Shoulder Injury
Around April 21st, my left shoulder started to hurt again. I had just done a short quick set in the pool of some 25, 50, and 100y efforts. It felt a little bit funny and really noticed something was wrong when I went to the gym afterwards to do some strength training. When I tried to do some external rotations for the rotator cuff, whatever muscles are involved just weren’t engaging - I had not strength and it was a little painful. I was hoping that I had just “kinked” it or that it was a nerve or something that would go way.
With just 3.5 weeks until my first major race of the year, I was worried how it would affect my training. I took 3 or 4 days completely off from swimming at the time and to this day still haven’t done any upper body strength training. The rest seemed to help some, and I was at least able to continue doing my key workout sets. So, even though my volume went from around 28km/week down to 15km, I was still fairly confident since I had a huge base behind me and the key workout set times were still comparable to before. Unfortunately, it really has only gradually gotten worse. I made it to the Pan American Championship race in OKC barely feeling like it was ok to race on. After that race, it got a lot worse but eased up just enough that I could race in Austin on Memorial Day at the CapTex Triathlon. It was even worse after that race, so I went to see Dr. Eakin the following day.
Dr. Eakin said I was at a turning point where I may need to have surgery. I went ahead and got an MRI done on Friday and will find out the results next week. Part of the problem is that my shoulders have become imbalanced from so much freestyle swimming, bicycle riding, and typing at a keyboard. I need to work on keeping my shoulders and scapula “set” properly. The best case scenario is that by my doctor’s appointment on Thursday, it feels better and I can go to a physical therapist to make sure I’m doing exercises correctly. Next best scenario is another cortisone injection and then working on the strengthening exercises. That’s probably the last injection I could get, though, so I would really need to make sure I do everything possible to prevent having the problem recur again. The worst case scenario is that there are bone fragments or excessive cartilage destruction that would require surgery. The doctor said it would just be a 6 week recovery time, but I’m a little weary of such an invasive procedure unless absolutely necessary. In any case, I need to work on correct strengthening and shoulder positioning, which probably would have prevented these problems in the first place.
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