If you live in an area with hot weather, then swimming is an excellent, fun, low-impact fitness activity to take part in. Sometimes recreational swimming can lead to a swimmer becoming so good they want to become competitive.
Of course, training and daily practice can put the joints through some vigorous motions, some of which can be very repetitive. In fact, most swimming injuries affect the back, shoulders and knees. Did you know that top competitive swimmers can swim as much as 9 miles every day to practice. That amounts to roughly 2,500 shoulder revolutions – massive strain on the shoulders. Breaststroke swimmers, on the other hand, are more prone to knee and hip injuries, as well as back problems.
Too much swimming without allowing time for recovery from a previous swim workout can bring on swimming injuries.
What else causes these injuries with swimming?
- Poor breathing techniques.
- Over-training with not enough rest periods.
- Poor stroke mechanics.
- Poor range of motions.
- Poor core strength.
Don’t put Yourself Out of Action
You want to do what you can to avoid swimming injuries because, with a rehabilitation programme for ‘swimming shoulder’ for instance, immobilization for up to 6 weeks is required to allow the shoulder to heal. This can be followed by a strengthening programme in physical therapy.
Some of the common swimming injuries include among others –
- Shoulder and neck injuries with inflammation.
- Rotator cuff tendonitis or tears.
- Knee injuries.
- Low back pain.
- Bicep Tendonitis.
There are many swimmers who aren’t aware that swimming with poor stroke mechanics can cause this overusage, and that exercises that improve muscular and cardiovascular endurance can result in improved stroke mechanics.
If you’re a huge leisure swimmer addict or you’re a competitive swimmer, you should be looking at injury management. If you have been injured, you want to find ways to prevent the issue from reoccurring. Some excellent treatments include rest, ice, manipulations, massage core strengthening, TENS machine, massage and of course, adopting good stroke techniques.
Always Warm Up First
Another good way to prevent injuries is to warm up before swimming and to also take part in strengthening and conditioning programs. It goes without saying that strength training not only improves your swimming, but outside the pool you enjoy better posture too, making you look and feel more confident.
Swimming is an awesome activity ad a superbly competitive sport, too. Being aware of overusage or repetitive trauma injuries, and how to prevent and treat swimming injuries are important simply because an injury and its treatment can put you out of your leisure activity ad your competition.
Practice Using All Strokes
Risk of overuse injuries can be reduced by varying the way in which you train. Instead of sticking rigidly to backstroke for instance when you train, it is better to mix your swimming practice and bring in breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and crawl so that you’re using different muscles instead of sticking to just one all the time.
