Injury Poll: Swimming vs. Weight Lifting

If you swim and/or weight lift long enough, chances are you are going to get hurt. I maintain that you are probably more likely to get hurt weight lifting than swimming, partly because there is considerably more force involved in the former, and partly because most of us on these forums are swimmers first and weight lifters second (if at all), and hence our bodies are more used to swimming than to weight lifting. I could, certainly, be wrong. In any event, please participate in this simple poll. Assuming you swim and at least occasionally lift weights and/or do dryland exercises in hopes of improving your swimming performance, which do you personally find more problematic for injuries? You will have to make a judgment call here, especially if you spend MUCH more time swimming than lifting. (For example, say you swim 6 hours a week and lift 3 x 30 minutes or 1.5 hours a week. Your swimming time is 4x greater than your lifting time, so if you've suffered the same number of injuries from swimming and lifting, then lifting--hour per hour--more dangerous. ) Thanks for participating!
Parents
  • Hum di dum. I do notice that lifting a 5-lb weight to the back while lying on my stomach, and 3-lb weights out to the side, again, while lying on my stomach, seems to be doing a number on my neck and back. Given your self-reports of injury, this statement is baffling to me. I question whether a competent physical therapist who is knowledgeable about sports-related shoulder injuries would be having you do these movements at all, let alone with these amounts of weight. I do a "T" exercise while lying face-down, lifting my arms toward the back while in external rotation, but I use only the weight of my arms for resistance. 3 extra pounds on each side would kill me. And I cannot imagine any reason I would ever try to lift a 5-pound weight up and over my head and backwards while lying on my front. It hurts just to think about it.
Reply
  • Hum di dum. I do notice that lifting a 5-lb weight to the back while lying on my stomach, and 3-lb weights out to the side, again, while lying on my stomach, seems to be doing a number on my neck and back. Given your self-reports of injury, this statement is baffling to me. I question whether a competent physical therapist who is knowledgeable about sports-related shoulder injuries would be having you do these movements at all, let alone with these amounts of weight. I do a "T" exercise while lying face-down, lifting my arms toward the back while in external rotation, but I use only the weight of my arms for resistance. 3 extra pounds on each side would kill me. And I cannot imagine any reason I would ever try to lift a 5-pound weight up and over my head and backwards while lying on my front. It hurts just to think about it.
Children
No Data