Since I picked up swimming, I have had problems with my left elbow when doing longer sets. It usually starts to hurt after 40 minutes after which I usually swim for a few more minutes and stop. The pain goes away after an hour or so and I can swim the next day.
Pushing through the pain usually causes me to be pretty sore the next day. It only bothers me when swimming.
The pain is on the inside of my elbow about where the funnybone is.
Has anyone had any experience with this type of injury? What worked to fix it.
Hard to diagnose a swim stroke over the web but am also betting that your shoulders (especially the front) sometimes get sore too. It could be that you are pulling too much with your arms and not enough with your back. After your hand entry and right at the catch, you should start to engage your lats and other back muscles more so than your arms. As you ‘set your anchor’ to pull forward, the muscle group employed should be felt in your back … much bigger muscle groups = much better results.
There are uber-swimmers here with better suggestions but would wager the above plays a part in this.
No shoulder pain, even with my permanently separated AC joint on the other side. I feel like I am engaging my back muscles as much as possible (I’m sure I can do more, so thats always a good point).
I have had my stroke looked at by a coach and he said there were a lot of little things I could change, but swimming all arms was not one of them.
Also, I never get the elbow pain in my right arm it is only in my left arm.
I had pain on the bottom of right elbow during 2004 but only when I wore my wetsuit. And then there was that moment of brilliance when I decided to one hand about a 35 lb log by palming it on the end and the left elbow went and that took a cortisone shot to return to normal. Pain on the bottom is often either tennis or golfer’s elbow – can’t remember which one.
Pay attention to how tightly you are gripping the bars when riding, the steering wheel when driving, yada, yada, yada. I may well be wrong, but it might not have that much to do with swimming. Stretch it too. Best.
Hi, I come from a swimming background but only picked it up again this year after a 5-6 year break. i find I can easily cover 2500-3000m with no elbow pain but beyond that get a dull intense pain on my left elbow sometimes. It’s enough that I have to back off the pace and the arm suffers from a “weakness” feeling when it does start twinging. To me it feels like tendonitis of some sort, it’s right on the inside joint of the elbow (or bottom of elbow on the pull-through)…alas I have not got my butt to the physio yet, but as I’m only training for HIMs at this stage I can keep my session below 3000m so the sore elbow is very rarely a problem. I guess I haven’t helped much but replied in sympathy. If you do get to a physio, can you let me know what he says? Good luck with it.
i just went something very similar. i come from a swimming background and was pretty sure it wasn’t my stroke mechanics but didn’t know what was going on. it turns out that i aggravated my ulnar nerve (the nerve that tingles when you hit your funny bone). swimming didn’t cause the problem but it bothered it so i ended up doing alot of kick sets instead for a couple of weeks. i went on a 6-day course of prednisone to reduce the inflammation and had strict instructions to “be smart” so no leaning on my elbows, no elbows on the table, essentially little to no pressure on the elbow in day to day stuff (i could still get in my aerobars as that’s more resting on the forearms). it’s been almost 4 weeks and it’s getting better and better. i feel about 85% back to normal. i’m back swimming but still throw in a few more kick sets than normal. i still can’t do bicep curls at my normal weight because for some reason it affects the lifting muscle too but overall i feel like things are slowly but surely getting back to normal.
First - the fact you are getting it on one side would indicate a bit of an imbalance in your stroke/strength. Which side do you breath on - you may be dropping an arm to much on your breathing side, and depending on the path of your pull, may be putting some stress on the elbow.
Frankly, sometimes I find paddles, which slow my movement down, a good way to diagnose what is going on with my arms.
Lots of individual variables here, hard to diagnose without pics
On occasion I have found that if one uses paddles too much this sort of thing happens. If you are using paddles, the next time, try putting more pressure on your middle finger through the catch phase of the stroke instead of the entire hand. Seems to take a bit of the strain off of the other flexor tendons a their origin on the inside of your elbow near the cubital tunnel (where the ulnar nerve travels).
Another thing you can try is to use your own fingers to perform cross fiber friction massage for a few minutes on the are just distal (away from) the origin of the flexor tendons to get rid of any adhesions that have formed. Ice after for 20min. let us know how it turns out.
Good luck with it.