After Saturday's sprint triathlon I gave my body a break for a couple of days. Today I wanted to get a nice workout, but not push it too hard. I started with a little over two miles on the treadmill and followed it up with almost 5 1/2 miles on the bike. I did some light calisthenics (weights, crunches, mountain climbers, etc.) and then went down to the pool.
My shoulder is still hurting, but since I only swam twice last week and they were both very short, very light swims, it has had a little bit of time to rest and heal. I decided I was going to work on my stroke and really try to get to the bottom of the shoulder pain. I know I need to bilateral breathe when I swim and that would take a lot of stress off my left arm/shoulder. So today I did nothing but bilateral breathing when I did freestyle sets. It was very difficult and it's going to take some getting used to, but I have to start somewhere.
Warm up
200 free
Core
8 x 150 (100 free bilateral, 50 breast)
Cool down
100 breast
My shoulder was sore, but it wasn't on fire, so I took that as a good sign. The breast stroke intervals really helped avoid the wear and tear on it and it helped give me a breather in between the freestyle sets, which were very foreign to me. Good start. Tomorrow I'm going to try the same thing but up it to 10 sets.
Total distance: 1,500 yards
If you really want to work on your stroke, video can help a lot. You will be able to see if there is any imbalance in your stroke that you don't notice while you are swimming. I have a waterproof camera and am happy to meet you at a pool sometime and take some video of your stroke. I'm not an expert, but I can look at the video and maybe see something that needs work.
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