injuries
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Rushall likes to characterize USRPT as a way to avoid injuries. I disagree with him and I think that the strains of high intensity can lead to injury, just as massive volume at lower intensity can lead to injury.
Who believes Rushall that USRPT leads to fewer injuries?
Count me as a no vote.
I tend to think of swim training injuries as almost exclusively repetitive motion injuries, not strain-related. I’ve never seen somebody “pull up” in a max effort 50 sprint like you often see a run sprinter do. That’s pretty strong evidence that the strain of swimming, even at maximum effort, is generally well below the threshold of causing injury.
Unless and until there’s evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to believe Rushall’s assertion that lower volume = fewer injuries, even if that lower volume is at a higher intensity.
Gary P:
But slow speed bad technique is less likely to cause injuries than high speed bad technique. I am talking about USRPT causing repetitive motion injuries. I am NOT claiming that USRPT causes more of any injury other than repetitive motion injuries.I’d counter that traditional training intensity is typically still pretty high, if not quite USRPT high. The question is: “What’s more likely to cause a repetitive motion injury: an 8,000 yard workout, 4-5,000 of which are at 90% of race pace effort, or a 4,000 yard workout, 2,000-2,500 of which are at 100% of race pace?” I’m inclined to believe the former.
I’m quite willing to change my mind if presented with data that shows USPRT trained athletes are experiencing training injuries at the same rate as traditionally trained athletes. As an unattached, self-coached Master, I’m experiencing USPRT in a one-man bubble (outside of the info I get on this forum). Have you had actual experience with a statistically significant number of USRPT swimmers that goes against Rushall’s assertion?
My question is: what is the rate of shoulder injuries per 20, 30 or whatever number of swimmers using traditional training?
Right now I have an “n” of 25 and probably a total “n” over the last 18 years of over 120+ swimming at race pace speed all practice and with no recovery days and we have had few to no major shoulder problems. (Major meaning kids missing more than 3 days of swimming).
Master swimmers come from a completely different perspective on pain/discomfort than a teenager. Master swimmers’ know pain and when things start to hurt. They STOP!
I think the majority of swimmers are afraid for whatever reason to say anything about shoulder pain or really any other problem because they know the response is “well kick this set” or “swim warm-up and we’ll see” and they just end up swimming workout.
Once they know the coach will try to diagnose the problem they will readily speak up about a problem because they know that something will be done and they know that the sooner they say something the quicker they get back to swimming fast. i.e. coach will take the time and try and see if mechanics is off, maybe even film underwater to try and figure out problem. TRUST!
It doesn’t matter whether traditional or USRPT.
Oldschool
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Gary P:
The USRPT injuries are multiple anecdotes and not research-quality statistics.
My $0.02. Traditional training, in general, creates more longer-term injuries than what I’ve seen with pace-pace dominant training. I have one season of RP based training with my team. 7+ using traditional training.
The emergence of an injury seems to happen more quickly and sharply in RP training. One day/set everything is fine. Perhaps a small annoyance. Next day…boom. Real injury pain. In traditional training I think the injured state creeps up more slowly. Much easier to ignore or not even notice the small delta day-to-day. I believe this creates a tendency to not give legit injury pain the weight it deserves and thus I have this conversation:
Coach my shoulder is killing me.
Ok. How long has it been hurting?
Well…over a week, but it got really bad today.
Why didn’t you say something earlier?
*shrug*Didn’t seem that bad.By the time the swimmer’s injury threshold is crossed they have been in a “worse than good” state for a much longer period of time as compared with RP training. This season using RP it seems more likely I’ll hear that injury pain has been there for a day or two at most.
I feel like injuries go away more quickly this season too, but I don’t have any stats or even a good anecdote for that. It makes sense that if injuries are being identified earlier they’ll heal more quickly, but take this with a grain of salt.
Outright mechanical skill has a huge effect too. No great insight here. The worse the technique the more likely I’ll see an injury. Here again I see a common characteristic of RP training where consequences occur more quickly and sharply than with traditional training. On the up side this forces the need to change earlier. On the down side those that don’t have enough ability to overcome bad muscle memory tend to get stuck and don’t progress at nearly the rate of their counterparts. Again, nothing super insightful here. The difference I’ve noted is those who can’t correct technique appear to suffer the consequences to a greater degree with RP than with traditional training.
Matt
Matt: Great points! I agree 100 percent!
I believe the USRPT thought comes from the fact swimmers should not fall into fatigue level 2 or overtrained states. Rushall has some abstracts about decreased knee stability after long periods of exercise. power and stability jumping on 1 leg decreased a lot after about 30 minutes of continuous exercise. As the muscles get tired/overtrained over the course of a session and season there is a higher possibility of injury.
I had a slight shoulder issue a couple weeks ago (I’m full USRPT) but it was muscle soreness (right-shoulder, front deltoid). It didn’t hinder my session, times, etc. I think it was because I am doing WAY more fly under this system then I ever did before. I took a couple days off and the soreness went away quickly. With USRPT I just don’t have any joint of my body feeling “destabilized” even at the end of a hard session. I remember plenty of sessions in college of feeling that “my shoulders will fall off” after a practice.
Ryan
Anyone experience with acromial apophysitis. Read about this on the carlile coaches forum. Seems this is coming from increasing the intensity and by doing this increasing the traction on the growth plate of the acromion. I started this season by implementing 100 % usrpt and now I do have some younger 12-14 year old swimmers with shoulder problems. Some with imbalance between front and back shoulder muscles. This can be solved with some shoulder stability exercises but 2 of my younger swimmers are struggeling with apophysitis of the acromion. Anyone experience with this? Is this due to usrpt or just because of bad luck?
Um that may be what’s bothering me (the acromial thing). I’ve done maybe more fly the last 6 months than my entire swim career before and I enter my hand above my shoulder (I believe) so this causes some stress.
working solutions: I’m removing fly for a week and I started lifting weights for some stability. I use a very similar system in the weight room as USRPT (not HIIT) and I don’t fatigue myself. I’m not taking any ibuprofen so I don’t aggregate the issue. I also warm up with some push ups.
I’m 35 and have been swimming for 20+ years with no shoulder issues before. I “think” the issues began when I started taking creatine and noticed an increase in initial set power. But it could be from all the fly as well.
Ryan
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