I still get some phantom pains on occasion. Comes with the territory, I guess. After all, nine plus years of year-round competitive swimming will really wear your arms out. My shoulders just don’t function like they once did. Looking back, I’m not sure which I burned out first, my mind or my body.
Anyway, I remember the one moment when I knew my right arm would never be the same. I arrived at practice and coach informed us that our session today would be an all-butterfly one. That’s the stroke where you move your arms in a curved motion above your head. After about 75 minutes of this, my right arm just had this shooting pain moving down from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers. I knew my body well enough to know that something was seriously wrong and pulled myself out of the next set to talk to the coach. He told me to stretch it out, but it was no go. I was done for the day. I visited the family doctor the next day when I couldn’t get my arm to reach above my head. I must have looked odd with my khaki pants matched with only an undershirt. He ran some range of motion tests and it was determined I had a torn rotator cuff. Splendid. Two surgeries later, I was back in the pool, finishing out what would prove to be my last year of competitive swimming.