My knees have really been bothering me. I figured it was from starting up running after over a decade off. So I stopped after a few runs. It didn’t get better. I figured working around the house was it. A week after stopping that, worse still. After getting out of the pool tonight I realized it’s my swimming that’s doing it!!! It’s an annoying pain below the knee cap, feels like what you’d expect from mild hyperextension.
I’m not a violent kicker, and try to kick long, and from the hip. I don’t get it.
My guess is that you are pushing off the wall hard and slightly hyperextending you knees. I sometimes get pain when I am really pushing off hard. Take it easy off the walls and see if it helps. If you don’t like the loss of streamline add in a couple of dolphin kicks.
Off topic, but on the subject of lame injuries, I used to work with a martial artist / triathlete - he came in to work one day companing of a shoulder tear - “How d’ya do it?” I ask - “Flexing my muscles in the mirror…”
Mind you, this is the same guy who said he wanted to be more flexible so he was changing his diet - “What are you eating then?” - “Loads of jelly…”
I was sitting “indian style” playing with my son. I tried to get up but my right ankle was totally locked up and it was extremely painful to try to move it. I had an x-ray done and there was a bone chip (from an old injury) that had become lodged in the wrong place. I had to do some very painful exercises in an effort to get the fragment to return to the “donor site” (funny medical term, sounds like it was a philathropic gesture) which it eventually did. Very painful event. I couldn’t walk for 3 days.
You know you are getting old when you can inflict an incapacitating injury on yourself while seated.
my knees are so bad that if i sit in the backseat of a small car, and can’t stretch them out, i can be incapacitated for days. the right one more so, it just went once after two hours in the back of a corolla a few years back - and my range of motion was halved for at least two weeks. (note - i have a 37 inch inseam, so it’s hard to fit them anywhere)
and i’m young! i don’t want to see my joints in the future. i get so many overuse injuries.
While getting outta the pool, I tried to pop out and place my foot on the desk to stand up. Well, the foot slipped off the deck, shin hit the deck, body weight followed. I tried to play it off but looked down and my shin was busted wide open. 3 hours at the ER, and 15 stitches later…i was on my way home.
oh so lame I now get outta of the pool more conservatively.
It could have been worse. In 2001, Lindsay Benko managed to break her kneecap while jumping into the pool. She ended up having to miss the World Championships where she was a favorite to get hardware in a couple of events.
Hijackers!!! This is supposed to me about me! About me, dammit!
Could indeed be from pushing off, as sometimes I launch pretty hard. Hadn’t thought of that. My knees are both pretty tender today after last night’s swim. I’ve been worrying that it’s from kicking, which would make me the world’s biggest wuss.
I was once told by an orthopedic surgeon that he has had to do knee surgery a number of times on youth swimmers . These were highly competitive athletes doing very high volume training. I assumed they were breast strokers, but didn’t get the details. But, in any case, knee injuries are not unheard of in swimming. It is also possible you irritated your knee doing something else, then swimming is the straw that breaks the camels back.
My son spent 11 hours last week in a cold pool filming some scenes for a tv show. The premise was that the star of the show wins but cranks his head off the end of the pool and splits it open. They would shoot it again and again in order to let the star win by just the right amount, then they’ed put the dye in the water, stop to let it disapate and do it again. he slept with an extra blanket that night and had a cold for the meet on the weekend.
I now get outta of the pool more conservatively.