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Swimming is gentler on your body than many weight-bearing, high-impact sports. No wonder
you frequently see people swimming well into their fifties, sixties and beyond.
That’s also why injured athletes from other sports often swim to help retain fitness
while recuperating. Still, you need to take a few precautions to ensure that you
don’t get injured while swimming.
Shoulder Strengthening
Dry-land shoulder exercises are by far the best preventative measures you can take. Strong shoulders will be more stable and more able to withstand
the abuse heaped on them by the thousands of repetitions they must make in a year. For instance,
if you do a 1,000-yard workout in a 25-yard pool and take 20 freestyle strokes per length, you
will have taken 800 strokes. That’s a lot of shoulder flexion and extension, abduction and
adduction, internal and external rotation. No wonder shoulder pain is the most common swimming
injury.
Correct Technique
The chances of an overuse injury are much greater if you don’t use correct stroke
mechanics. Biomechanically, the human body isn’t well designed to perform many of the
movements involved in swimming. In all four strokes (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke,
butterfly) the muscles of the upper body are required to generate large forces with arms
above the head. Shoulders aren’t designed to withstand these strange movements to the
extent to which we subject them. Body roll, shoulder rotation, and elbow bend all must be
just right to minimize excess stress on joints that aren’t prepared to withstand
unusual stresses. How can you be sure what is “just right” in stroke mechanics?
A trained eye is essential. You need someone who can critically evaluate stroke mechanics
for potentially injury-producing defects—a coach. (Two good sources of coaching: swim
lessons at your local Y or rec program; and Masters swim programs held at many
pools.)
Proper Warm-Up
It’s important to commence physical activity gently and avoid doing any intense
effort without warming up thoroughly. (And the older you are, the longer it takes to warm
up because peripheral blood flow decreases with age.) Gently swinging your arms in small
circles is an excellent way of warming up your shoulder joints. Movement can be
progressively more forceful as the juices start to flow.
Listen to your body. Pain is an important physiological signal that it is time to quit—
to stop doing what is causing the pain. One of the signs of mild tendinitis is pain at the
beginning of the workout that diminishes as the affected area warms up. This stage of
tendinitis is usually easy to treat and resolves itself quickly. If it doesn’t, stop.
It’s ridiculous to place pain ahead of pleasure and aggravate an injury to the extent
that it prevents you from enjoying the sport.
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