Neck pain and long distance swim with monofin

[glubglub]

All:

I tried to search for the "neck pain" section of the forum, but none seems to talk about possibility of swimming either dynamic with monofin in pool or in the ocean causing neck pain.

Anyway, back in early June, I had a pretty bad muscle spasm on the back on long weekend, after going for 15m dive in the ocean and followed by 2k dynamic practice in the pool. Went to doc, diagnosed with muscle spasm, prescribed NSAID, my stomach couldn't take it. So the rest of my back went back to normal except for my left neck. Got couple massages with temporary relief, went back to doc and scheduled for physical therapy next week.

I'm mostly worried this is caused by the swim / dive since I tried to exclusively train for dynamic starting in late May.

Has anyone had similar situation? Any tips on how to speed up the healing?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jacblue]

I've never had neck pain associated with using a monofin. Maybe you need to change something with your technique? If you've got someone who can watch you and see if they can give you feedback or maybe can get a video clip, someone might be able to give you some advice? (Video clips are great, let you see all sorts of things you never realised you were doing when swimming). Other than that, maybe try some stretches before you go out?

 

[glubglub]

As an update, now is Nov 1. I went on physical therapy for maybe 8 sessions between August - October, and I had ruled out anything wrong with my spine (had MRI taken, fortunately overseas so I don't have to pay gazillion dollars). It's healing pretty nicely now, I'm afraid once you have muscle injury, only time will heal. About 4-5 months at least. Physical therapy (or also called physiotherapy) will give you massages, ultrasound heat treatment, and stretching exercises. The one I found most helpful is the lat muscle exercise. It seems like the lat muscle spasm is pulling my neck down and my neck tries to counter it by constantly pulling upward, thus the lingering pain. For a while we were trying to fix the neck area, which turns out not to be as much problem.