Lead with your chin

Yesterday, I had one on one time with Wendy at the pool.  I wanted to focus on correcting my head rotation when I take a breath.  As a result of lifting my head to breathe and fighting the water these past couple months, the week after Callaway, my neck and muscle behind my left ear were super sore.  My body also ached from the bike, run, heat, you name it--so I went to the chiropractor [Dr. Tran] and massage therapist [Linnette].  Dr. Tran adjusted me using a series of loud cracks.  If I ever had a doubt about the benefits of chiropractic care, this visit cleared it.  During the visit, he advised me to tell my massage therapist to strip the SCM.  This is the muscle that runs behind your ears and along your neck.  Mine was so sore and swollen that I’d been having headaches daily and was in a lot of pain.  Me and Alleve were very good friends.  Within 24 hours of the chiro visit, I had relief.  48 hours after the tag team of Dr. Tran and Linnette, I was close to normal.  My takeaway: learn how to properly rotate your head to take a breath.

I’d informed Wendy of my goal earlier in the day via email.  I arrived at the pool to find her checking Rafael Nadal’s tennis score [not good].  She would watch me from the pool deck.  In between watching tennis she looks up and says “lead with your chin”.  That’s it, 4 words, are you kidding me?  Is that the magic potion? “lead with your chin”.  That’s it, give it a shot and back to tennis she went.

I get in the pool and give it a try. All, I have to say is OMG.  Completely, changed the way I took a breath. It can’t be this simple.  No neck strain or fighting the water. I actually felt like it wasn’t difficult. In the past I’d done sort of a four part breath.  1) lift head, 2) turn head, 3) breath, and 4) drop head back into the water.  So my neck muscles were working overtime.  With LWYC, I could rotate and doh, turn my chin toward my shoulder while I was rotating.  AMAZING!!

I practiced that maybe 30 minutes and felt so good about the potential for success.  I’ve always found the little things make a world of difference.  I’ll continue to practice over the next two weeks. I know this tweak is going to be huge for my confidence.

Last week, I decided to focus on training instead of another triathlon. One of the things outlined in Conquer your fear of water is to not progress too soon.  Master small steps before moving to the next thing;  I realized that I need to master breathing and body position before moving on.  Yesterday was confirmation that this was the right decision.  Whoo hoo

Oh and Wendy taped my stroke.  I’ll try to post it here.   Remember to keep moving forward.