i regularly stretch out tired legs after a long ride or run but i largely ignore stretching specifically for swimming.
What stretches do people do pre or post a swim session?
Cheers
You could try this, works very well for him:
Ok, seriously, I do tricep stretches, and shoulder stretches, and I do arm swings for my shoulders.
Are you having issues pre or post? Cramping, soreness, strains?
swimming, in and of itself is a stretching and elongation sport. An adequate warm up and cool down will suffice… FOR MOST. While swimming in HS and for a short time in College we never spent any time stretching but yet we were still a very flexible team as a whole.
Swimmers are good at making their arms spin like a windmill before races. I think this is just for show…
I warm up in the water, stretch anything that’s tight, and go from there. You might think about stretching pectoral muscles, which tend to get tight in freestyle (or just throw some backstroke in your workout)
I’m not experiencing any particular problems at the moment, but there is absolutely no doubt that my swimming can be improved by increasing my flexibility and range of movement in my arms/shoulders/ankles etc etc and i thought there might be a few key stretches i should try to incorporate into my daily regime.
Swimmers are good at making their arms spin like a windmill before races. I think this is just for show…
Especially if you can pull off one arm going forward, one arm going backward at the same time.
I sense all these comments are coming from swimmers and I don’t know many swimmers who aren’t *very *flexible especially in the upper body 
Personally, I just stretch my lats and maybe pecs, but I’ve never seen nor heard of a program in Aus that doesn’t stretch before a session. The higher the level the more they stretch.
If you’re a flexible swimmer / triathlete then I agree with everyone, stretching before a session is definitely not essential, especially if you warm up carefully and stretch out slowly in the water (can you sense the ‘but’ coming) BUT if you’re tight like the OP I think some stretching is a good idea.
Some simple pec/lat/tricep stretching should help your shoulder flexibility which will help your swimming. Stretches are a little hard to describe and unfortunatly I should be working not writing this. If you google “swimming stretches” you should be able to find some good illustrated examples or if you’re super lucky Tigerchik (an expert on stretching) might describe some good upper body stretches.
I think it’s worth reemphasizing eDeRoche’s point about swimming being an elongation sport. Awareness of this can make a big difference. In particular, every warm up be conscious of how tight your muscles are and focus on lengthening everything out as you swim.
Tigerchik: Torres / stretching - I put 2+2 together
I haven’t actually looked at her specific routine yet. That’s saved for this weekend. My background work on it has been the kinesiology of stretching, why it works (it’s all muscle spindles and Golgi tendons and stufF), a little bit of research on PNF stretching - which is what her routine came out of.
So not an expert yet, but by April 9 when I defend my thesis, I should be.
Post swim, I do some ordinary stretching and some specifically for the rotator cuff. One I like: lie on ground, stretch your arm out on the ground at a right angle from your body, bend at the elbow so the forearm is straight up in the air, then rotate the forearm towards the ground, gently apply pressure with your free hand.
I’d recommend using stretching bands!
Here is some info from USA Swimming that I feel is helpful
http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=451&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en
The links on the page are a combination of web articles and pdf files
jaretj
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If you go to the links jaretj put up you will find the summary that has the basics.
In tri swimmers I coach I run across two conflicting things, 1. There is a set of swimmers who learned as adults that do not have the flexibility in abduction or extension to make a good or what some would consider an adequate catch 2. The stretches used by many many swimmers are the fast track to injury - as laid out in the linked article. Shoulder injuries in swimming in my experience are likely to be because your shoulder is too loose in some way rather than too tight. So you need to be careful when stretching that you are doing stretches that will help your stroke but not expose you to injury. For the typical triathlete swimming under 10k a week I don’t even bother, the risk is not worth it in my opinion.