This one's a long post, so I'm splitting it into two parts. Link to part 1 here.
Did I mention my massage therapist is an evil genius? She's a swimmer, she gets it, she can pretty much tell how I swim by just looking at my posture. She usually apologizes before causing me pain on the table, but after 8 years of this, I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually mean it anymore. But she is a genius, I'm not just saying that in case she sees this post (no that's a lie, I am).
Below is a pic of a spine, the red dots are next to the vertebrae she's working to release that are causing me issues (issues with tightness are on both sides of the vertebrae, to be clear, the dots are just there to illustrate the general area), and the orange dots are where my lower back pain is when I go beyond 15-20kms. After extensive x-rays, I can confirm there is some disk deterioration but nothing more than an adult my age would exhibit.
So, it's up to me to correct my swim posture. You may have noticed in part 1, the more recent video shows me wearing a finis posture trainer, which fits around your head and is a piece of long plastic positioned along the neck so that it taps between your shoulders if you lift your head up, great for constant cuing. You do not need to spend $30 on this though, works just as well if you stuff a pencil or chopstick under the back of your goggle strap. I'll be wearing it for the next 2-3 months, until my low head position is more natural.
Here are a few other things I'll be doing:
- Rolling my thoracic spine, hands behind head, then once it's warmed up, do it while gently pulling head forward so there's flexion
- Craniosacral self-release, I ordered this gadget
- exercises, follow this video