Are you getting sore shoulders when you swim?
Although the benefits of swimming are well known, many people find that swimming hurts their shoulders. Technique is often the problem. Here are a few things to notice when you are swimming front crawl/ freestyle, that might be contributing to injury. 1) Are you crossing the midline of your body with your hand when it enters the water? 2) Is your thumb entering the water first? 3) Are you still doing the old school ‘S’ pull under water? Any one of the technique errors mentioned above could cause Supraspinatus Impingement.
You can recognize some classic difficulties this injury causes like pain with sleeping, putting on a jacket and lifting your arm to the side (just to name a few).
Try the following drills and incorporate these changes into your stroke. You will soon be enjoying pain free swimming.
1) Have your left hand enter the water at 11 and your right at 1 o’clock. It may feel strange at first but will make a big difference in reducing the squeeze on your Supraspinatus Tendon.
2) Internal rotation of the shoulder (thumb down) impinges The Supraspinatus Tendon. Avoid it, by entering the water with your hand flat or your baby finger first.
3) Aim your fingers at the bottom of the pool throughout the pull phase of the stroke. If you turn your fingers toward the wall it is likely that you are still doing the ‘S’ style pull. This causes internal rotation of the shoulder and crosses midline of the body with your hand; combining both errors from above.
Koren Brett
BScPT, FCAMPT, GunnIMS, CAFCI