Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Fly Like An Eagle

Date: November 22, 2011
Time: 5:45 a.m.
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Short Course Meters
216 days to Olympic Trials

700 warmup

16x25 on :30 (four each stroke)
8x50 on 1:00 (two each stroke)
4x100 on 2:00 (IM order)

8x25 on :40
Odd: fly kick halfway underwater
Even: Double breaststroke pullouts

4x(3x75 on 1:15)
1: fly/back/breast
2: back/breast/free
3: back

12x25 on :45
Odd fast, even easy

200 warmdown (with stretching)

Total: 3,500 meters (80 minutes)

Not a bad workout today, though I had trouble getting my heart rate down during the main set. On the upside, I did not break stroke on the butterfly. I continue to marvel at my newfound ability to do butterfly without breaking stroke. I could never go 200 yards/meters in one set without a desire to do some one-arm butterfly. It's usually because I had no support for the lower half of my body during butterfly, and thanks to working with JR I am able to do the second kick in the stroke much better, which in turn helps set up for the next stroke. I am not saying I enjoy butterfly more, but it makes it less painful. I am anxious to see how this pans out in my IMs in a couple of weeks.

At the gym (6 p.m.)

Five minutes shoulder exercises

Sitting bench press (15 @ 110, 12 @ 140, 10 @ 160)

Sitting row (15 @ 80,  12 @ 110, 10 @ 140)

Three rounds:
12x Medicine ball throwdown (12-pound ball)
10x throwing ball up
10 back lifts (while holding 8-pound ball and extending it out front at top of exercise)

Three rounds:
10 Jumping lunges (while holding 12-pound ball)
15x Cable pull (motion similar to butterfly pull/breaststroke pulldown) 


2x25 breaststroke pull (with 6-pound dumbbells)

Five minutes stretching

I mixed in a weight workout with some exercises JR gave me, since he was taking an early start to his Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Doing his exercises are fun to do at the gym. I got lots of stares when I was doing the jumping lunges, and a few people freaked out when I started doing the ball throwdowns.

My left shoulder is still giving me some problems, and though I don't think this is cause to believe the tendonitis is back, it is cause to believe that the exercises I am doing are putting some stress on the shoulder muscles. Part of my rhomboid muscle on my left side has a lot of scar tissue on it. I felt it when I did some self-massage today, and when I leaned against a corner, I recalled the feeling of the muscle not responding to the pressure. Usually when you massage a tired muscle, you feel a the knots release when you are done. With this rhomboid muscle, I only felt tough sinews, as if they had atrophied. It had a "crunchy" feel to it as I passed the corner of the wall over the muscle. What I need is one of those portable electric stimulating machines. I could put a couple of pads on my back and let the electric pulses shock the rhomboid muscle back to life. That's what my physical therapists did when I first experienced the tendonitis. They shocked the weakened muscles back to life.

This pain doesn't present itself very much when I am swimming. Only when lactic acid starts to build in my shoulder muscles do I feel some pain referral, mostly in my Deltoid muscle. I'm doing more shoulder stabilization exercises now, and those should help.

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