High Elbow and Shoulder Problems

ee said:

I recently received a DVD from Vasa, the makers of the swimming
ergometer. The material was free and fun to watch, so I recommend it
highly. The presenter was Al Lyman, who spoke mainly about how the
vasa can help triathelete swimmers.

Most of what he said was echoed on this website many years ago by
Larry Weisenthal. Namely, that concentrating on stroke rate is far
more importanat than distance per stroke for the average swimmer,
because the average swimmer can't kick. Except his "hammer" for that
point of view was not Larry, but the famed coach, Ernie Maglischo. So
in his slide, it was "Total Immersion versus Maglischo", and he
thought Coach Ernie had a far better model to follow than TI. So I
agreed with most of what he said.

However he did say that he thought a high elbow catch is much easier
on shoulders than a deep one. So arm parallel to the surface of the
water, elbow bent close to 90 degrees, is easier on the shoulder than
hand deep in the water, and elbow much closer to 180 degrees. And he
gave some mumbo-jumbo about rotator cuff. (Obviously doesn't
understand internal shoulder rotation and impingement.)

I totally disagree with that statement. When my shoulder starts
getting a bit tender, I think about diving deeper in the water during
the stroke. That high elbow, 90 degree thing is murder on shoulders
if you ask me.

But I'm curious what other people think.

My coach, [censored] Hannula, always tried to get us to keep elbows high
during the recovery, so I have always assumed that "high elbows"
referred to the recovery part of the stroke.

ee said:

However he did say that he thought a high elbow catch is much easier
on shoulders than a deep one. So arm parallel to the surface of the
water, elbow bent close to 90 degrees, is easier on the shoulder than
hand deep in the water, and elbow much closer to 180 degrees. And he
gave some mumbo-jumbo about rotator cuff. (Obviously doesn't
understand internal shoulder rotation and impingement.)

My interpretation of "high elbow catch is much easier
on shoulders than a deep one" is that a catch where the forearm rotates
around the elbow (ie the catch engages only the hand and lower arm) is
easier on the shoulder than beginning the pull using the entire arm.
That way the hand is already moving through the water before the
shoulder is used, ie the shoulder is not used to start the hand moving.

The temptation, when I used paddles, was always to lean on the pull to
get it going, and this moved the stress up to my shoulder, which is why
paddle use leads to shoulder injuries, IMO. Beginning the pull by
rotating the lower arm around the elbow reduces that stress.

"mwsmith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

ee said:

However he did say that he thought a high elbow catch is much easier
on shoulders than a deep one. So arm parallel to the surface of the
water, elbow bent close to 90 degrees, is easier on the shoulder than
hand deep in the water, and elbow much closer to 180 degrees. And he
gave some mumbo-jumbo about rotator cuff. (Obviously doesn't
understand internal shoulder rotation and impingement.)

My interpretation of "high elbow catch is much easier
on shoulders than a deep one" is that a catch where the forearm
rotates around the elbow (ie the catch engages only the hand and lower
arm) is easier on the shoulder than beginning the pull using the
entire arm. That way the hand is already moving through the water
before the shoulder is used, ie the shoulder is not used to start the
hand moving.

The temptation, when I used paddles, was always to lean on the pull to
get it going, and this moved the stress up to my shoulder, which is
why paddle use leads to shoulder injuries, IMO. Beginning the pull by
rotating the lower arm around the elbow reduces that stress.

In my mind, what I'm trying to do when swimming with paddles is find the
way to grab the most water, to find the most efficient path for my
stroke. I work on my stroke reduction drill with paddles and don't
really use them for anything else, so I'm taking a purposefully _slow_
stroke which helps to avoid the kind of shoulder problem you're
describing. Slow swimming with paddles and buoys can be kind of
meditative - long, slow, complete pull with each arm, lots of glide.

Just my opinion.

-S-