Sore Shoulders

If there is a professional, semi-pro, college, or even junior college athletic program in your area, call up the athletic trainer and ask who he/she recommends for sports medicine physical therapy. If you can find a top level SWIM program, the recommendation from a trainer here would be particularly applicable to your situation. Odds are high you can overcome your injury with the right tailored program of exercises, but you will need someone skilled to show you specifically which exercises you need. For what it's worth, one of the top shoulder doctors in the world thinks that "impingement" is something of a myth. His view is that most shoulder problems seen in overuse situations, like in swimming, stem from an overly stretched and thus loverly lax ligamentous capsule (the sheathe that keeps your humeral head attached in its socket); the warble and woof caused by this laxity, in turn, causes chafing of the tissues with resultant imflammation. Impingement--which is chafing against one of the bony arches in your shoulder--is not a primary problem but rather a secondary consequence of this capsular laxity. Fix the laxity and the "impingement" goes away. (Surgeons would rather carve away part of the bony arch and leave the shoulder capsule loose--which, in my mind, is a backwards solution at best.) Exercises to strengthen the rotator cuffs can stabilize the joint, reduce the warble, stem the inflammation, and make you feel better. One more note: contrary to popular belief, stretching can sometimes make things worse, since the root cause is often too much looseness to begin with. Strengthening counterbalancing muscles -- which more or less tightens your shoulder up a bit -- will likely help more. But you need an expert to tell you how to do this strengthening.

If there is a professional, semi-pro, college, or even junior college athletic program in your area, call up the athletic trainer and ask who he/she recommends for sports medicine physical therapy. If you can find a top level SWIM program, the recommendation from a trainer here would be particularly applicable to your situation. Odds are high you can overcome your injury with the right tailored program of exercises, but you will need someone skilled to show you specifically which exercises you need. For what it's worth, one of the top shoulder doctors in the world thinks that "impingement" is something of a myth. His view is that most shoulder problems seen in overuse situations, like in swimming, stem from an overly stretched and thus loverly lax ligamentous capsule (the sheathe that keeps your humeral head attached in its socket); the warble and woof caused by this laxity, in turn, causes chafing of the tissues with resultant imflammation. Impingement--which is chafing against one of the bony arches in your shoulder--is not a primary problem but rather a secondary consequence of this capsular laxity. Fix the laxity and the "impingement" goes away. (Surgeons would rather carve away part of the bony arch and leave the shoulder capsule loose--which, in my mind, is a backwards solution at best.) Exercises to strengthen the rotator cuffs can stabilize the joint, reduce the warble, stem the inflammation, and make you feel better. One more note: contrary to popular belief, stretching can sometimes make things worse, since the root cause is often too much looseness to begin with. Strengthening counterbalancing muscles -- which more or less tightens your shoulder up a bit -- will likely help more. But you need an expert to tell you how to do this strengthening.