{"id":118025,"date":"2015-01-05T16:43:11","date_gmt":"2015-01-05T23:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=118025"},"modified":"2015-01-05T16:43:12","modified_gmt":"2015-01-05T23:43:12","slug":"erin-mcnulty-butterfly-kicking-two-ankle-surgeries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/erin-mcnulty-butterfly-kicking-two-ankle-surgeries\/","title":{"rendered":"Erin McNulty: Butterfly Kicking After Two Ankle Surgeries – Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above Photo Courtesy: Dan Worden<\/p>\n

By Hawaii Assistant Coach Joe Spahn<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2019s performance at the A3 Invitational, Nov. 20-22, even more surprising.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In September, Erin and I sat down for her goals meeting and she explained her surgeries to me<\/a>. 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\u2019 attempt to fix this problem involved micro-fracturing her ankle to try and clean out the cartilage.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We discussed her pain in depth: where is the pain, what causes her pain, what doesn\u2019t cause her pain, what she does to reduce her pain, and what rehab she does. After hearing all that I thought, \u201cHow are you swimming?\u201d We then talked about her goals, which for many recovering athletes it\u2019s to return to their performances pre-surgery. We decided to set them a little faster than her lifetime bests.<\/p>\n

In order to limit the amount of pain on her ankle, Erin can\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Erin McNulty’s Injury-Altered Butterfly Kick<\/h2>\n