“You have a body and you cannot change it”, says Mireia Belmonte. “That is what you have. You must extract as much as possible. I have things that perhaps a girl of 1,80 does not have, and vice versa. You can change your personality, you can be stronger, or thinner, but you cannot be higher and instead of having a shoe size 37 to have a 45. I wish I could have a shoe size 45!”.
The best Spanish swimmer of all times has taken her body progressively to the break point up to last summer. Until her shoulders, her sinews, the only sinews that she has, began to give depletion samples under the weight of a decade of uninterrupted cycles of weight and armful. It was an unknown experience. Last summer, way of fulfilling 25 years, she had to resign from the World cups of Swimming of Kazán. “I used to have shoulder pains all time, but never so continuous”, she says. “I believe that the pain for the prominent sportsman is essential. The day that you have no pain is rare. You have to feel physical pain because you have to take your body to the limit every day. And mental pain! You say: ‘ I cannot any more’. But you have to keep on swimming and training. You have to get up at 7.00. In the last Olympic year, before London, I was going to bed exhausted and was getting up the same way. The sleep was not serving to me for anything. I was feeling like if I had no forces anymore”.
Recovered of the tendinitis, Mireia has returned little by little to her effort routines. This weekend in the Cup of Ámsterdam she conquered five golden medals. Now she sees the Games of Rio with optimism. Her trainer, Fred Vergnoux, talks about a successful rehabilitation.
“The main task in the rehabilitation of the shoulders of Mireia has been to balance the forces relation between the muscles of the breast and the back, so that the joint works well”, tells the technician. “So that when she trains or moves, the shoulder is not messed up. The morphology of the swimmer is very atypical. Sometimes the pectoral are so strong that they throw inwards the head of the humerus and the shoulders fall down. To avoid this, it is necessary to do a specific force work with the muscles of the back, so that they stretch the pectoral ones and place the shoulders in its place”.
“Between July and August, Mireia has done recovery, and in September we have begun to go a bit harder. The sequence has been very good. Little by little she is getting stronger without stopping doing two physiotherapy sesions per week, of three hours each one. The fisio touches everything: head, neck, mouth, joints, fingers, hands, twins, feet plants … This allows she to train to the maximum. Now Mireia is doing all the exercises that she was doing before the injury. My demand is that every day the people come ready to do the best training of their life. Before the March Open we have projected to do bigger charges. And I think that when the time comes, she will be at her bests” Vergnoux continues.
“Without the two silver medals of London I will be as happy as I am now”, says Mireia, while she chews macaroni in the dining room of the CAR, “because I do what I like, and I enjoy. But perhaps this experience made me feel more secure. It gave me security when competing and more eager to manage more. This silver medal gave me motivation. If I had gained a gold… what else do you want? It is like the Barça hat trick!”.
Mireia’s excitement for the gold