The last several swim workouts my left elbow has been bugging me. It feels a touch bit sore on my pull. I have been swimming very consistently for the past 6 months three times a week. I don’t put in huge distance (max 2000 per workout, min 1600) as I’m only doing sprints this year. In the past 5 years of tri training I’ve never had a problem like this. I haven’t changed my stroke at all or been working on anything ‘different’ in the last month or so.
Any ideas?
more info needed. where on your elbow does it hurt? do other activities make it hurt??
More info: It’s still a bit sore today after my swim this morning. Other things don’t seem to bother it…but I haven’t been doing much of anything else except work (mostly office this past month) and workout (swim, bike, run of course). Hurt is a bit strong of a word…dull ache might be a better way to put it. Ache seems to be in my elbow joint itself. No radiating pain, or anything like that. Ache seems to be local to my joint and most noticeable after my entry on the first part of my pull in the water.
medial (side close to your body) or lateral (side away from your body)?
Lateral side.
pain on latral side is usually tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis), especially if its sore to the touch on the prominent bone, i’m a little surprised as “pulling” ususally leads to medial pain since it uses your wrist flexors and tennis elbow is an pain from the tendons that extend your wrist and fingers. But swimmers can get either one. treatment : ice/rest/anti-inflammatories and a wrist splint to keep you from using those muscles also is very effective
I have a swim tomorrow morning, so I will pay a bit closer attention to where it hurts and report back. Thanks for the info!!
I have developed this over the past few months as well, but I believe it was from trying to keep my elbows up at the ‘catch’ phase of the stroke. I spent alot of time practicing my catch with paddles as well. I have since given up the paddles, but the pain had only decreased a small amount. The one thing that helped was having a massage therapist do some deep tissue work on my forearms, especially around the elbow.
The really depressing part is that I now have a high elbow catch (in addition to achy elbows), but my swim splits are not any faster!
good luck.