Have you ever seen a bird fly with uneven arms? I’m pretty sure if you have they’re wounded, right!?
Karter is my oldest son, he’s 9 and has been swimming competitively since he was 5. His favorite strokes is Butterfly. It’s a a neat stroke where your feet kick together like a mermaid tail and your arms fly out like a bird. It’s Michael Phelps strong suit! Karter has struggled more recently and even been disqualified during swim meets due to his arms being uneven.
Karter is my oldest son, he’s 9 and has been swimming competitively since he was 5. His favorite strokes is Butterfly. It’s a a neat stroke where your feet kick together like a mermaid tail and your arms fly out like a bird. It’s Michael Phelps strong suit! Karter has struggled more recently and even been disqualified during swim meets due to his arms being uneven.
I have nearly every event he’s ever done recorded on video, unless I was volunteering or that one time I recorded the wrong kid! Don’t judge, they all look the same! Here in the past few months he has taken interest in watching his videos, he has started breaking down splits and analyzing where he can shave time. Being such a visual learner it has helped him see things that his coach has been trying to fix for a few months now! Then he takes that and applies it at practice. The biggest thing he saw that he was trying and couldn’t figure out was his arms were uneven. He said he felt like they were even but he could see from the videos that they weren’t. The coach said it could just be muscle development, one side being stronger than the other. The only odd part to that was that he’s a righty and it was was his right side that was dragging.
Here’s where it really gets interesting, when he was setting his goals for the next meet he needed to look at older footage so we went back and looked at videos from February, he was in sync. So we know he is capable but don’t know what happened between February and November.
I finally decided to take him to the chiropractor to get an assessment and possible alignment. What could it hurt!? We took him to the Spinal Source in Suffolk, VA to see Dr. Chase Bollig. Sure enough he was very much out of alignment, the chiro showed me how far off his posture was- his right upper half was off and his left lower half hips were all out of whack. He also said his traps were knotted up. The Dr asked Karter if he was dealing with any other pains anywhere and Karter mentioned his ears. The Dr started with his upper body, he adjusted his neck and shoulder area then did a machine on his traps. He assessed and then did more of the machine. The Dr assessed again and he realized that by just adjusting the top half it brought his hips back in line. Dr. Bollig said he may be sore for a day or so and might even need another touch up because it’s hard to tell if he’ll be lined up till he’s in the water.
Here’s where it really gets interesting, when he was setting his goals for the next meet he needed to look at older footage so we went back and looked at videos from February, he was in sync. So we know he is capable but don’t know what happened between February and November.
I finally decided to take him to the chiropractor to get an assessment and possible alignment. What could it hurt!? We took him to the Spinal Source in Suffolk, VA to see Dr. Chase Bollig. Sure enough he was very much out of alignment, the chiro showed me how far off his posture was- his right upper half was off and his left lower half hips were all out of whack. He also said his traps were knotted up. The Dr asked Karter if he was dealing with any other pains anywhere and Karter mentioned his ears. The Dr started with his upper body, he adjusted his neck and shoulder area then did a machine on his traps. He assessed and then did more of the machine. The Dr assessed again and he realized that by just adjusting the top half it brought his hips back in line. Dr. Bollig said he may be sore for a day or so and might even need another touch up because it’s hard to tell if he’ll be lined up till he’s in the water.
Karter was so excited all day to get in the pool and try it out. Not only was it effective his coaches were surprised and impressed. His coach asked me after...”so, where did you take him!?” He still has a slight imbalance underwater, but not likely to be DQ’d over it and hopefully now that he’s aligned he can improve on it.
It’s been a couple weeks since his adjustment and he didn’t seem to need the readjust, he also said there was no pain/soreness after, he felt more range of motion and flexibility, it was a relief. Our bird was wounded but now he flies again! This weekend he will really put it to the test at his first travel swim meet!!
#OlympianInTraining #GoingForGold #KarterFlies
#OlympianInTraining #GoingForGold #KarterFlies
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