It's often said swimming makes your shoulders wider, perhaps breaststroke and butterfly in particular? Are there any real swimmers here who can confirm this with their personal experience?
If true, what length of time and intensity of swimming did it take to result in such changes? I suspect this can happen only to competitive swimmers.
Fort says she gets wide shoulders from swimming.I have wide shoulders,but I have been swimming continuously since age group(59 now:cane:) so I have no idea when it happened.
I have wide shoulders, also been swimming since I was 6, now 34. I think it was noticeable when I was 11-12. but when I was 16+ it started to get hard to find dress shirts that fit. Now that I'm older and have money I special order them. the standard dress shirt has a 1 1/2 - 2" difference from the chest to the waist, I have closer to 10" difference. so when I buy a shirt to fit my neck and shoulders, it hangs over the rest of my body.
But I think it's more noticeable in women swimmers. When I meet a former swimmer it's still obvious to me that she was a swimmer, because of her shoulders.
I always thought it was my build not my swimming that gave me wide shoulders. However, my 19 y/o daughter, formally a swimmer now a collegiate water polo player, does not have my bone structure (hers are small, mine are medium), but she wears a size 0 pant (yes - I am jealous) and a size 6 jacket. :shakeshead:
(I cannot even remember being a size 6 - I was 6' tall at 12 (she has stopped at 5'7")) :fish2:
People often ask me, "Jim, where DO your massively manly shoulders and other aspects of that impressive physique come from?"
No, wait.
People never ask me that.
I have been swimming since I was 5 so I don't know if the shoulders are there because of the swimming or I swim because of my shoulders. But I have a horrible time finding shirts that fit me. I can't wear blouses (man that sounds old-fashioned).
i had bigger lats when i lifted before i got hurt. now, my shoulders are still wide but the guns are getting smaller. clothes are a pain. size 8 to 10 shirt. 4-6 pants.
Since coming to masters 4 years ago after only having swum a couple years of high school I have gotten much bigger shoulders - lats and other muscle groups which I cannot identify. Clothes from 4 years ago certainly don't fit. The bright side is I've gone down about 2 pant sizes ... however like Shark it's a major pain to find tops that fit.
Mucho! My shoulders sprung out like leaves on spring trees. I did not swim when I was younger. I found out I "bulk up" as my coach put it. I am not BIG or overweight, but lots of my shirts suddenly became sexy inasmuch as I could not buttom them without pullage.
I was on Boston T and this BIG man sat next to me recently and was READING THE PAPER which requires extra room on his part, and I refused to move and scrunch up (I've read that women often scrunch up to let men have more room on public transportation). He said, "You have big shoulders." He was pissed at me for not scrunching up. I said, "Sorry, can't help it; I swim." He shut up. Alas he continued to read his paper and we were quite snug until he got off. Had he been cute . . .
