Swimming breaststroke after arthroscopic surgery for medial meniscus tear: Your experience?

Elaine — Since you haven’t received a response in a couple days, I will offer my experience. As you well know, the breaststroke kick isn’t great for the knees. I myself once suffered a MCL injury because of it. Likely due to my inexperience, improper stretching and warmup, and overdoing it. It took months of self-rehab to recover from. (A few years earlier I did suffer a torn meniscus (same leg) that happened while running.) Eventually I had total knee replacement on that leg. In both cases, my surgeon(s) warned that I shouldn’t perform the traditional breaststroke kick for quite sometime (and I see online that it’s advised to not do it for at least three months post-op). I mean they didn’t really have to tell me that. I surely didn’t want to go through that MCL injury again. Like you, I was told that I could get back in the water essentially when the surgical incision healed up. And when I did, I swam a modified breaststroke…without kicking…and kept a pull buoy between my legs just to make sure I didn’t. When I eventually did kick again, I used more of a straight back kick rather than the whip kick until I regained my strength and flexibility. Today I still swim breaststroke occasionally…just to break up the monotony of the mostly crawl stroke that I swim…and I’m very cautious of the kick. So I guess what I’m saying is that personally I’d hold off on doing the whip kick until you are sufficiently rehabilitated. Good luck. — Dan

Elaine — Since you haven’t received a response in a couple days, I will offer my experience. As you well know, the breaststroke kick isn’t great for the knees. I myself once suffered a MCL injury because of it. Likely due to my inexperience, improper stretching and warmup, and overdoing it. It took months of self-rehab to recover from. (A few years earlier I did suffer a torn meniscus (same leg) that happened while running.) Eventually I had total knee replacement on that leg. In both cases, my surgeon(s) warned that I shouldn’t perform the traditional breaststroke kick for quite sometime (and I see online that it’s advised to not do it for at least three months post-op). I mean they didn’t really have to tell me that. I surely didn’t want to go through that MCL injury again. Like you, I was told that I could get back in the water essentially when the surgical incision healed up. And when I did, I swam a modified breaststroke…without kicking…and kept a pull buoy between my legs just to make sure I didn’t. When I eventually did kick again, I used more of a straight back kick rather than the whip kick until I regained my strength and flexibility. Today I still swim breaststroke occasionally…just to break up the monotony of the mostly crawl stroke that I swim…and I’m very cautious of the kick. So I guess what I’m saying is that personally I’d hold off on doing the whip kick until you are sufficiently rehabilitated. Good luck. — Dan

Thanks, Dan, for your suggestion and sharing your experience.  I have been swimming a lot of breaststroke pull with an easy dolphin kick since I tore my meniscus, so I guess that is what I will keep on doing after my surgery for awhile...