idle thoughts while out of the pool with a cold
 

For the past number of days I haven't been swimming and have been lying in bed with a cold. The worst part of this is what it does to my core muscles, which seem to completely turn off and go to sleep from spending so much time in bed. I am cringing when I think about what this will do to my swimming when I get back in the pool. Has anyone got suggestions for how to re-activate the core muscles after too much time in bed? My first thought is mindful walking with special attention to posture, weight shifting and the timing of shoulder and leg recovery to maintain alignment. What? You don't spend your time thinking about these things when you walk? You don't know what your missing...

If you have been utilizing spinal stabilizers doing 'life' then laying in bed isn't going to do a thing to them for a few days. If you are still learning how to apply them face down in water that is probably just more muscle memory than anything, but the overall capacity of the muscles to do work isn't going to evaporate from being down with a cold. My wife is a PT she spends a lot of time teaching people how to 'do life' with structural support re-learning. We were not meant to sit and be idle this is 1 of 1,000 reasons why desk jobs are silent killers. Literally.

Hi Danny, I couldn't swim for 1 month. When I got back to the pool I had lost mostly aerobic fitness and stroke rate, but fortunately they're coming back pretty quickly. Not in big trouble with core muscles.

Descending, what's 'doing life'?

Salvo

Hi descending. I fully agree with you. This past year I just finished a month of PT because of arthritis in my hips, and the main message I got from this (and a lot of reading) is that I need to use a different set of muscles when I stand and walk. So I probably don't lose the condition of these muscles in such a short time, but I do lose the muscle control patterns. Which is why I spend so much time doing "mindful walking". Perhaps not surprisingly, I find that mindful walking helps me with the same issues in maintaining alignment when swimming. I don't think that the muscle patterns are identical in order to keep an aligned core in swimming and walking, but the feeling that everything is smooth, effortless and in sync when you do it is very similar. If I can sensitize myself to this feeling when walking, then it helps me to find it when swimming as well. Lying in bed wipes out my muscle memory for both, and that is what I am wringing my hands about right now :0)

Hi Danny

Early this year I had by first bad cold in years (one seems to become immune as one ages, but this bug sneaked through), and had to scratch from a two-day meet I was really looking forward to. I spent a lot of the time asleep but when I got back to the pool the damage didn't seem too bad.

I've now missed another big meet because I didn't get my entries in early enough. My first meet of the year looks like being in May and I've had to abandon the thought of swimming in the European Masters because the entries were all full after a day or so. There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the British Masters community as a result.

In the spirit of welcoming adversity I have returned to my quest to learn a legal butterfly and hope to enter the 100 and 200 IM in May. It's a short course meet so I have a chance. I managed it in 2012, I think.

You'll probably find that you get back into the swing quite rapidly.

I honestly wouldn't worry about it too much if you are in tune with using these muscle groups for locomotion during the day that's well enough it will come back. There will come a time you don't have to think on it just go and it's there. I suppose I tend to forget those days since I have been swimming for so long, but if you are in the pool several days a week it's not going to up and leave you like a dog chasing a leaf.

If you want to obsess more about walking, you should read What the Foot? By Gary Ward.

As for the core, lying down is the perfect time to practice your torso stabilization.

First learn how to diaphragmatically breathe. If you can't do that yet, then place one hand on your chest and one on your belly. Try to take in air without moving the hand on chest at all. A cue is to push your belly up, moving the belly hand up.

The moment you can do this without the chest hand moving but only the belly hand, then stick your fingers under your rib cage in the fleshy part at your sides. Try to breathe in while pushing those fingers out.

Then put your hand under your low back on each side and try to feel pressure there, pushing down into your hands and bed, as you take each breath in.

If you can do those, then move to your pelvis. There are two bony joints called your ASIS joints. Press a finger or two into your flesh on the insides of your ASIS joints. Then take a breath in and attempt to push your fingers out. If you can do this, you will feel a tightening all around your lower torso. This is your inner core stabilizer muscles activating. Training this will improve your swimming a ton.

Well, David, you have given me some motivation to stay in bed for another couple of days to practice! I have seen you describe this before, and it seems like a real adventure in anatomy exploration. I googled the ASIS joint and, as I understand it, the ASIS is the leafy like bone structure surrounding the hip, but where are the ASIS joints? This is where I get lost...

ha a lot of these can be practiced in bed, or lying on the ground. i do it every morning as part of morning routine, and before i work out to get good and equal activation of both sides (i had an unbalanced stability problem where my right side will develop pressure before the left - very bad depending on what you want to do).

this image shows the ASIS joints which are the bony protrusions in the front of your body at the front and top of your hips.

http://lilalotus.se/wp-content/uploa...ogaanatomy.png

this one locates it on a real human (ignore the hot guy comment):

http://images.slideplayer.com/21/625...es/slide_9.jpg

Above them you will feel just flesh of the lower torso, as well as to the inside of them. Stick your fingers into the flesh just to the inside of them and practice pushing them out while breathing.

David, with the guidance of your pictures, I followed your advice and it works, my fingers move! I was expecting this to be much harder. So what else should I practice in bed? :0)