Ice and ibuprofen in the short term.

You might try specific rotator cuff exercises, but they never worked for me.

You might (probably?) have some stroke issues. The usual culprit is starting the stroke with an out sweep, but there could be other things going on.

For me, when I came back to swimming as a masters swimmer, I changed my stroke to stop doing that outsweep thing that we were taught as kids. My shoulder issues went away after that.

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May not be rotator cuff. Could be coming from biceps, pecs, or lats.

Whenever I get shoulder pain swimming it seems to be due to one of two problems:

1) dropping the elbow too much- so I work on quickening up the catch a bit

2) because there is tightness in an opposing muscle. I.e if front of shoulder hurts, I stretch the traps/lats in the back. If the pain seems to be coming from the lats, I stretch the pecs. Sometimes right sided pain comes from stiffness on the left side so I make sure to stretch that area. So you need to figure out where it is coming from. I have found that stretching what hurts feels better initially but doesn't make the problem go away- I need to stretch what doesn't hurt to take the pressure off whatever is being overstressed.

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i have had issues with shoulder pain keeping me up at night as well. Mine was actually biceps tendinitis and not my rotator cuff. I did some rehab exercises aimed at that for a few weeks and it helped. I find that a lot of it was related to my hand entry. I was tending to have a thumb first hand entry. When I really focus on thinking about entering with my hand flat / middle finger first I have almost no issues.

I would recommend either seeing and ortho or PT to figure out exactly where your pain is coming from so you can do appropriate exercises etc. Then try to figure out if there is something in tie stroke you can alter to avoid exacerbating it.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
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Paul ^^

Been watching the vlog...

Like Jason I come to this as a swimmer. I do some gym work for strength and prevention. The underlying cause of your pain may be due to other reasons as posted above. My hunch is its some technical flaw and/or strength imbalance leading to inflamation.



I swim 12 to 15k with a "big" week of 18 or so now and again. My big weeks used to be 80 to 100k. My shoulder feels like it wants to dislocate if I over do things so I back off

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___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

Thank you that's really interesting and helpful, really appreciate the advice

Hi

Thanks that's interesting, the pain is coming from the shoulder going down the arm. I am pretty much sure it's called swimmers shoulder but will get it checked just in case it's not the rotator

Many thanks
Paul

Do you work in an office? Do you have poor flexibility especially in the shoulders? This is a good test, if you don't get anywhere close to touching hands, then, like me, you have poor flexibility and this will contribute to your rotator cuff pain.

I haven't been able to do that in years.

You don't need exceptional flexibility to swim pain-free.

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I would suggest easing back on the amount of freestyle you're doing. Do lots of kicking, especially if you're a poor kicker, this will not only save your shoulders, but will improve your swimming. I found any sets that had lots of 400s+ would exacerbate my shoulder problems, so if I did 5 x 400, it would flare up in the last 2 400s. I can get away with still doing a 4km set, but I make sure there is at least 1km of kicking and lots of 25s, 50s.Not ideal, but I can swim relatively pain free. You will need to start a stretching/strengthening program as well I guess, plus address any technical flaws. If you're getting it on your none breathing side, try breathing bilaterally, also try swimming with a snorkel.

Ah OK. So you think, most likely poor technique rather than poor flexibility is the culprit.

Thank you for the advice thats really helpful

Thank you for this

Thank you so much for the advice, really interesting and will implement it into what I do

yup.

as long as flexibility is adequate, then poor shoulder stability and technique will be the primary things which exacerbate shoulder pain.

Well, volume can do it too even with reasonably good technique, but that's probably not the cause for any of us.

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Can you provide a link to this out sweep thing you mentioned?

Cheers,
G

I once read that dipping your thumbs below parallel on your pull stroke causes too much strain on your shoulder over time. Having this mental image keeps me from twisting my shoulder twist during my swim stroke.

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What I do: http://app.strava.com/athletes/345699

If you enter the water with your thumb down you rotate your shoulder internally which irritates the rotator cuff. I think the outsweep does the same thing. Enter with fingers pointing toward far end of the pool. As you pull think of your palm pointing at the bottom of pool and transitioning to pointing backwards as you catch and pull through. Second thing is strengthen external rotators to balance strength in shoulder. Swimmers have strong internal rotators but relatively weak external rotators.

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I think it's more that entering thumb down encourages that outsweep, which puts more stress on the small muscles of the rotator cuff. Entering with a flat palm combined with good core rotation uses the big muscles in your chest and lats to a greater degree

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Off topic, but what would it mean if I can get my left arm behind the back fully, but cannot do it with my dominant right arm besides obvious flexibility difference?

I had shoulder surgery in December (30% tear of supra spinatus tendon; torn labrum; debrided my collar bone and a type II spur). Got in the pool for the first time on 3/22 (drills only). Couldn't do crawl stroke. Only part that hurt was the recovery. No issues with the pull. I am NOT a swimmer (36:xx lake and 29:xx current-assisted HIM swims).

Talked to my PT and he gave me an exercise to add (to the others I've been doing). I swam 200yds the next time out......and a mile (continuous), yesterday. (this is the exercise with the dumbbell, explained below)

My (daily) PT is: band exercises, UBE (upper body ergometer), pulley stretches (on door) and a rotator cuff exercise where I lie in the floor with elbows @ shoulder height. I use a 3# dumbbell and rotate my arms to the floor in both directions, maintaining 90 deg. angle.

If I were you (OP), I'd see a PT.

Thank you so much for this and hope the recovery is going well

SWoo wrote:

Off topic, but what would it mean if I can get my left arm behind the back fully, but cannot do it with my dominant right arm besides obvious flexibility difference?

Not sure really, ignore that post. As Jason said, that level of flexibility isn't important. It's a pretty difficult injury to nail down. I've had a few different opinions and I never really go to the bottom of what caused it. It's better now, not 100%, but close. My technique has changed and I think that has helped. I don't know what part of the stroke was causing it to be stressed. I used to have a thumb entry with both hands, fixed that, but the injury didn't go away. Paddles definitely made it worse and therefore swimming with fingers apart alleviated the pain, less pressure. A lot of the stretches didn't seem to help a whole lot, especially the rotator cuff band exercises I was given. If anything they seemed to make it worse.

https://www.physioadvisor.com.au/wp-content/uploads/13846256300x300.jpg

I do a bit of light stretching now, but no band work. Swimming with a high elbow and really engaging the lats seems to greatly reduce the load on the shoulders. Although when you get to the point they are quite sore, I don't think there is anything you can do that will eliminate the pain i.e you can swim with perfect technique and the pain will still be present, which can be confusing because you then start thinking that you're still not doing it right, which was the case with me. Now my technique is much better, the pain only really returns when I'm tired and my technique gets sloppy and that's only really at the end of a hard 5km+ session. It's a tricky, tricky injury though and reading about it on the net will send you lala.

Any posters of this thread diagnosed with acromial spurs?