Struggle #20: Finding a Balance

Me swimming butterfly! My favorite stroke!

I recently read a study, published in the Journal of Sports Medicine, about swimmers and their mentality and how that plays a role in the high number of shoulder injuries swimmers have. It talked about how many swimmers thought that moderate to severe shoulder pain was acceptable to swim through during practice. In the survey they performed on high level swimmers, it stated that almost 70% of the individuals thought that this shoulder pain was normal! In the conclusion the authors discussed how the attitudes of coaches and swimmers alike put swimmers at a  very high risk for shoulder pathology and unless this attitude changes, there will continue to be high rates of shoulder injuries in swimmers.

Backstroke start!

This study immediately struck a cord with me because I was one of those swimmers that thought moderate to severe shoulder pain was normal and acceptable to swim through. However, for the last three years of my swimming career, I dealt with a shoulder injury that caused me a lot of pain, tears, and missed yards. The mentality that I grew up with in my sport was that you swim through the pain. I was never directly told to swim through the pain but it was frowned upon by the coaches and other swimmers to sit out of practice for any reason. One of the hardest things I dealt with was the feeling that everyone else was mad at me for sitting out at practice. It always felt like everyone's eyes were on you and me being who I am I felt terrible I was out of the pool and that I couldn't complete practice with everyone else.

I carried this mentality over to CrossFit. When I started I still had a lot of shoulder pain because my joint was just so incredibly unstable and weak from the years of swimming. I would complete a workout in a lot of pain because I could do it and had done it for many of years during swimming.  It finally came down to my coaches at STL sitting down and telling me that this wasn't normal and that I wasn't allowed to do anything overhead for awhile to give it a rest. I hated this. It drove me crazy and there were many times that I would try to do something and they would look at me and say "what the heck are you doing, stop." It made me sooo mad but I needed to hear this.

Starting! I am the pale on in the
middle. Sorry I got I little nostalgic
with all of my swimming pictures!

Starting in the spring, I started to really work back into overhead movements and high volume of pull-ups, hand stand push-ups, ect and while some days I would over do it and some days I would under do it (just out of fear of pain), I can now officially say I have a pretty darn strong shoulder that doesn't cause me trouble besides a few aches and pains every once in awhile.  A side note: The physical therapist that worked with me all through my college swimming career tested my shoulder muscle strength a little bit ago and was incredibly impressed with how strong it was compared to what it used to be! Small victories!

Now this past fall I have been dealing with a knee injury which has had it's ups and downs. I was originally very smart with it and rested it, while just focusing on upper body strength, core strength, and gymnastics movements. But I got antsy and started back to squatting and doing other movements that I really use my knee a little too soon. I can honestly say now about four months removed it is significantly better than where I started but it is still about only 85%. Some days it feels great and lets me do everything I want to do without pain, but other days it tells me that I need to slow down. It is hard and frustrating for me to take a step back because I want to be doing what everyone else is doing but I have to listen to my body. After all, I will be carrying this body around for the rest of my life.

Two of the people helping me "find a balance"
Good teammates, great friends!

I have been trying to increase my training volume the past month or so. I have realized that to achieve my goals I need a little extra work here and there. I have been following a gymnastics program and seen a huge improvement in my pull-ups, chest-to-bar (I can butterfly them now!), muscle ups, and handstand push-ups/walks/positioning. I also have been attending regular classes on top of competitors class once or twice a week to add some more volume to my training. Regular classes have been an absolute blast because I have met so many new people and the workouts have been more back to the basics CrossFit workouts. In the regular classes I have really been working on touch-and-go repetitions along with using good form on all of the movements. I can honestly say I have really have noticed a difference in these two aspects of my training as well.

I feel like the few things I have added have really given me some more confidence in my abilities and are benefiting me in workouts. However, if I had it my way I would do two-a-days everyday! I love being at the gym and working out. I may have a slight addiction. But my body cannot handle this. I wish it could but with a lingering knee injury (that I don't want to make worse again) and my body not being used to crazy intense volume, I can't do two-a-days everyday. Finding a balance between increasing my volume but not killing my body has been a challenge. Thankfully I have about five people I bounce ideas off of and they tell me if I am being smart or not. This has helped me significantly because without them I would have probably crashed and burned and my body would be a wreck.

My little brother, Grant, the swim star

As I am aging I am slowly learning to listen to my body. However, I still require a lot of outside sources, but maybe one day I will get there... Who knows? But I have learned that surrounding yourself with people that are willing to listen to you and help you along the way to your goals is absolutely critical. I have found these people at CrossFit St. Louis and clearly I need to hang on to them because I still need a lot of help! I am not sure if I will ever find the perfect balance for me but I am working on it.

Pork chops and
cauliflower mash!

This past week I was lucky enough to travel home and hang out with my family, my number one support system. I got to see my little brother swim and kick butt. He is getting really good and I could not be prouder of him, I'll brag to anyone who will listen! I may be turing into my grandma on that factor, but I don't think it is a bad thing. I also tried out a new pork chop recipe that was pretty darn good, albeit very spicy! My cooking adventures have caused me to be more daring in the kitchen but I am not quite able to handle the super spicy things yet without a lot of water!