itty bitty muscles

I know, a race report is due, and I promise it's in the works.  Patience grasshopper (says the pot to the kettle).

This morning I saw a new PT.  My regular guy wanted a second set of eyes to take a look at my chronically jacked (yes, that *is* my technical term) shoulder.  So he wanted me to see Katie, who was a diver/swimmer at Stanford, is currently a triathlete, and has her PhD in physical therapy.  Or something like that.  Dr. Katie.

She took a quick history of when the shoulder seems the worst (swimming with paddles) and grimaced when I said that I also tend to sleep on that shoulder.  Then she immediately got to work digging into a bunch of old adhesions.  She may or may not have told me that I win the award.  Unfortunately "most impressively messed up shoulder" is *not* really the award I'm really shooting for.

What it basically comes down to is that some of the chronically tight, dysfunctional muscles are pulling, pulling, pulling.  And the itty bitty teeny tiny muscles, like some of the rotator cuff muscles, are just doing everything they can to hold it all in place.   But they're losing.  The lower trap on the left side has next to no muscle mass and is getting really stretched out.  And my internal rotation, which is evidently pretty much required for a good swim stroke, is non-existent.  The good news is that once I get this fixed up, and I am determined to get this fixed up, my swim stroke should see some nice improvement.  And who doesn't like improvement?!?!