Injuries are common in all sports. Just the action of repeating the same movements and using the same muscles over and over again leaves you prone to all kinds of aches and pains: athletes and trainers often experience muscle sprains, strains, pulls, tears and stretches. Swimming’s not a sport known for a wide variety of injuries—but when a swimming injury does occur, it often causes damage to the shoulders. Though no breaks or fractures are involved, it can still be quite debilitating and can keep the swimmer out of action for a long time.

Swim instructors often hear complaints from their swimmers about having pains in their shoulders and they don’t always know the reasons why. The reasons, not always caused by stressful arm strokes or improper movements, happen mostly with the style of swimming known as freestyle.

Whether sprinting or going the distance freestyle, a swimmer can overstrain muscles — when this pain happens, it most often occurs in the anterior, or front part of the shoulder, and is caused by something no more complicated than just plain overuse. Too many laps at one session, too many strokes in a lap or just too much ignored stress can lead to an injury.

In the pool, other common shoulder problems can be caused by improper techniques, such as reaching out too far in the freestyle stroke, or crossing over when pulling. The indiscriminate use of hand paddles or pull buoys to increase resistance can also be damaging.

Outside of the pool, traumas to the shoulders can also happen. When swimmers aren’t swimming, they’re usually working out, and if they’re using improper strength development exercises, they’re taking a walk on the wild side. The wrong exercise, using too heavy a weight, or forcing too many repetitions – all of these can again lead to a muscle injury that will impact the swimmer’s stroke for a long time. The same “too much, too soon” rules that apply to swimming also apply to gym training and any activity that puts stress on the muscles.  All of this, plus the failure of the swimmer to heed his body’s warning to stop, is all it takes for that rotator cuff to act up.
The rotator cuff of the shoulder is composed of four muscles and adjoining tendons. These muscles and their tendons connect your upper arm bone with your shoulder blade. They also help keep the ball of your upper arm in your shoulder socket. This combination of bone, muscle and tendon results in the greatest range of motion of any joint in the human body.

Injuries to the rotator cuff come from three primary conditions:

Tendonitis, in which the tendons become inflamed due to their being overworked, occurs most frequently in swimmers who perform excess overhead arm movements, as in the freestyle or breaststroke.  Bursitis, a condition whereby the bursa, the fluid-filled sac between the shoulder joint and rotator cuff tendons can become irritated by friction and inflamed can be brought on by overly repetitive training.  Another danger is a strain or tear that can come from overuse or an improperly treated tendonitis. It can also lead to chronic tendon degeneration.
After the rotator cuff heals, making the shoulder stronger with exercises like seated rowing, lat pull downs, and several other shoulder exercises should prevent re-occurrences—but only if done properly. And when your body tells you it’s had enough — you listen.

by Bruce Heath, DnC