race that I’m comfortable with in training. And still, I’m optimistic about racing successfully less than four months out from surgery – because I expect to race this summer with a more efficient stroke than I had last summer, as a result of technique.

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