Bilateral Breathing

I did bilateral... and I liked it!

The feel of symmetrical magic

I did bilateral just to try it

I hope my coach don’t mind it

If felt so wrong

It felt so right

Don’t mean I can swim tonight

I did bilateral and I like it

I liked it!

With apologies to Katy Perry!

Unfortunately I’ve developed “Swimmers Shoulder”. It’s an irritating pain in my right shoulder when I bring my arm over in the recovery position when I’m swimming frontcrawl. As a lifelong swimmer it’s an occupational hazard. I’ve had it before about 6 weeks before my Ironman back in 2008 and was obviously caused then, like now, by a fairly large increase in front crawl swimming. I got through it last time by cutting back a bit on distance which wasn’t a problem as I was close to the event, some quite intense physiotherapy and then some strengthening exercises. It went away with rest after the Ironman. This time I’m going to have to try and manage it all the way through to September whilst trying to maintain some reasonable weekly swim distances.

So I’ve got a physiotherapist consultation booked this week and I’m back to doing all my old strengthening exercises with various flexi bands. I’m also resigned to easing off the frontcrawl for a while. I guess Swimmers Shoulder has not really been too much of an issue for me in the past because, as I’ve previously mentioned, my first and best stroke is breastroke so little chance of the repetitive over arm movement that causes it. However, you really should swim frontcrawl in triathlons if you want to be any good so I’ve been concentrating on this again over the winter training and hence this situation. Swimmers Shoulder revolves around Rotator Cuff issues in the shoulder. When I suffered it before, the physio explained to me it was due to repetitive strain involving the shoulder joint and the associated soft tissues. As you get older you can manage to keep your muscle size and strength up by exercise and a good diet but there’s not a lot you can do to maintain joints and soft tissues. Pah this getting older!  In this case all you can do is to try and strengthen all the associated muscles around the Rotator Cuff that you don’t normally strengthen. This is where all the various exercises come in. As my irritation is on the recovery phase of the arm cycle, rather than the pull through, it’s possible I might be having internal impingement which is a bit of a worry. I know a couple of swimmers who have had this and it just got slowly worse for them over time. Ending in operations, a lengthy rehabilitation and, to be honest, resulting in not being as fast swimmers as they used to be. 

Having an unsymmetrical stroke almost certainly is a big factor in developing swimmers shoulder. I breathe to the same left side but I have a reasonably symmetrical stroke. Better than most who breathe to only to one side. It’s obviously not symmetrical enough! 

Here's a video Terry, my Cardiff Masters swimming coach, took of my frontcrawl a few months ago before the pain.

When I was little I did swim bilaterally (for a number of years actually). However when I started to specialise in breastroke and I only got to do frontcrawl in relays I just drifted to breathing on one side only. Then later in masters swimming it was just too much effort (and no need?). Knowing what I knew, even during my last encounter with this pain, I went to breathing every fourth stoke on the left side, rather than bilateral, because I didn't want to do it.

But, if I’m ever going to keep going through this summer I’m going to have to make an effort to try and recover the situation. I’ve now done a couple of swim sessions and whilst the first one was difficult, I managed to do the whole of the second session breathing bilaterally. And at the end, I even liked it!  You really could feel the symmetry.  Another benefit of bilateral is that you can watch your recovery stoke on both sides. Is your elbow in the right place?  Is your hand entry straight?

So that is the plan. Easy off for a bit, get physio, do strengthening and flexibility exercises and always swim bilaterally in training. But come any race I’m sure I’m going to be back to one sided race breathing. After all these years it’s still going to be faster for me come race time.