Okay. Stuff happened today, and I want to try to document as much as I can, even though I am certain I won’t be able to describe things well.
Getting out of bed this morning, some muscle set (I suspect right shoulder) went forward too soon and set off a cascade that seized my back, from about halfway up to underneath armpit level. Not a good start to the morning, I figured it a bad sign.
[Two days ago, when the swim from hell left me with all that pain, the wind had blown my hat into the pool before I had been ready to start. My goggles and underwater iPod where in the hat, then in the water. It was not warm because of the wind, and I really was not ready to start, but I had to dive down and get my stuff, then put it on, then swim. Of course, the iPod ear buds had water in them the rest of the day on top of never loosening up before all went to shit. Afterwards, I concluded I should have seen the sign, the bad omen, when my hat blew into the pool, and just turned around and gone home. Just saying , this is why I am suddenly seeing signs everywhere. A boatload of pain after a “If I was superstitious, I would have known that was a bad sign” moment and you get a little superstitious for a bit afterwards.]
Movement was terribly difficult. I soaked in the hot tub for 20-30 minutes or so, but it did not help at all, making me presume the issue in the back was kink based, something crunching a a bunch of sets of muscles together, rather than a tweak that could be relaxed.
I suspected it may have been sleep related. I can never sleep on my back for more than a few minutes. I am always flopping from side to side, usually waking with both arms very out of position and very much in pain.
Anyways, I decided the pool would be the best chance to work things out. I took a double dose of my Adderall (the full day dosage, instead of once, twice a day, a grand total of 20mg, not exactly a lot), and I set out. The bike ride to the pool was very slow, but my posture sitting on the cruiser relieved more pain than any position I had managed before that point in the day. I took it as a good sign.
I was nervous about my opening hour of breaststroke, given the groin pain of previous days adding to the back, but I figured I’d go really slow. I warned the lifeguard that I’d be a bigger freak than usual, and that any stops mid-lap were just dislocations and back adjustments and not to worry about me unless I was on the bottom of the pool motionless for a few minutes (I’ll add that I was definitely in a ton of pain, because normally, I’ll say I am not lucky enough to drown. I could only think it to myself).
What happened may be important. I changed (play, started to change) my breaststroke. Now that I am home and have bothered to look at Wikipedia, I see that I got closer to correct. The timing of my legs had been early. Yes, let’s call it early.
Old Stroke - when pulling with my arms, which has always been incorrect and hard to describe (also been adjusting lately, not sure if I wrote about it or not), I bring up my legs such that when I am pushing my arms forward, I am kicking. It’s a bit like an inchworm. I used the force of the arms to counter bringing forward my knees, and then launching with the kick.
New Stroke - I don’t begin pulling the knees forward until after the arm pull. It is almost as if my hands come together on a string connected to my knees, and I pull them forward with my hands starting to go in front. The kick happens before arms are extended, and both finish around the same time.
Okay, why is this a big deal. Well, my torso completely changed how it works during the stroke. The left waist did not take over very often, leaving the left hip/leg to kick, which stopped all the groin issues. I believe the abdomen work may have inverted. I also did not have to aim down unnaturally, at least not as much as I had been so far this year.
Next, a “crease” of sorts got work. My rib cage and chest needs to drop more down my torso, and the “crease” under the rib cage was able to be felt during the stroke, instead of more feeling up under the ribs. This may have help being able to keep my waist unused, this change of a pivot point, of sorts.
The biggest issue was in both shoulders, where I could feel corkscrew-type connections and how they were both out of place in relation to the chest. I did not get close to figuring this puzzle out, but I know that both shoulders need to be raised up the torso, likely moving a bit forward, overall. However, the right shoulder needs to move forward AFTER unwinding from a kink based in the back (maybe under the shoulder blade?). This may have been what caused the seized back this morning, the shoulder just lurching forward with tremendous torque on the rest of the back because of how tweaked it has become.
Okay. I am spent. Nearing brain dead status, lol. If I manage to repeat this tomorrow or the next day, I will add an update to this entry instead of a new one.
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