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shoulder tendonitis
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I have sore shoulders, and have been doing physio for about 5 months. I saw a sports med MD today, and received a provisional diagnosis of rotator cuff tendonitis in both shoulders and possible bursitis. Xrays and ultrasound are being scheduled. I was given a new stretching and strengthening program to start, in addition to the physio I have been doing.

Assuming the diagnosis is correct, what does my recovery look like? I haven't been able to swim since October, so it is looking like duathlons this year.
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [sonofdad] [ In reply to ]
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sonofdad wrote:
I have sore shoulders, and have been doing physio for about 5 months. I saw a sports med MD today, and received a provisional diagnosis of rotator cuff tendonitis in both shoulders and possible bursitis. Xrays and ultrasound are being scheduled. I was given a new stretching and strengthening program to start, in addition to the physio I have been doing.

Assuming the diagnosis is correct, what does my recovery look like? I haven't been able to swim since October, so it is looking like duathlons this year.

Before I reply in full, I'm assuming the rotator cuff tendinitis is caused by swimming?
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
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Likely aggravated by swimming, as that is what certainly bothers it the most. I do have a history of what I am told were "shoulder avulsions" from my rugby days. I swam from January to September of last year without any issues, back in the pool in October, and it was a no-go. Hurts to ride in aero as well, but not as much.
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [sonofdad] [ In reply to ]
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sonofdad wrote:
Likely aggravated by swimming, as that is what certainly bothers it the most. I do have a history of what I am told were "shoulder avulsions" from my rugby days. I swam from January to September of last year without any issues, back in the pool in October, and it was a no-go. Hurts to ride in aero as well, but not as much.


Yeah I've got 30 seasons of union and league under my belt and have had 2 ops on my shoulder. But I've swam since I was a kid with no swimming related issues. My swimmers shoulder/rotator cuff tendinitis came after I did a 10km OWS. And I ended up with it in both shoulders for about 2 years. Very frustrating. All I can do is pass on my experiences and thoughts, so don't take this as medical advice!

It started with my left shoulder, I rested it for 2 months and that didn't help, went to a few physios, all very good, but they identified certain muscles as being too tight and gave me the appropriate stretches. I stretched the shit out of both shoulders, used the resistance bands, massage, anti-inflammatories, lots of ice packs, nothing worked.

I then went to see a Sports Doc, got a cortisone and the pain was gone. A few months later I got it in my other shoulder, another cortisone, this wasn't as effective, but it went away for a while, then came back with a vengeance. So I got another injection and this one did nothing.

Back to the drawing board. I started reading up about the injury. I tried to figure out what made it worse when I swam and gradually figured out that it was an issue with my stroke. It seems obvious now, but at the time I was accepting the physio/dr's advice that tight muscles were the culprit. Granted I am pretty tight, but I could have stretched all I liked, if my technique was not quite right, then my shoulder was always going to be over-loaded. And the issue was I didn't have a high elbow, I wasn't internally rotating my shoulder joint and my rotator cuff was getting hammered. As soon as I started rotating it and swimming with a higher elbow I could feel less load on the joint. There was still pain as it was so inflamed, but gradually the pain lessened as I swam with correct technique. Check out the video below.


I think with me, the issue I had with the medical staff is that they weren't looking at the primary cause, poor technique. As long as that rotator cuff was being over-loaded I was going to have problems. I needed someone to join the dots. What I would suggest is carry on swimming, work on your high elbow and modify your swim sets. I was able to swim with a crap shoulder by doing some or all of the following:

- sticking to 25s,50s, then 100s later on
- no paddles
- snorkel as breathing made it worse
- using buoyancy shorts and PB, the extra flotation reduce the load on the shoulder
- mixing up my breathing pattern
- swimming with fingers spread, again reducing the load on the shoulder
- swimming different strokes, pain was much less with back and fly
- kicking

I was doing some odd sets, but found I didn't lose much swim fitness over 4 months, despite the longest I swam was 100m at a time. Also note, if you're not a great kicker, kick lots with a kick pad and your swimming will improve lots. I got my 100m kick down to 1.45.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1OY_yQBiXM
Last edited by: zedzded: Feb 25, 20 21:33
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [sonofdad] [ In reply to ]
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sonofdad wrote:
I have sore shoulders, and have been doing physio for about 5 months. I saw a sports med MD today, and received a provisional diagnosis of rotator cuff tendonitis in both shoulders and possible bursitis. Xrays and ultrasound are being scheduled. I was given a new stretching and strengthening program to start, in addition to the physio I have been doing.

Assuming the diagnosis is correct, what does my recovery look like? I haven't been able to swim since October, so it is looking like duathlons this year.

5 months of physio and you still can't swim! Has the physio mentioned what he thinks is causing it?
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
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Sports MD said "swimmers shoulder. Strengthening and stretching exercises. No aggravating exercises. Re-evaluate in 4-6 weeks. He has a impressive resume.

New physio is saying tight muscles in shoulder and neck (she is certainly not wrong about the neck on my right) and is doing IMS, as well as strengthening.

Like most, I have been working on my high elbow in swimming. Unfortunately, early vertical forearm is the move that bothers my shoulder the most.
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [sonofdad] [ In reply to ]
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sonofdad wrote:
Sports MD said "swimmers shoulder. Strengthening and stretching exercises. No aggravating exercises. Re-evaluate in 4-6 weeks. He has a impressive resume.

New physio is saying tight muscles in shoulder and neck (she is certainly not wrong about the neck on my right) and is doing IMS, as well as strengthening.

Like most, I have been working on my high elbow in swimming. Unfortunately, early vertical forearm is the move that bothers my shoulder the most.

What standard of swimmer are you? I ask, because I haven't seen many swimmers that are slower than 1.35/100m that don't have some flaws with their technique and if you do then you need to look at fixing that if you want to fix your swimmers shoulder. As I said I'm just talking from my experience, your MD and Physio are not looking at the overall picture, they are looking at your body, seeing tight, inflexible muscles and thinking that is the root cause of the problem. They are not looking at what you are doing - i.e your swimming form. This needs to be considered, even if it's not the major contribution to the injury, in my case it was.
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Re: shoulder tendonitis [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
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I'm not a fast swimmer, and I certainly have stroke flaws. I will keep this in mind as my recovery progresses. Thanks.
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