JADDOG

Last September I fractured my humerus and tore a small tare in my rotator cuff and tore a small tare in my labrum. I did this playing indoor soccer. To be fair, I was playing goalie. Long story short. I was on my knees and dove right to try and stop a ball. I landed on my side with my arm above my head and shoulder bone hit my humerus incurring all that damage. The other team scored, but my team won the game! I started PT almost immediately to retain as much health in my shoulder as I could while the bone healed and progressively added range and strengthening back to my shoulder as the bone healed.

Quick props to my PT Ken Easters and Orthopedist Stephen Struble. Both provided top notch care and I’d recommend either of them in a heartbeat.

I spent quite a bit of time in Ken Easter’s PT gym and learned lots of new words related to my shoulder, for instance greater tubercle, that’s the part of my humerus that was fractured, and shoulder impingement, when the parts of your should get pinched in ways they shouldn’t between the bones. During my hour sessions twice a week I got to know Ken pretty well and we discussed all kinds of subjects.

One in particular I’ve gotten to take with me and experience as I’ve gotten back into my swimming training for my next Triathlon. Scapular Plane Swimming. My earlier PT exercises focused on exersicing the scapular plane. My lay man’s understanding of the scapular plane is the motion your shoulder blade makes as you move your arm around.

Growing up I had always heard of people messing up their shoulder swimming. I spend 6 days a week for 2+ hours at a time swimming from ages 11-15 and continued less intense regimes until I was 18. I never had a good understanding of the damage swimming caused until we started to discuss this scapular plane swimming. So glad I fractured my shoulder so I could finally understand it  ::sarcasm::

Scapular plane swimming is a method that Ken heard about from a guy named Kipp Dye. I’ve googled it a bit and had luke warm success on understanding it fully. Though, I can say that I’ve experienced the benefits of adjusting my freestyle stroke to keep it within the scapular plane, or at least closer to within the scapular plane.

When I got back in the water I tried to swim as I had been taught growing up. When your arm comes over your head your hand enters the water index finger first. This hurt! Further it’s exactly what causes the should problems I had heard about people having. The rotation that your shoulder goes through to put your index finger in first impinges the tissue between the arm and shoulder bone slightly and over time damages it.

I was experiencing this impingement pretty intensely having just been injured in the exact spot it happens when you swim index finger in first. Solution, place my hand in the water pinky first. It did seem a little unnatural at first. The more I did it the more natural it felt and best of all the pain was bearable at that point.

I visited Ken one more time to have him look at my stroke and he suggested the remaining pain was related to the muscles being tight and requiring more strengthening. So glad he was right, residual pain could have been related to the labrum tear not healing and requiring shoulder surgery.

It’s been a month now since I’ve gotten back in the water. I’m getting into more normal workout distances and even pulled out some hand paddles the other week. The injured shoulder is feeling better with each workout in the pool. The shoulder is sore, but workout sore. Not injured sore.

I’ve continued to use the pinky first method and am really growing accustomed to it. If anyone ever reads this that knows more about scapular plane swimming and would like to make more recommendations I’d be happy to hear them. Maybe I should just give a call to Mr Kipp Dye and ask him about it.

I’m not so sure if the “pinky first method” completely accomplishes the scapular plane method. On the other hand, if it does then maybe I’ve contributed a lay man’s name to something that up until now only had a medical name. You know like Dextromethorphan really means “cough medicine”.

Just signed up for the White Lake Sprint Triathlon. They have a half Ironman too, but I decided to sign up for the sprint. Maybe next year half Ironman. <grin>

Anyways, looking forward to being back on the bike and getting back in the water. I’ve been exclusively running since my last triathlon this past April. My heart sinks a little when I see other cyclist from the driver’s seat of my car.

Getting back into swimming will be good for my shoulder’s recovery too.