Senior battles shoulder injuries, works hard to rejoin swim team

To become an athlete takes time, dedication and sacrifice, but to become an amazing athlete takes pain and purpose. It can mean pushing your body to a point it should not go to and not letting it stop. For Senior Jackson Berning becoming an amazing athlete was all he had in mind. Since he was five years old he would push himself to become a star swimmer. He has always been a loyal sports fan and to him, swimming seemed to call him. Jackson was unable to deny his hunger to dive into that water and swim.

When he hit freshman year of high school he was doing nearly five hours of training every day. This included mornings at the pool, afternoons lifting at the gym and evenings swimming and training at the pool. Though watching Jackson in action it is was hard to believe, but he still was human. The human body has its limits and Jackson hit his.

Jackson started to feel incredible, aching pains in his shoulder. He could barely move, let alone swim and this was only the beginning of Jackson’s world crumbling. He went to visit doctors, and experts in athletic injury, but for the rest of the year nothing was done. No one could understand how to react to his body breaking in this way.

When the human body is overworked in certain areas, joint and bones will loosen up. This causes all the pain to fall on the muscles and for the joints themselves to cause incredible discomfort. For swimmers this tends to happen when too much overhead shoulder movement is occurring. Now, most of the time swimmers are able to ignore the loosening of their joints and they don’t feel any pain or discomfort. For example, it´s very likely that Michael Phelps has this same joint looseness, the only difference being is that genetics determines whether or not the loose position of the joints causes any pain.

After freshman year Jackson and his family decided to undergo a surgery that would hopefully solve the problems that had plagued this prodigal swimmer. Sadly, after the surgery there was no change in the pain Jackson felt and this was the moment he thought it was over. He had to face the reality that his dream to become a professional swimmer, the door to his dream of athletic greatness was rapidly closing, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. There was no way Jackson could solve this problem at the moment.

Jackson spent the next few years seeing a physical therapist, and working ever so slowly to heal his body and get it back into swimming shape. When Jackson´s pain was still affecting him every day, anytime he stumbled his physical therapist could except to hear from him later that day. He sent a flurry of emails to his Physical Therapist when someone bumped into him in the hallway. Even though the bump itself didn´t hurt, Jackson was at such a high level of anxiety that the slightest contact would set off a panic attack.

Eventually Jackson began to recover even more and started his swimming training back up. As of now Jackson works incredibly hard. “Swimming is still my dream.” Jackson said during our interview.

Though Jackson is not as fast or as powerful a swimmer as he was during his prime, he is still improving. “There are off and on days, one day I´ll be gliding through the water just like I used to. Some days, I´m struggling the minute I get in the pool.” Jackson said. “I’m not giving up though, swimming still is and always will be my dream.”