Paul Tenorio, shown here kicking on his back as he comes back from shoulder injuries, is going to lean on using fins a lot less during swim practices. (Photo by Jeff King/Curl-Burke)
Follow Paul Tenorio on Twitter
Well, days two and three of the renewed effort to push through this shoulder injury are pretty much inconclusive.
On Thursday, I swam the full workout and just tried to push through anything. The set started off with 20 100s, broken into sets of five, and I just felt like I needed to gauge how it felt as it went.
The first five 100s, I’m not going to lie, it was pretty sore. But the longer I swam the more comfortable I felt and the less the shoulder bothered me.
I honestly felt like I was only feeling the shoulder here and there on certain strokes and I was certainly encouraged by that. I picked up the pace at times, tried to finish strong into the wall and the stroke actually felt great. I wore fins the entire time — I think that was, mentally, as a precaution. I felt like, ‘okay, I’m going to give it a go but let’s not do it all at once.’
As the practice wore on, and as I started to add more kick in between some of the swimming, the shoulder started to go back to where it had been at the beginning of the practice. It was getting cold again and I just had to keep it warm if I was going to swim comfortably.
My biggest concern after Thursday night’s practice, however, was how it sore it would be Thursday night. So through the day I kind of tried to keep the stress off my shoulder and dtried to ice it and take Advil just to keep the swelling down.
It worked pretty well.
I didn’t feel any pain during the day, though by nighttime I was definitely experiencing soreness. Oh well. That’s natural.
This morning’s practice was a bit different.
The fins came off for most of the swimming. I needed to be able to go into the pool and swim the way I am going to swim in meets. And unfortunately I can’t put those things on during the meets.
The verdict…I’ll definitely be making sure to schedule a doctor’s appointment for the shoulder.
I went through the whole workout and I had to fib (slightly) to Jeff in order to keep going through the workout. We started the practice off with 10 200s, with 20 seconds of rest in between each, and it was meant just to give us a chance to get a good warm-up going.
I thought it was the perfect way to start. I figured after three or four of those I’d be ready to go for the practice. I threw on fins for the warm-up figuring that was the best way to approach it and I started off very optimistically.
Pushing off the wall, however, it didn’t take long to recognize the soreness from yesterday’s practice. By the fourth or fifth 200 the soreness still wasn’t gone and it was almost a pinching feeling as I swam.
By the seventh, eighth and ninth, though, the pain was pretty much gone. I only felt it when I breathed to my left (where I normally do) and as I breathed when I first started my stroke down. Easy fix. I breathed either only to my right or bi-laterally.
Jeff came over to check on me and I told him I was fine. If I am going to push through this I need to deal with stuff like that.
He gave us the set: 150 kick; 125 kick, 25 swim; 100 kick, 50 swim; 75/75; 50/100; 25/125; 150 swim. Six times.
Okay, I thought. That’s a good amount of kick to go along with the swim. Sure, it’ll probably test me when we get up high.
Well, it definitely did. Swimming all of that without fins was tough. And I took two shortcuts at the beginning that I kind of regret — and thankfully was kind of called out on after practice.
Basically, my kick is pretty slow. So as I kicked, I just couldn’t keep up with Pat Sullivan, who was racing another of us “older” swimmers, Tim. So by the time we got to the 50 kick, 100 swim, I was 50 behind Pat and I just swam a 50 to even up with him. Then as I swam the final 150 I started to really feel it in my shoulder and so I shut it down pretty quickly — after only 50 yards, and went straight into the kick that started the next set.
Going into that next set I decided I was going to forget about where I stacked up to everyone else and just swim the set on my own. It was painful, but I could swim through it for the most part.
Jeff asked how it felt. I told him I was fine. He asked if I was lying, and I told him I could swim through it. He let me.
By this point I’ve developed enough of a trust with Jeff that he knows I’m not going to keep swimming if I feel it’s going from “okay” pain to “bad” pain.
The more I swam without the fins, the more stress I felt build up on the shoulder. By the end of the third set, I put fins on for the 125 and 150 just so I could finish the set and not hurt my arm too much.
I started the fourth set of 150s when practice ended.
I didn’t really mean for this entry to turn into a play-by-play of how much my shoulder hurt and didn’t during practice, but I think it was kind of necessary for me to write it all down and review it for my own selfish purposes.
Basically here’s what I think: I need to get the shoulder checked out. Something is up with it. Hopefully it’s is just some shoulder strain they think will heal as I re-build the strength or something. I can keep swimming through the pain, they’ll say. Worst case, it’s a torn something. I’m not even acknowledging that possibility. I feel like, with how much I’m able to swim in the past couple days, it’s probably not that drastic.
After practice, however, I got to talking with Sullivan — who I had tried to push through practice and encourage as he raced Tim. It was something we had talked about a couple weeks ago, just really motivating your teammates, and this time Pat turned the tables. He said I needed to start trying to ween myself off of the fins as much as I could. He said at the point I am now, I am faster than everybody when I put fins on and they don’t have it. So I fall behind, then put my fins on and catch everybody and pass them.
“Don’t worry about whether you’re staying with us on every set,” Pat said. “Sometimes it’s about YOU finishing them. No one is looking at you like, ‘Oh, look how slow Paul is.’”
He told me that while he knows the fins have helped me get through a lot of distance stuff and that I swim best with them on, that if I swim more and more with them off it’ll force me to develop the core muscles needed to get that same balance I have when I have fins on.
I agree with him 100 percent. I’ve probably relied way too much on them. The problem is, I just feel like my stroke suffers when I swim longer distances without them. But I know it’s only going to get better the more I take those puppies off and just build up the strength and stamina again.
It was good to have Pat check me like that — and to tell me that I don’t need to use a shortcut to keep up with him in practice. “It’s okay every once in a while, but don’t feel that pressure to keep up,” he said. Realistic. Mature. That’s what teammates are for.
I’ll keep icing, I’ll keep medicating and I’ll make the doctor’s appointment today. I also promise to try to keep these entries from being boring “it hurt, it didn’t hurt” diatribes. My mom is probably shaking her head reading this.
The weekend is going to be spent couch shopping for my new apartment, but also on re-starting my core exercises that I picked up during rehab for my lower back. If I can strengthen my core, maybe I can start to overcome some of the habits I’ve had that have put too much stress on my shoulder.
stats corner
