slick's shoulder surgery blog

Been to 4 practices since I got clearance to kick 9 days ago….so far so good! I’ve been kicking in the ‘executive’ lane, aka the gutter lane. It’s actually very roomy – about 4ft wide when the pool is setup long course (just have to watch out for the ladders) and even wider when in short course. Very executive indeed!

I was only out of the pool for 5 weeks and 4 days but as soon as I hit the water I felt like I was going to cry chlorinated tears of joy lol. Right now I cannot use a kick board and I can only use one arm while I keep my other arm at my side. I started off my first day back with a whole 1000 (my intent was to get to 500, but I just had to keep going cause it felt so awesome!), then I upped it to 2000 and then for the last 2 workouts I’ve gotten in a 2500, which is about all the kicking I can do in a workout right now before I’m bored out of my mind lol (takes me about an hour using short fins most of the time). I do flutter/fly kick on my stomach and back….sometimes with both arms at my side and sometimes with my good arm stretched out, and then breaststroke kick on my back. I’ve been throwing in some side kicking and underwater dolphin dives too. Pretty much I’m just swimming along and doing my own sets and just getting the feel for the water again. Still taking it pretty easy….the few times I attempted to get up to speed it quickly became cramp city! Gotta ease back into it. But I’m just thrilled to be back in the water again!

Coach also suggested that I try out a training snorkel, which I’ve never used before. So I ordered the FINIS one and will be testing that out soon…..looks like it will really help me hone in on body alignment and using my core. So yay, new toy! I’m all for getting back to basics as well as trying out new things while I’m in kicking purgatory!

I think in another 6 weeks I will move on up and get clearance to do some breaststroke…..never in my life have I been so excited to do some breaststroke! Seriously, it’s my worst stroke and I despise it, but I shall be forced to improve lol. Really looking forward to all kinds of progress in 2013!

PS - No PT progress to report this week as my PT was out sick. Won’t see her til Monday. But I gotta say that I have seen some huge improvements in my everyday functional activities. I can now easily wash my hair, reach up and get things from high shelves, and even carefully reach out to close my car door! Still no external abduction or extension movements, but its interesting how non-essential those movements are for everyday functionality....