Swimming III

I discovered relatively recently that I could swim and get assistance from my legs when I was stroking on my back. This worked well except that most of the work was being done by my arms. My legs were assisting with a fairly reflex action as the entire body contracted stimulated by a strong action of my arms.

My physical therapist recommended that I try the side stroke. The idea was to get my legs to go back behind my spine which is a necessary movement as I contemplate the idea of walking. In the pool I found out that I was completely unable to do the side stroke. First, I could not remember quite what my arms were supposed to do. Usually most of the work in the side stroke is done by the legs and the arms actually follow. In my current state, while I can move my legs, I do not have a lot of control. It is extremely difficult to have a movement which starts in the legs and carries the arms along.

I began to try something simpler. I attempted a flutter kick. In the flutter kick the legs move in opposite directions. For me, this is an extremely difficult thing to do. It took a lot of practice to move my legs in opposite directions. As you will see in the video below, I am twisting my hips a lot in order to assist my legs in moving.

Up until now whenever I swim, my legs are following the movements of my arms and most of the work is done my my arms. I have begun attempting to swim with my legs only and my arms doing relatively little work. It is actually easier to swim using the flutter kick in this matter. When my legs are coordinated using a front kick they really want the action of the arms to start the entire movement.

My swimming using the flutter kick is extremely slow but eventually I am able to get from one end of the pool to the other using my legs with my hands doing fairly little at my side. The video below illustrates swimming with the flutter kick. Clearly there is a long way to go but it is the first time since my accident that I have been able to move a significant distance using only the power of my legs.

Swimming II

While Wayne and his wife went on a vacation in Thailand, I considered the issue of swimming again. I rapidly discovered that almost all of the public pools in the Seattle area had made provision for people in wheelchairs. A trip to the Bellevue aquatic center led to the discovery that not only do they have wheelchairs and hydraulic chairs for lowering people into the pool but in their warm pool they even have a ramp that allows a wheelchair to simply be rolled into the pool.

One major issue was that when I went swimming with Wayne I was capable of changing in the men's locker room with Wayne to assist me. If I went swimming with my wife that possibility would not be available to me. Fortunately, the Bellevue aquatic center has considered this issue and has family changing rooms which are private and allow a disabled person and their assistant to change in a small room which even has a private shower. Another accommodation that Bellevue makes is that the the assistant of a handicapped person does not have to pay for use of the pool.

With this knowledge I tried swimming at the Bellevue aquatic center with my wife. By now it had been at least a month and a half since I had been swimming and I had significant improvement in the function of my legs. I was surprised to find that when I swam on my back my legs would naturally kick with the same rhythm as my arms. By concentrating on the movement of my legs I was able to get a significant kick from my legs to assist the movement of my arms. After we discovered that my legs were helping me to swim we gave the legs some assistance by putting on fins, forcing them to do more work but allowing them to help more.

The video below shows me swimming while using a frog kick.

Swimming Part I

My friend, Wayne was until he recently retired,a special education teacher in the Seattle school district. One of the things he did was to take his students swimming. He went to the West Seattle YMCA which had facilities for dealing with people with disabilities. One of his students was in a wheelchair. I believe, but I am not sure, that he might have had spina bifida or some other view birth defect. When he heard of my injury, Wayne offered to take me swimming.

Swimming presents some interesting difficulties. My wheelchair cannot really get wet. I was uncertain how to get in and out of the pool. I was also uncertain that I would be able to swim once I got into the pool. It turns out that the YMCA, and later I would discover most other pools in the region, have answers to most of these problems. They have loaner wheelchairs, much cheaper and less sophisticated than mine, which may be taken into the showers. They have a hydraulic lift, water is a good hydraulic fluid, which is a chair which may be raised or lowered into the pool. They offer a number of flotation devices to guarantee that once in the water you won't sink.

There is also an issue about getting dressed. Is very difficult to take your pants on and off when you are sitting in a wheelchair. Normally when I am getting dressed I lie in bed and as I raise my pants I roll back and forth. This takes the weight or the one side allowing me to pull the pants up or, when getting undressed, push the pants down. In a wheelchair, I can raise my body by pushing up with both arms. However, when I'm using both arms to raise I have no arms to do with my pants. So when I am getting dressed for swimming I need the assistance of an able-bodied person to deal with my pants while I am raising my body to take my weight off of them. Fortunately, Wayne was used to playing this role.

We got a loaner chair, I rolled into the shower and washed off and then rolled to the pool and transferred to the chair. I was then lowered into the water and put on floats around my waist and both feet. I rapidly discovered that I was unable to swim on my stomach because it was difficult to raise my head and breathe. However, swimming on my back presented no difficulties. I was able to easily swim laps using my arms in a coordinated stroke and allowing my legs to float behind.

Swimming laps was easily the hardest exercise I was capable of doing since my accident. Wayne and I swum a number of laps. Everything went well until it was time for me to leave the pool. I easily got into the chair and was raised out of the pool. From there I needed to transfer back into the loaner wheelchair. Getting into the chair had been very easy and I assumed that getting out would be the same. Unfortunately, I did not count on the fact that the chair was still extremely wet from being in the pool. When I gave a vigorous push with my arm to propel myself into the loaner chair, my arms slipped and I found myself in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Fortunately, Wayne and a lifeguard were standing right next to me. I had never instructed people in the use of the fireman's carry which is the way I was taught to be picked up off of the floor but there is a first time for everything. With two strong men helping me getting back into the chair was a very simple process.

I went swimming with Wayne several more times in West Seattle. The only real problem was that West Seattle is a long ways from my house and most of the time was spent getting to and from the pool. I began to think about other pools which might work equally well.