My family doctor diagnosed my shoulder pain as an impingement. He shot an x-ray, and explained a gap between two bones was responsible for the pain. He'd give a referal to a surgeon if the pain grows worse. Has anyone else had this type of experience, or have any recommendations? I'm 40 years old now, and swam competitively for five years during school years. I've done a few open water events, and a couple triathlons. I'd settle for any lap swimming. I'm going to try using the "Combat Swimmer's Stroke" hoping it lessens the strain on my shoulder. (Unfortunately, my knees don't handle breaststroke's whip kick well.) Please share any advice on overcoming a shoulder impingement. As it stands right now, my future in the pool may be limited to just kicking with fins. I'm hoping to hear some great advice, what can you share?
Former Member
I had a similar problem a few years ago. My collar bone and the bone on top of my arm (the acromium (sp) and clavical (sp)) were banging together and pinching nerves. And I could pop out my shoulder...good party trick, but painful.
Have you done PT? I had to do rotator cuff strenghtening exercises for like 3 months. Then the muscles were strong enough to hold the bones in the proper places. Keep them from banging together and separating. Boring, slightly tedious exercises, but they kept me out of surgery.
If you search these forums, there's a ton of other threads about shoulder exercises that will help.
Good Luck!!!
I Have had both shoulders operated on. And back surgery. After all the surgerys. I had therpy , they gave me excerise , and it did help. But being in sports , I could not wait to get in the gym, but as I progressed, I got more aggerisve in my work outs . But that was back in the day. and now at age 73 I know I need surgery . But I still go to the gym at the beging of the excerise my shoulders hurt but as I warm up I can tolerate the pain. The same goes for swimming. I can no longer do any strokes , allI can do is Aus. crawl Or free style. But when swiming I start swiming slow, but as I swim although both my shoulders hurt , as I swim laps for some reason My shoulders abosrb the pain . In most of swims I will go 150 to 200 laps none stop. But I know my shoulders are impinged. Of course all surgery was not done at the same time. But I guess there are choices, work thru your pain or have surgery. :drink: :frustrated:
I had a similiar injury almost 2 years ago. I kept me out of the water for a few weeks but after a few months of PT and then with yoga and RC exercises, within a year I had nearly completely recovered. I think the important thing that kept it from becoming a serious injury was that I stopped at the first sign and saw a doc and got it treated.
I really don't want to be the bearer of any bad news, but I had to have rotator cuff surgery in 1993 and in early 1995, impingement surgery. And I remember the exact swimming moment the impingement happened; it stopped me dead in the water. Two surgeries, same shoulder.
To make sure, my orthopedic doctor did an MRI and my impingement had to be fixed by surgery. Also, I am not a person to wait around to try to get better, I want things fixed so when I saw that MRI, I saw the writing on the wall.
The good news is: most injuries are fixable one way or the other. Just make sure you have a very good doctor, view the film, and run with the diagnosis. The sooner an injury can be fixed the better depending upon how severe the injury is; maybe some people don't need surgery; mine was really busted up pretty bad and the collarbone was fractured; I had no choice.
Please take care of it on the good advice of a trusted doctor---there are lots of wonderful sports doctors out there and mine was 12 years ago, I am certain there are better methods today to try to fix sports injuries!!!
donna
DONNA. You make a lot of good common sense. But at this stage in my life Iwill live the status quo.But your recovery great. love to hear those phyiscal recoverys. My wife calls a me a fraid acat. Also keep your shouldes in shape . I do not want any excuses on your 18 mile swim , DOM AZ. :groovy: :drink:
Perkunas,
Do you have any idea why this happened to your shoulder? Do you think it was overuse or technique or just that it was going to happen? Did you have anything to alert you ahead of time that it was bothering you?
And I must not be on top of things but I have never heard of Combat Swimmer's Stroke, what is that exactly?
Donna
Do nna. When I was in the work force, and climb the ladder of sucess ( LOL) .My boss used to say, when a problem arises , take away all the excuses first, and then go on. What I like to do is to ensure my shoulders are in shape to do certain excerises in the gym , and also when swimming. I do not use free weights. I like the weight machines. As they afford a varity of different excersies . But like I said my shoulders will allow me no speed , but will allow me distance. Have a great day. DOM IN AZ.:blah: :snore:
Do nna. When I was in the work force, and climb the ladder of sucess ( LOL) .My boss used to say, when a problem arises , take away all the excuses first, and then go on. What I like to do is to ensure my shoulders are in shape to do certain excerises in the gym , and also when swimming. I do not use free weights. I like the weight machines. As they afford a varity of different excersies . But like I said my shoulders will allow me no speed , but will allow me distance. Have a great day. DOM IN AZ.:blah: :snore:
Dom, this is why I do distance, it is easier than trying to do speed!!!:rofl: and long swims make it the longest day of my life so my day feels like it goes on and on and on because I am swimming so much. Getting every hour out of every second so it feels like I am extending my life!! If I weren't swimming distance, the days would fly by and I don't want that!!
Donna when I swim I get TOTALY relaxed. Matter of fact I can hear my self snore. Maybe that is why my shoulders are holding up. DOM in AZ. :) :cool: :shakeshead:
The Combat Swim Stroke is a hybrid; it's mostly side stroke, but the top arm motion is more like that of front crawl. Stew Smith's website is where I learned about the stroke. The stroke seems to focus on long glides; hopefully this will minimize stress to my shoulder(s). Stew's shared some 500 times used for this stroke. Evidently there are some that can move quickly with it. It's a new chapter of swimming for me now. My competitive background was fly and IM and tri's brought me to distance free. Now I just want laps without pain (or surgery). With the grace of God, perhaps this new stroke is something I could work into open water swims?
