Yesterday, I developed severe shoulder pain in my left shoulder just from reaching my left arm up. I am pretty sure it’s a shoulder impingement. Shoulder pain takes months to heal, and if I return to swimming again and the injury comes back, I will be spending more time recovering from injuries rather than training. So how am I supposed to avoid shoulder injuries?
Strengthen your rotator cuff muscles. Takes 15 minutes a few days a week.
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What exercises should I do? How long does it take to heal before I can swim again?
I’ve dealt with shoulder impingement stuff on and off if I increase my swimming too much/too fast. I think I took a week or two off of swimming then continued to swim while doing the rehab. I noticed a pretty quick improvement because as soon as you start building that strength, it pulls your shoulder back and stops the impingement pain.
It might be worth confirming with a physio that this is actually what you need to do but it doesn’t hurt to start here and give it a shot.
I can’t find videos of my specific exercises but if you Google rotator cuff strengthening they are all variations of the same two or three movements. You can do them with a light dumb bell, an exercise band, a cable machine etc.
I posted this on the Swimtember fish thread about a week afo. Hope this helps!
“Been doing scapular and rotator cuff rehab 15 minutes/day for 2 weeks and all shoulder pain gone and it’s unlocked something in upper back as my free stroke feels better than it has in a few months”
I’ll do in 2 posts as not good at the cut/paste editing function
Here’s the routine:
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External rotation exercise with Theraband (stretch rubber band) Hold at waist level about shoulder width with both hands arms bent 90 degrees at elbow. Spread hands out to the side. 3x1:30 with 30 second rest.
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Standing with arms at side, lift both arms until wrists about:top of head level. Keep arms straight, like doing half a jumping jack motion. 3x1:30 with 30 seconds rest
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Hold arm out straight in front of you at shoulder level with tennis ball in hand. Press hand against wall and twist tennis ball. 3x1:30 with 30 seconds rest for each arm ,
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Swimming with a squad that does pre-pool exercises has been good for me. I take cords and do shoulder activations - not getting any shoulderblade pain now which has been an intermittent problem in the past.
Random ranger - do these exercises. They take 5-10 minutes each time you swim and you avoid all the drama.
Some people have shoulders of steel, but most normal swimmers have shoulder drama.
i always do them before i get in even if i just swim by myself for 1km on a sick day,
i do exercise 1 from PP’s list.
I get a band, I fold it in half or quarters till its taught. I hold the band with my offhand on my hip and do 200 on each arm. Like the below:
Then I do a lap or two of just loosening, stretching the arms in the water, I cant do freestyle properly when I get in unless its like middle of the day
Dead hangs from pullup bar with wrist straps, increases spacing in joint if done consistently over time. Was the cure for my impingement.
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Awesome!
Although I have never suffered from it, my wife suffered from “frozen shoulder” in each shoulder (at different times). Her job involved lifting things overhead on occasion and that mimicked swimming movements. So be sure that isn’t the problem. They appear similar. If you have always been a swimmer it’s unlikely, but if you are an adult learner……
Are these safe to do everyday?
Yeah, I’m an adult learner sadly. Never got the opportunity to swim competitively in my youth
I have no legitimate advice as I have been a life long swimmer. When I asked AI what was the single exercise that gave me (note that’s me) the biggest bang for the buck it suggested pull ups with hands facing for freestyle (hand outward for breaststrokers). I do assisted pullups at my gym and a bit of just hanging. But I stress, I’m a lifelong swimmer and I’m too lazy to actually get in the water.
Good luck.
I just wish I grew up swimming so I had the body strength to not get injured.
I was thinking about this the other day and I wondered a few things. Without hanging from anything, can you stretch your arms straight up so they touch along the length of your ears and your head above your ears? What width can you hold a towel in both hands above your head and rotate backwards until the towel touches behind you?
It’s my belief that one of the reasons a “late learner” gets injured is because they cannot rotate properly through the stroke. So they battle in both the stroke and recovery. Strength does affect speed, but without the flexibility its’ wasted. I have seen Olympic level swimmers who can’t do a pull up. But their flexibility and stroke mechanics are far superior.
Our favourite Tri guy Lionel Sanders has all the muscle in the world but his stroke is ruined by that lack of flexibility. Then go look at Alex Yee who doesn’t appear to have a muscle in his body. But he can outswim Lionel with ease. Back off the muscle building and simply go stretch. Do no strength exercises until you can stretch and rotate freely.
Once again I would warn you I am utterly ignorant of your condition and have never suffered any of the symptoms you have. But I do take some care to remain flexible because at my age I have no muscle 
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ps Lionel, lousy as he is, is still ten minutes faster than me. But then he’s a bit younger.
Yes, I can fully extend my arm up now. I just hope the exercises are enough to prevent future injury
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Lionel and Sam aren’t BAD swimmers unless you look at them through elite tri performance and above levels.
They utterly destroy the age-group field in their swim times for the half iron races they do, even if they come in the back third of the pro field swim.
It’s also time to stop thinking there are no good swimmers in the top age-group fields, too. Justin Riele was a top AG tri swimmer, and he’s front of pack for pro triathlon, it wasn’t like he moved up to the pro ranks and then was suddenly only a MOP pro swimmer. Same with Jenna something who swam with college and has a cool youtube channel - she was a collegiate D1 swimmer who spent a few years go go pro as a female, but she was #2 out of the water at Nice against almost all the top world female pros (minus Lucy), and literally right behind the female swim leader, I believe. She was also a near-top age-group tri swimmer but actually wasn’t winning every single swim split as a top AGer either in the races she did.
I was only using Lionel as an example of someone with lots of muscle, wasted, to some extent, on bad technique. He is saved by having a massive aerobic engine. Also because he’s had ten years or more in the pro ranks, knowing what he lacked, to get better and has never managed because ( I believe) he lacks the patience to take the time to change. And lastly because he’s a favourite target on here for the experts, few, if any that could actually do better.
But is it bad technique? I think people are too eager to pin his swim deficit on technique when it’s more likely his swim muscular endurance and explosiveness isn’t elite. He’s been hammering technique for years with legit coaches and high priority yet middle school talented girls need no crazy training to beat him in the swim.
The new crop of triathletes were picked specifically because they were near national class swimmers. Kristian, solveig both tried to make the Olympic team but had to go to tri as they couldn’t Make the cut. Most of Brett Sutton athletes have strong swim background including his newest female star. You can’t train this type of talent just like you can’t train Lionel’s bike legs.
Lionel would have fixed any major speed killing form long time ago. He has deficits yes but they aren’t the reason the new front pack is killing him, they’re just darn talented at swimming AND bike and running.
More evidence it’s NOT just Lionel’s technique failures and unwillingness to fix them: almost the same problematic deficits with Sam long and Ari both of whom also had no special swim selection prior to going to tri. Same with Trevor foley. It’s not that all 4 are slacking off on swim training. They are all busting tail on it Ari doing over 30k per week but same result.