Pain in both elbows first 15 minutes of bike after swim??

Dave Campbell

For the entire year 2010, at all races, for the first 15-20 minutes of the bike, I had a lot of pain in both elbows.  I'm not sure its not a bike fit issue, but it never shows up on just a ride, regardless of the distance.  If I come up out of the aerobars and shake the arms out, I can get it to eventually go completely away.  Never notice elbow pain after just swims??  Wondering if anybody else has had this and if so what you did to resolve it. 

Thanks

Dave

 

Swoodowrth

I do have some elbow pain on swim days. I went to the doctor for it once and he indicated that he couldn't think of how swimming would make my elbow hurt. Love to hear what others have to say!

Leigh Boyle

what about wetsuit factor?? are races the only time you swim in your suit??

seems odd that it's early in the bike and that you can't reproduce it with just swimming or biking alone.

jburbatt

@Sheryl- when I had elbow pain from swimming it was because I was holding my arm too rigid during the catch. And the repetitve motion built up the problem quickly.

@ Dave- if you were putting even mild strain on your elbow while swimming, my guess is that it's not enough to be noticed on only swim days, but enough that when you start the pressure in the areo bars it becomes noticable. After I had elbow pain from swimming sometimes it wouldn't manifest itself until I was at work typing the next day where my elbows rest on my desk (standing).

Dave Campbell

Thanks for the advice so far. I guess 1 thing I should do is some swim/bike bricks to see if I can recreate it in training.
@Leigh- good point about the wetsuit factor. I've been swimming in the same sleeveless since 04 and never noticed this until this year. it happened on a couple non-wetsuit races during the summer and at my final race 2 weeks ago when I did my very first swim in a new full suit. So, I'm not absolutely ruling out the wetsuit factor, just struggling to make a connection.
Really the only thing I have changed is droping my handlebars 1 spacer at the start of the season to try to be more aero. last fit was done in 07 when I bought the bike. Will get re-fit prior to LP next season.
@ Jenniferl- How did you pick up on the "arm too rigid" thing. Does that mean you were not bending your elbows? How did you resolve it?

Thanks

jburbatt

Once I started noticing the pain I was trying to diagnose what was causing it the swim or the bike. So I did a long bike on my trainer pretty much in the hoods and not aero the whole time (I did a trainer ride cause I find that sometimes when riding outside, depending on the traffic I can get extra tense and cause tension elbow pain from "defensively" biking).

Once I knew that wasn't the issue I knew it was my swim. Even though I didn't lose swim time by not swimming in the OS, I definitely had a lot of trouble getting the proper form back consistently. So I basically watched the man on the swim smooth site on repeat at every angle possible, then when I got into the water I went through each part of my stroke trying to determine where I was off. Ultimately, my arm was bent at the elbow, but it was very robot like and I wasn't loosening my arm into the S as I was pushing through and finishing my stroke. I was keeping my arm rigid and over-focusing on the catch which was causing a lot of strain on my elbow. Once I realized this, I was able to adjust pretty quickly and the pain went away the next day. If you are someone who is able to watch and visualize and compare with your own movements I'd highly recommend the swim smooth site to get a 360 view of the correct stroke. This is generally how I learn, so it was really helpful in trying to diagnose the issue.

Does this make sense? (It's a little odd trying to describe a swim stroke in words!)

Dave Campbell

Thanks Jennifer, I'll check out the swim smooth guy. Come to think of it, I spent all last winter working on fron quadrant stroke and early catch. Maybe I'm stressing the elbows there. Good idea. Thanks