Swimming injury prevention

Swimming injury prevention

Introduction

Whether you are a casual or professional swimmer, it is very important that you keep yourself healthy. Just like any other sports, swimming needs a lot of strength and endurance so your body has to stay in good shape for it to perform the way you would like. Swimming injury prevention is vital to keep you in the water and have no pain. This article is about how you can prevent such injuries.

The most Common Swimming Injuries.

Swimming is a good way of exercising and it enables people improve their cardio fitness, endurance and strength. However, swimming also has a risk of injury and the most common injuries include:

  • Back pain-this is a common condition with swimmers and many swimmers do experience this at some point. Lower back pain could be caused by so many factors including failure to rotate with the swimming technique, or if your muscles are weak therefore you overuse your lower back. In turn, this will result into pain in the muscles surrounding this area.
  • Neck injuries-swimming can bring about a lot of straining in the neck area and this is because of the effort used to keep the head above the water especially in swimming styles such as breaststroke. Another reason could be because a person tries to rotate their neck in order to breathe during freestyle stroke.
  • Swimmer’s shoulder-the arm usually moves a lot in all swimming techniques and this can cause a lot of straining on the arm and the shoulder muscles. If not regulated, these motions can bring about tissue damage and almost everyone who swims on a regular basis will experience shoulder pain. Swimmer’s shoulder is one of the most common swimming injuries and in most cases freestyle stroke is the most common cause. Swimmer’s shoulder can be used to describe the injuries that result from a repetitive movement while swimming and some include rotator cuff impingement, rotator cuff tears, bursitis, and bicep tendonitis.
  • Breaststroke swimmer’s knee-breaststroke is known to be a very comfortable and relaxed swimming style but in competitive waters, it can be physically demanding. Since feet are usually facing out, there might be an impact on the knee ligaments. This could result into knee pain, swelling, and inflammation. Again, this can be caused by poor swimming techniques.

Swimming Injury Prevention

Here are the top best tips that will help you prevent any injuries associated with swimming. It doesn’t matter whether you are a habitual or professional swimmer.

  1. Exercises

Exercising is known to relax muscles and to make a person stay in good shape at all times. There are various ways you can exercise and minimise the risk of you getting injured while swimming and these include stretching your muscles-since they tend to get tight during swimming, you should stretch them before swimming especially stretching them against a wall. During stretching you should also target areas such as wing muscles, rotator cuff muscles and knee muscles. You can also massage these muscles from time to time.

  1. Use the right swimming techniques

You should always keep the head aligned with the spine while swimming. Again, when breathing you should avoid twisting your neck but instead rotate the entire body.

  1. Check-ups and massage

You should go for regular screening to check how fit various parts of your body are and once in a while you should get massages from a professional.

For injuries related to swimming, Call 9144-1510 now to schedule an appointment with one of our physiotherapists.