Shoulder Injury - Root Cause?

Riding Wilf this week, my left shoulder’s been sore again. By sore, I mean aching from my elbow, right up over the shoulder to my neck just below the ear, with the sort of pain that threatens to make me go cross-eyed.

I was somewhat underwhelmed with  the physiotherapy I had in the summer, and have been resting it. On the assumption that it was something to do with swimming, I’ve been (mostly) keeping out of the water for almost two months, and the shoulder’s been feeling pretty OK.

But after riding three days on Wilf, with wide, almost straight handle bars, the pain’s back - even though I can go for miles and miles and miles pain free on my road bikes. The problem seems to be aggrevated by the width of the bars, which mean I have to cycle with my fore arms parallel to my direction of travel, but this is achieved by having my shoulder somewhat open, taking the strain on muscle tissue rather than bone.
SO . . . Wilf needs some modification AND I need to get to the root of the problem.

• On the first, I stopped off at the Edinburgh Bike Coop this evening, and picked up a pair of Ergon Gc2 grips, which include bar-end extensions. I’ll fit these tomorrow at early O’clock. At the same time, I’m going to move the brake levers and shifter in-board by about 3 inches, and will be fitting the grips in-board by the same. So I’ll try the new grips on effectively narrower handlebars. And if that seems to improve things, I’ll take the hacksaw to the bars to make this a permanent mod.
• Using the power of the interweb, I may now have a name for my problem - “Swimmer’s Shoulder”. According to Jen Adley on BeginnerTriathlete.com, one of the causes is unilateral breathing - and I DO breathe pretty much exclusively to my right. AND it’s my left shoulder that has the problem. Oh, and there was some other stuff about poor technique too . . . which, um, yes, I might have.
• So then I did a search on ‘recovery from “swimmer’s shoulder”‘, which threw up lots, and lots of articles - mostly relating to rest, short-term use of anti-inflammatories, and specific strength training. More to the point, almost without exception, “go and see your doctor to get a proper diagnosis” seemed to crop up.

I’ll be making the appointment for that tomorrow morning.

In the mean time, I clocked up some more miles today, and I’m wondering about a big push to nail my annual cycling target in the next three weeks. Cognitive dissonance? What’s that?

Workout:

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 10/31/2007
• Time: 16:11:36
• Total Time: 1:45:00.00
• Distance: 23.5 miles
• Average Speed: 13.43 mph

Filed under: Cycle, Goals, Injury, Newcastle, Swimming, Where I Shop