Over the past month or so, I have been exposed to a couple mobility tests that indicate I'm not as perfect as I think I am ;) I'm joking of course, but I have so far been fortunate enough to avoid serious, sidelining injuries (that I myself cause) over the course of my athletic pursuits. Coach Noland recently posted the following video on our Tribal Multisport team page to assess shoulder mobility for swimming.
To my surprise, my flexibility is pretty pathetic. I'm not sure I have any angle to speak of here.
Having flexibility in the shoulders is the key to developing a high elbow catch in the water. This may explain why any gains in the pool have been so difficult to
come by. I'm a pretty decent swimmer, nowhere near the best, but my
pace has hovered right around the same time for that last few years. I
have gotten a few seconds faster per 100 lately, no doubt because Coach Noland is wrecking me in the pool. However, it may partly be due to the fact that I've
also gained some muscle mass doing crossfit, and I'm simply muscling my way to a
faster 100 split. Not what we want, obviously. So I will need to work on improving my shoulder flexibility. Hopefully I can report back with a better angle, and faster splits with less effort in month or two. We shall see!
On to my next realization: I have a definite muscular imbalance in my legs. A few weeks ago at crossfit, this unassuming exercise called the "pistol" was on the schedule for the day. Much to my surprise, I could lower myself all the way down on my right leg with relative ease, but only about halfway on my left leg :/ Here's a video of me doing this exercise:
Now I have had issues with IT band tightness and pain in the past. If I get too rambunctious with long runs, something will inevitably flare up, and it's always in my right leg - either a tightness at the outside of my knee joint or pain over the outside of my hip - both insertion sites for the IT band. Usually I catch it in time, make adjustments to my training, and it goes away. But I have yet to do anything to actually address this and prevent it. The pistols showed me that this muscular imbalance is most likely to blame, as my right leg overcompensates for the weakness in my left. I will occasionally try and stretch the IT band out, but I really don't think that does anything (I apologize to the serious stretchers out there). The IT band is super thick and almost impossible to actually stretch, I believe. So my plan of attack should probably focus on getting my leg muscles evenly balanced. Bring on the single leg squats!...and anything else I can think of.
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