The better part of two weeks were spent keeping the foot as still as possible, with slight relief once or twice a day when I did some stretching and strength exercises. Passive recovery is and never will be a strong point of mine, so it has challenging to sit around waiting for better days!
I had a scheduled appointment at the physio department at the hospital on Wednesday. The journey turned out to be a bit of disappointment. The therapist seemed think that the foot and ankle were still too swollen to do anything but a bit of ultrasound treatment to get rid of all the gunk and inflammation around the joint.
A day later and the foot was almost 50% smaller and almost the same size as the healthy one! Don't be fooled! It was apparent that ultrasound may reduce the swelling before the joint is ready to be mobile again, as I have been more active since then, but have also been in a lot more pain as a result. I ditched the crutches but was soon back in their safety net as the inflammation in the ankle and top part of the foot made things extremely painful. This forced me to take things a little easier, so I am on a little bit of exercise and stretching combined with a little walking and a lot of rest. The mornings are the worst when it comes to pain, as the blood gets forced into the foot when I get out of bed.
Sitting around without any form of exercise for more than two weeks is probably the worst thing about this injury, so today I decided to take the bull by the horns, and head to the pool armed with some knowledge and a couple of new drills that I have always wanted to try. I bought a pull buoy a couple of weeks ago, but have never had the chance to try it out. My thinking was that swimming front crawl might be ok on the ankle, and that I might as well turn into Michael Phelps whilst unable to bike and run.
After one kick with my right injured leg I knew that it would not be quite as simple, but I persisted and managed to swim without using the sore foot. I had to counter my swim action by only using the left foot to kick to alter my position after the extension phase of the stroke. The seemed to work OK, and I managed a good 25 minute steady workout without aggravating the ankle again.
I regard myself as a capable novice swimmer with a lot of potential for improvement. Although I spent countless hours in the pool as a child, I have been in the dark ages as far as technique is concerned. I have since read a lot, and found the Total Immersion (TI) swimming system to be very handy as it gives you a very good idea of the physics required to glide instead of fighting the water.
One crucial skill that I have never learnt was to breathe on the left side, so that was my mission today. Being able to breathe on both sides just gives you so many options, and it is a great skill to have, especially for longer distances where efficiency and technique becomes key before your stroke breaks down and you tire. Since I started swimming last year before my Olympic distance Tri I took a breath of air every second stroke. If you can only breathe on one side you are basically stuck with a s-b-s-b-s type pattern where you take a breath every second or forth stroke. This is limiting in many ways and will shorten your stroke and hamper technique to name a few. If you can do both sides you are able to do a s-s-b-s-s-b pattern.
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Pull Buoy |
Using the pull buoy to keep my lower body up I decided to persist until I get it right, as the pool was not very busy. I have been watching the better swimmers in the pool and most of them breathe on every third stroke. It was difficult at first, but I really took notice of what I was doing on the right hand side, and tried to break it down and copy parts of it on the left. By the end of the session half an hour later, I felt almost as efficient on the left side as the right....great success!
It looks like swimming will be my best friend over the coming weeks, so I will try and improve on a part of my stroke on every visit.
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