‘So, what do you like to do for exercise?’

Jenny* (52), looked down at the floor. ‘I used to be fit, I loved swimming, but now I can barely put on a pair of shoes without losing my breath’.

Jenny sat in front of me looking tired, a little embarrassed and very deflated. She’d recently had a hysterectomy and while in hospital she’d acquired Covid-19. Jenny had then gone home and because of a combination of nausea, fatigue, and just general down-in-the-dumpiness, she’d had a fall and injured her shoulder, which is why she’d come to see me.

‘Is swimming something you’d like to get back to?’ I asked Jenny.

‘Yes’, she replied, ‘but I feel as though with this shoulder and my surgery it might be something I never do again, not in the same way at least’.

For the general population, two weeks of inactivity will result in a noticeable loss of cardiovascular fitness, and three weeks will amount to a noticeable loss in strength. Jenny had been inactive for around six weeks by the time she got to me, so she definitely wasn’t feeling her best self.

‘Swimming is absolutely something you’ll be able to do again’, I encouraged her.

‘Come on, let’s find some things you can do instead of focusing on the things you can’t.’

Over the following weeks, Jenny and I worked together to settle her shoulder pain and introduced little exercises to increase her fitness and shoulder function for swimming. Six weeks later she was back in the pool.

‘Thanks for supporting me’, Jenny said at her final appointment. ‘Without your encouragement, I don’t know if I’d have ever been able to get back on the horse!’

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