A bit of a catch up...

I've not been posting much recently as I've been rather out of sorts with my exercise. This spring I was to focus on swimming in preparation for a 10k marathon swim. So I cut back on running only to develop tennis elbow at Easter just as I thought that I was improving my technique.

I've seen the physic, tried exercises, cut down on distance, tried short swims, spaced them more, done them daily and all to no avail. I still have an irritated elbow and currently I think it might be spreading. Actually I fear that it may be spreading, apparently this concern about worsening an injury is major factor in people reducing activity when they have a pain.  But might that not be a valid concern, doesn't chronic overload damage soft tissues irreversibly? There is some recurrent tightness around my shoulders, especially the left, but I'm assured that there are no signs of rotator cuff damage.
Currently I have moved onto a swim every 5 days or so, alternating between intervals and a steady swim; none of them long. Today I managed 2 sets of 67m at 2:01min/100m pace although generally I couldn't maintain that pace for the intervals. Nonetheless there is modest progress in pace and gradually I feel I do have more than one swimming speed that I can draw on. It's a pity I don't believe it's possible to train longer and achieve the 10km goal.

On the bright side I have picked up on the trail running although I have lost pace on my legs and the hot (how can we complain?!) weather is a bit too much of a good thing in the afternoon.

Some recovery

A week off swimming and only a little exercise altogether seems to have help my elbow. I have been doing wrist pronation and supination exercises everyday although not as often as advised.

On waking this morning my elbow ached less than it has for a month  and so I went for a short swim. I focussed on careful high elbow technique but not to the extreme nor with overt should extension. I tried to keep my forearms relaxed and included bilateral breathing lengths to reduce the asymmetry of the session. The pace was modest but acceptable.

Now the elbow feels pretty good although I'm aware it's not 100%. Let's see how it fares tomorrow  - I must do the wrist exercises later this afternoon.

Ouch!

This week's swimming has caught up with me today. My left shoulder feels stiff and almost that I don't want to move it in case it hurts. My left forearm rotator muscles and the tendon insert are sore and even pain extending into my biceps. My right arm is OK, although it does feel 'worked'. I'm not sure if this problem is due to the set of swims this week or more specifically due to Saturday's swim when I was trying to do some shoulder extension - that will have worked deltoid muscles and pulled the joint to its limit of movement. I'm disappointed that the elbow pain reappeared strongly as I thought I was avoiding that load.

Hard work #2

So, it's well accepted that it's good practice to keep a training diary to reveal trends.

The last few weeks have shown me that doing 4 or 5, even short, swims during the week leaves me tired for Saturday morning. The effect is especially clear if I made an effort during my Friday afterwork swim. Today's session felt like hard work aerobically and my left elbow ached and my shoulder felt stiff.

This week I've ben focussing on high elbow and vertical forearm whilst trying to limit forearm movement likely to aggravate my mild tennis elbow discomfort. The style is feeling a bit more establish and less awkward although I think my left arm is not as tidy as my right. Part of this will be the unilateral breathing and partly due to my right-handedness (not that I'm useless with my left hand in general).

Despite the tiredness I managed the 200m warm-up at my supposed CSS pace of 2:23min/100m and 100m sets a little faster. The contrast is with Thursday when I did 800m at 2:21min/100m - so really my CSS pace must be better than 2:23min/100m!

The message is clear though; no swimming tomorrow!

Lift those elbows

On Sunday and today I've been really trying to move my arms in the way that I thought through on Saturday. I'm getting tired deltoid muscles so that might be a good sign. This morning my elbow felt reasonable too, if it is OK tomorrow that may well show that I'm taking the load off it. Read this to see what it's all about.

Today I thought quite hard about keeping my elbows high. I fear that its giving me a rather boxer-like stroke with short choppy strokes. Currently it feels slightly harder work than my lower elbow style but if it is less irritating to my joints it is wroth a lot. Doing short sets I'm attaining a fair pace and even some rapid lengths (2:03min/100m is great!) but I'm finding longer sets harder to maintain at what is basically a higher strike rate.

Hard work

This morning somehow I knew I was too weak to do well at Hatfield so went to Goodwin for a 'technique' session. I felt tired throughout and struggled to keep either pace or form. Such is back-to-back exercise. I kept thinking about a high elbow but whenever I took a sneeky look I wasn't convinced that it looked 'high'. My forearm certainly didn't seem to be vertical!

On the walk home it started to dawn on me what all the business I'd heard about 'reaching over a barrel' meant. It's all about the hard-to-achieve action of shoulder and upper arm up and forwards. Just keeping the elbow high still allows the forearm to trail when looking from the side. What's needed isn't so much a high elbow as a forwards elbow. This involves some abduction of the shoulder which can be reversed to adduction to help drive the body over the arm and thus forwards.

Thinking about this, trying to achieve a force-generating vertical forearm with a non-abducted shoulder requires substantial input from muscles crossing the elbow to generate tension. If the shoulder is abducted the forearm is largely pushed backwards which may well be more resilient.

Short and 'fast'

I had under 20 minutes for today's afterwork swim. So I started off sensibly on a 400m set and finished with a bit of a push. I was very satisfied to record 9:04 minutes with a negative split for the final 100m.

After that I finished off with 200m and 67m sets. I'm very pleased that 'sensible pace' is now well below 2:30min/100m.

Importantly I tried to focus on a good vertical forearm and pressing through my upper arm so as not to load around my elbows.