ping: Larry

Pat said:

Larry, it appears that my rotator cuff is torn again. Do you know if this is
common--a relapse or something? It was repaired on Nov 11,2004. I don't
know the extent of the damage yet--the MRI was just yesterday. The pain
surely has returned...As you might expect, I am really upset about this.

I've had rotator cuff problems.

Once you have them you need to do PT-type shoulder exercises and
stretches. Not just for a few months. You can maybe get away
without doing them, but you want to try to do them daily.

Starting swimming again? Hard stuff.

So the PT. Find soem other way to get/stay in shape, particularly
something the gives upper body strength.

After a year or two, start swimming. Do a lot of kicking. Do
breaststroke and backstroke. Maybe do a little crawl.

Warm up and stretch seopmtime in the day before swimming. Stretch
afterwards. Stretch the next day. Good stretch, maybe 10 or 15
minutes worth, not this perfuctory two minute stuff.

Try to get shoulder advice from some NON-surgical specialist, like a
sports medicine doctor, a physiatrist, or even a physical therapist.
Orthopeadic surgeons (in the US at least) make $1 milllion a year
using the knife. Avoid it if you can.

Quick fixes are fine - IF how you perform 4 months from now is more
important than how your perform a decade from now.

You wanna do the 2008 olympics? See a surgeon first, otherwise see
someone else.

I'm, currently training for an 2 and 1/4 mi (3.6 km) lake swim. My
workouts have been

40% backstroke
20% kicking (without a board)
20% crawl
20% breaststroke

I train strictly "distance-first-then-speed:" 2.5 mi (4 km) in 2.75
hours, before I started speeding up.

Starting 3 weeks before the race, I'm moving more to 40% crawl.

I expect that in the race, I'll go 80% crawl, 15% breast and if the
weather is OK, 5% backstroke just for variation.

I'm not a contender to win or place. But my problem shoulder is
stronger than when I started training.

Michael Young