The swimmer's shoulder

Swimmer's shoulder?

Around 90 percent of the forward speed in the front crawl and breaststroke comes from the shoulder joint and upper body. There are few other sports where the shoulder (and arms) do as many repetitions as swimming. A competitive swimmer will quickly make around 2,500 cyclic movements per training session, most of them repetitive. This requires a lot of shoulder endurance and in many cases leads to injuries due to subsequent microtrauma. In the beginning, there will be little notice of a (potential) injury and certainly while swimming, when the muscles are warm and there is full focus on the swimming movement, no pain will be felt yet.

More than 60% of active swimmers have problems with their shoulder (s) due to the combination of the many repetitive/repetitive movements and the fact that the shoulder is a very mobile and unstable joint.

As written, there will often be not much going on while swimming and the first discomfort and pain are felt after swimming during other daily activities. The relationship with shoulder pain and swimming is not directly established, so swimming continues. The first few times, the shoulder will actually feel better while swimming, especially when the joint has warmed up again. If the swimmer continues too long, inflammation of the tendons that stabilize the shoulder head can often occur, resulting in a more overall picture of pain around the entire shoulder.

This often makes a correct diagnosis more difficult and you will have to wait with targeted therapy and exercises until the

inflammation has subsided again.

We're not going to delve deeper into the technical aspects of the complex shoulder movement while swimming; that's for next time.

The swimmer's shoulder is still (too) often seen as “subacromial impingement”. Simply put, this is an entrapment of structures (including tendons) between the shoulder head and the shoulder roof. However, there have recently been studies that indicate that it is not a primary constriction but an inflammation of one of the shoulder tendons based on the increased mobility in the shoulder joint that occurs in many swimmers. The combination of constriction, increased mobility and instability that characterizes swimmers makes a correct diagnosis all the more important.

Do you experience discomfort during daily activities after swimming? Don't wait for pain to also occur while swimming. This makes it more difficult for the treating therapist to draw up a correct diagnosis and therefore a treatment plan, and more importantly: you will not be able to do what you love to do for a long time: pain-free swimming.

So get timely advice from an experienced shoulder specialist!

TIPS:

· Warming up

· Good swimming technique (have this checked regularly and have yourself filmed when you swim)

· Calm structure of training

· Alternate strokes

· Do not strength train and/or strain the shoulders immediately after a swim training