Sports massage and myofascial release for swimmers
This year proved to be the “endurance swimming” year where I saw a few clients completing 10km plus swims. The water resistance takes it toll on endurance swimmers bodies and I spent a good amount of time putting shoulders back together over the summer. Two of my clients stood out this year. As an endurance athlete myself with over 7 years of doing pretty crazy events, I forget what it takes to do these types of events, the mental anguish that goes into preparing and the stress the body suffers in the run up to the start-line. I know what this feels like on the inside but have no concept of what it looks like from the outside, I’m aware I am suffering with the same stress before an event, so it’s good to see what it looks like and rewarding to be able to pass on some of the lessons I have learnt, to offer advice and in some case take away some of the pent up pre-event stress. Sorry about the ramble, it leads into part of what I do in clinic.
One of my swimmers competing this year set the World Record for swimming the length of Lake Geneva (78km) in a relay. If this wasn’t long enough they did the entire record swimming butterfly - in my eyes one of the hardest strokes in swimming. They did this in 24 hours, each totalling around 10km each. Those weren’t just some sore shoulders we treated in clinic, butterfly uses the whole body - this was one very tired and sore swimmer.
The other swimmer this year is a client, not a young client either, who decided to do a 10km swim last year. I saw how her body changed as the endurance demands increased on her shoulder, core, back and legs. Successfully completing her 10km last year, she signed up for three 10km and one 14km swim this year. My job was to keep her together but also before one event she lost confidence due to shoulder pain, while I fixed her shoulder I spent the entire session coaching her to get to the start-line with reassurances that the shoulder was fine and I deployed every strategy possible to get her mentally ready for the swim - bearing in mind she wasn’t going to do the swim when she came to see me. I got a text on the Sunday with a photo of my client with her finishers badge. Such a reward for me.
Getting my clients to the start-line of their events requires more than just rubbing the sore muscles. My strategy is to work towards a stronger more balanced body to allow it to tolerate the increased loads - not all this work is done by me - I often defer back to their trainers or coaches to guide them through areas I have tested and need more strengthening. I put in the foundations to build this strength and change their stretching to a flexibility/mobility plan based on proven fascial research findings. I want my clients to succeed so I work hard to make their rehab easy to follow and ensure they understand and can do what I need them to. I’ve had years (15 to be exact) to hone my communication skills to impart the complex workings of my remedial brain into easy to follow instructions.
If you are a therapist reading this to try and learn from my posts - I will be starting a training clinic - you can register here to be kept up-to-date.
If you are a swimmer with ongoing shoulder of back pain and want to free yourself from ongoing injury and/or pain, please book in - I’d be delighted to help you.
On top of our usual back and shoulder pain, we help a client with a bursitis on the elbow - it needed the doctors attention so we sent them off without helping them. This month our sports massage clinic sawclients from Moorgate, Spitalfields, Barbican, Fleet street, Hammersmith, Old Street, Victoria, Bank, London Bridge and Marbella in Spain.
