Shoulder pain uni-lateral

In November I tried to change my shoulder position to improve my catch and dropped elbow (really trying to get my arm up touching my cheek rather than my shoulder dropping and there being a gap).

Almost immediately I injured my left shoulder.

I have rested it and not swum for 2 months. Shoulder pain disappeared. Went for a swim yesterday, didn’t try and force my arms into any uncomfortable positions. As soon as I got out of the water my left shoulder complex was painful. Still a deep ache this morning. I have no loss of Range of Motion. The pain is a deep ache rather than a sharp pain.

I am a sufferer of health anxiety, so find it hard to make a call on how serious something is. Should I go to the Dr about this or just ignore it and battle on?

First thing first, for sure see a doctor. Shoulder pain indicates a problem but if it’s swim-related it could be so many things, the forum guessing game won’t be helpful.

Second, not to get too technical, but you should be relaxed through the shoulders in freestyle. Arm straight out in front of shoulder, hand at or lower than shoulder height. This should be a relatively stress free position, avoiding shoulder impingement, and also a position of strength to begin a high catch pull. Bicep up against your cheek isn’t something to try for, if it happens it happens, but it isn’t necessarily a good thing.

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Every few months i end up with a sore shoulder or two, with symptoms very similar to you. The advice I’ve been given, and has been very useful for me is 1. Work very hard to improve the flexibility of your upper back. This helps your shoulders move without impingement. And 2. I do an absolute mountain of shoulder strength work with elastics focusing on all the types of external rotation. There’s a super old video from at effortless swimming that’s a great start. While I’m doing those two things religiously my shoulders are fine. When i slack off it comes back. Rest for a week, hammer the above and they’re OK again. Maybe that will work for you too - good luck!

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I went to the Drs and the Physio, both were utterly unhelpful. TBH knew less than I already figured out for myself.

Having studied sports injuries 15 years ago, I’m fairly sure I’ve injured/irritated the subscapularis tendon from internal rotation during catch/pull.

Strengthening exercises are easy to find. But I’m struggling to find swim technique advice to prevent it from re-occuring. I never had shoulder pain in the past until I really tried to force a high elbow catch.

Most doctors and physios will not be able to help and will treat the symptoms not the cause i.e they will say your rotator cuff is inflamed, it needs rest, cortisone, strengthening exercises etc . Strengthening the shoulder will do nothing as the issue is probably technique.

An issue with your stroke is overloading the shoulder joint and as they can’t see that without video or watching you swim they’ll never get to the root cause of the problem.

I’ll see if I can dig up some videos, but basically what happens with a lot of swimmers who have “swimmers shoulder” is that their arm enters the water and instead of internally rotating the shoulder joint prior to the catch phase of the catch and pull they allow their arm to drop in the water. This puts a massive amount of pressure on the shoulder joint. As they push down on the water, the shoulder joint takes the strain.

You can replicate this on land. Stand in front of a desk, arm extended, palm on the desk, push down. You will feel it in the shoulder. Do this hundreds of times in the water and the joint becomes inflamed.

Developing a good catch and pull is hard as you have to change the way you swim. There are some great videos out there e.g effortless swimming. The first thing you need to do is rotate your shoulder inwards. Try extending your arm and then try bending at the elbow so forearm is at right angles. You can’t. Now rotate your shoulder joint inwards,so the elbow is almost pointing to the side or upwards. You can now bend your elbow. And with your elbow and arm at that angle you will use your lats to pull and your shoulder will not be overloaded.

Practise on land. It is hard to swim like that as it feels unnatural and probably slower at first which is why most people can’t change the way they swim.

Thanks. Interesting, because I think I was increasing internal rotation and that that has caused the problem.

I’m wondering if I need to increase my body rotation, messing about on dry land, more rotation seems to reduce the pain of the catch/pull movement.

I’m going to suggest something slightly different. I wonder if your catch is not initiating down the center line. If you put your arms out in front of you at entry width, which should be about shoulder-width, rotate your right palm clockwise so the pinky is slightly below the thumb. You should be able to start a high elbow catch from that position where your palm would trace a straight line down the center or just right of center of your body. There is almost no shoulder rotation. I usually find that rotating shoulder inwards (rt. shoulder counterclock) stresses the joint and leads to a less effective catch and pull wide of the center line. I may be misunderstanding zed.

More advanced, stand up and down as if you were lying in the water, hands over head at shoulder width and do the same palm rotating and simulate a catch and pull.

I’m sure without video that can be hard to visualize, write back if you need more. If you’re doing it right zed’s way or this way, you will get that feel of pulling with your lats as zed said.

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Thanks, I’ll try this.

If you stand up, extend your arm, palm down, your elbow is pointing down. At this angle it is impossible for the forearm to move at right angles to the upper arm, the shoulder has to rotate inwards, as it does that, the elbow points up and now the forearm can move like a hinge.

“Interesting, because I think I was increasing internal rotation and that that has caused the problem”

It’s hard to know without looking at video, body rotation is important. It could be the shoulders were a bit inflamed from swimming with a dropped elbow and then swimming with a high elbow catch and rotating the shoulder was the final straw.

i think this sums it up pretty well.

i do my shoulder exercises with the band every day i swim (200 on each arm) and now am doing some flexi work each evening or through out the day (whether i swim or no).

the flex work is a combination of foam roller or using a tennis ball in the sensitive spots on the back of the shoulder up against a wall, pushing up againt the wall as much as my pain threshold on the day allows.

this has considerably improved my flexibility by taking out the knots and tightness.

underlying all this is also technique. some techniques contribute to shoulder issues.

before i did tennis ball exercies on the wall, i could not usually swim freestyle on the first laps i entered the water. too tight (only backstroke). now i can.

i also do anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes on each shoulder with the tennis ball at the pool before swimming. helps a lot to warm up for me.