Erin McNulty: Butterfly Kicking After Two Ankle Surgeries – Video

Above Photo Courtesy: Dan Worden

By Hawaii Assistant Coach Joe Spahn

Coaching a swimmer recovering from an injury can be a hard process for both the coach and athlete. Getting back to where the athlete was pre-injury is almost impossible. The thought of getting better can be a dream. Which makes Erin McNulty’s performance at the A3 Invitational, Nov. 20-22, even more surprising.

With 15 months off and two ankle surgeries under her belt, McNulty came charging back. She swam an impressive 54.35 (NCAA B cut) in the 100 butterfly and a 2:02.64 in the 200 butterfly. With only three months of hard training, her times shattered her lifetime bests.

In September, Erin and I sat down for her goals meeting and she explained her surgeries to me. Her first surgery on August 6, 2013 was an attempt to cure the Osteochondral defect in her right ankle. This meant that there was a hole in her anklebone full of cartilage that was swelling. The doctors’ attempt to fix this problem involved micro-fracturing her ankle to try and clean out the cartilage.

Her second surgery took place January 2, 2014, a week after she was out of her boot from her first surgery. The second procedure was to fix her Os Trigonum, which defines the extra bone spur she was born with that needed to be taken out and sanded down.

We discussed her pain in depth: where is the pain, what causes her pain, what doesn’t cause her pain, what she does to reduce her pain, and what rehab she does. After hearing all that I thought, “How are you swimming?” We then talked about her goals, which for many recovering athletes it’s to return to their performances pre-surgery. We decided to set them a little faster than her lifetime bests.

In order to limit the amount of pain on her ankle, Erin can’t swim too much butterfly. So most of the butterfly swimming she does is fast. She has to get the most out of her butterfly swimming when there is minimal pain. This has created a much stronger butterfly on top of the water. When most girls are struggling to finish, Erin is coming on strong at the end.

Erin McNulty’s Injury-Altered Butterfly Kick

To work with the injury, there needed to be a very open line of communication and a lot of trust. This was asking a lot of Erin because we had not worked together before her injury. Erin needed to alter her stroke to adapt to her new ankles, and I needed to adapt my coaching strategy for her. This meant that my philosophy of a lot of kicking and underwater work was out. So, Erin and I agreed that she would let me know when her ankle was hurting, and I agreed to adjust sets and understand if we had to cut something short.

At first, we were very cautious with her ankle. The kick sets were very minimal. The underwater sets were changed to swimming without breathing. Halfway through a set, we often changed to pulling. Erin has built up to more of everything since we started, but is still limited at times. We still have to watch her swimming early on in the week so she can get through to Saturdays.

Her kick sets have changed to doing more over kick while swimming freestyle. She would then kick the fast portions of the kick sets. For example:

Group- 15 x 100 on 1:30 (2-build 1-Fast)
Erin- 15 x 100 on 1:30 (2-over kick free 1-fast kick)

By making these adjustments, it allowed her to make the kicking intervals, which is crucial to keeping her involved with the workout and her teammates, rather than off to the side where she’s training alone and can’t be watched as well.

She also works her legs without over working her ankle, then improves her kicking by kicking fast when she can. She is also able to keep up with the group on the fast kicking with minimal pain. Keeping an injured swimmer confident and involved with teammates is an essential part of recovery.

Erin has very little pain in her left ankle but her right ankle, where she had the osteochondral defect, is where her pain centralized. The imbalance between the ankles caused a slight separation in her butterfly kick at first. Focusing on the simultaneous kick was the first step.

The plantar flexion position can be a painful position but even more so when pressure is applied to the top of the foot. However, pressure to the bottom of the foot in plantar flexion causes no pain for Erin. Research shows that the downward kicking motion is much more powerful than the upward kicking motion, also known as the recovery of the butterfly kick. In Erin’s case, plantar flexion with pressure to the anterior (top) side of the foot causes her the most pain.

This negatively and drastically affects her downward kick. However pressure to the posterior (bottom) side of her foot causes no pain.

Photo Courtesy: Osteomyoamare

Because of her pain, we have focused on a more even kick for Erin. The word recovery does not exist for her kick. Therefore, Erin tries to get the most out of her upward kick while swimming. Although we have not been able to use some of the conventional trainings aids such as fins, we have been able use parachutes and resistance bands with an emphasis on her kicking. We have done sideways kicking as well as focus on an even kick. With a painful kick, she can’t push her underwaters as far as most successful butterflyers. So, we have focused on a smooth, strong breakout.

Erin and her training group have also experienced a strong emphasis on dryland training. Their strength and conditioning coach, Matt Houston, has played a huge role in Erin and her group’s success. He has created a unique training atmosphere in the weight room for the swimmers, that fosters mental toughness, hard work and a strict technique. The strength she has gained has helped her legs stay strong and her upper body to do a larger part of the work.

On top of the changes in Erin’s stroke, confidence was the final piece to her success. Going into the A3 Invite, an NCAA B cut was not on our minds. She started the meet with a solid 24.24 in her 50 free–only .01 off her best time.

Knowing she could swim at her best gave her confidence going into the 400 medley relay that evening. That night she swam a 54.53 split, which was the third-fastest butterfly split. That success changed her. She was now on a mission.

It’s nerve racking for a swimmer coming off an injury to perform outside their comfort zone. The fear of the pain can be haunting. Her morning swim was a conservative effort to just get into the finals. However, she swam a best time of 55.06, which for a conservative effort was yet another boost.

In finals, she decided to push the first 50 of her 100, faster than she felt was safe. I assured her that she would still finish strong and her trusting me on that advice was a key to what followed. She went out fast, and 54.35 seconds later she was filled with excitement having performed her first-ever NCAA B cut by shattering her lifetime best.

I think the confidence she gained at the A3 Invite will push her to train even harder now. She will continue to change her training and improve her stoke. We will continue to learn together and come up with more ways to train around her ankle injury.

It is worth noting, that Erin is a unique athlete. Her qualities of determination, pain tolerance and passion have created the perfect combination for Erin to come back from her surgeries.

Joe Spahn joined Hawaii as an assistant coach in 2013 after spending a season at UNLV as the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. His coaching career began with a graduate assistantship under Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle after he finished his swimming career at Minnesota State Mankato.

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Debbie

9 years ago

I am not surprised by the success of this young lady. It seems to me that the dedication, communication and team effort of Erin and her coaching staff made this possible.