Hi all,

I injured my shoulder a while back, and aggravated it further from too much swimming. Has anyone ever had any shoulder problems, specifically swimmer's shoulder/rotator cuff problems? Are there any good strengthening exercises that you could recommend?

Thanks!

I've had it many times and have a strength program that keeps it at bay. It involves very light weights (3-5 lbs). I'll tell you what it is but I recommend you talk to a PT rather than blindly doing what some stranger posts to an anonymous forum. I got my program from a PT, and she took me through the exercises to be sure I was doing them correctly and with the correct weights.

(Descriptions are for the right shoulder, but I do both.)

Excercise 1. Lay on your left side with small weight in your right hand. Keep your right arm along your side, but bend 90 degrees at the elbow. Lower the weight to the ground and then bring it back up to horizontal. I do 2 sets of 20 reps. Reps are smooth and slow.

Exercise 2. Lay on your right side with small weight in your right hand. Again, lay with your arm along your body with 90 degree bend at elbow. Bring weight up from floor to your chest and then lower back down to the floor. Arm maintains 90 degree elbow bend the whole time and the movement is all rotation. Again 2 sets of 20 reps.

Exercise 3. Stand with your upper body leaning slightly forward arms hanging down, weight in right hand. Right arm is bent at maybe 135 degree angle (a slight bend). Without changing your arm bend, rotate the weight backwards until you reach your range of motion or until your arm is horizontal. Again 2 sets of 20 reps.

Thanks for the advice DogBoy. I've got an appointment tomorrow with a PT, so I'll see what she has to say.

Don't have any recommendations on strengthening exercises, but you should look into why you got injured in the first place. It could be poor technique.

I started having some right shoulder soreness/pain from swimming last month. I went to a 3 hour swim clinic earlier this month - not to try to solve the shoulder problem, but to get pointers on how to improve my stroke. The first thing the coach said (w/o even knowing that I was having the minor shoulder problems) when we watched the video of my stroke was that my right arm was pulling too wide. This was rotating me back to my front too early (increasing drag) and putting too much stress on my shoulder since my upper arm was not in line with my body but was angled back.

Yes to shoulder problems.
First of all, I'm no physiotherapist, go see one.

But I'd hazard to guess that if you haven't swimming 5x / week for a while (I was swimming 8 or 9 when my shoulders hurt), there's something in your shoulder that's immediately hurt, and it may not be a problem of wear or weakness in a few ligaments. Make sure it's not an instantaneous injury.

The strength exercise described above works when you have an imbalance in muscle strength of certain parts of your shoulder (caused from doing a frontwards motion too much)

If you have a friend around, lie on your back, have him hold his hand on the front part of your shoulder (holding downwards), your arm bent at 90 deg pointing up, and have him slowly push your hand towards your feet and to the ground. If not, place the back of your hand on the small of your back, and bring your shoulders back.

One good thing to know is that you don't need to swim nearly as much for a triathlon such that a slightly sore shoulder would hurt your performance (you have fitness in two other sports). Some of my buddies however, had to quit because they couldn't train the 8 workouts a week needed to be fit in the pool.

Two things: 1) do not overdo it, ease off when in pain and 2) learn proper technique. Unless you have pre-existing condition, these are likely causes of shoulder pain from swimming...

I'm a former div 1 swimmer in college, i got this alot becasue i swam distance events and trained about 9 miles a day swimming. What we did to stregthen our shouldes was to use thick rubber hose and tie it to something about waist high and do resistance stuff before and after working out......good luck

Thanks for your replies and advice everyone. I did see a PT last week (and will see her again today), and she recommended some variations of the exercises you mentioned. Much appreciated!

I have the same problem. I did a google search for rotator cuff injuries and exercises. The advice was similar to that given above and diagrams are available. Improvement was appartent immediately.
Hockey

Make sure you have your shoulder completly checked out. I have a bad shoulder that got worse from swimming. At first the diagnosis was some torn ligaments and muscle strain. After numerous xrays, MRIs and finally othroscopic surgery they found out I have severe arthritis and I am having a shoulder replacement this Oct. I'm only 47!! I can still compete, but my swimming will be a lot slower.
Good luck!!