Between 40% and 90% of swimmers will experience the discomfort of swimmer’s shoulder at some point in their lives. The swimming shoulder pain associated with this frequent orthopedic injury is also known as rotator cuff impingement syndrome, and it is usually caused by rubbing or pinching of the muscles and joints in your shoulder.
If you’re suffering from swimmer’s shoulder, you might be wondering, “How could a walk-in chiropractor near me help with this?” We’re here to dive deep into the symptoms, causes, and treatments of this common but painful injury.
Starting at the Source: The Shoulder
To best understand how this injury can occur, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of how the bones, joints, and muscles in the shoulder work together and how these might get out of sync to cause pain like swimmer’s shoulder.
Our shoulders are composed of three bones: the scapula, the clavicle, and the humerus. These bones are also known as the shoulder blade, collar bone, and upper arm bone. Together these bones make up an incredibly complex and mobile joint.
In addition to these three bones, a key group of muscles known as the rotator cuff attaches to and moves the shoulder joint. The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that surround the joint, lying deep within the shoulder in order to help you move your arm smoothly. More specifically, these muscles contract to keep the ball within your shoulder joint in place when you raise your arm. Many ligaments assist the rotator cuff in holding your shoulder in place as well, giving you stability as your shoulder joint moves around.
Symptoms of Swimmer’s Shoulder
You might have some familiarity with the symptoms of swimmer’s shoulder. Most obviously, people with swimmer’s shoulder experience generalized shoulder pain. Additionally, swimmer’s shoulder syndrome can often include swelling on the top of or front of the affected shoulder, inability to or difficulty reaching overhead, and pain in your shoulder when bearing weight through your arm.
You’ve probably noticed that these symptoms are worse and often aggravated by swimming. You’ll probably also feel these symptoms immediately after swimming. This is because the overhead motion of the freestyle swimming action can cause the tendons in the rotator cuff to get pinched underneath the shoulder blade. This pinching and trapping of the tendons causes inflammation, which leads to the symptoms of pain and restricted use of the affected arm.
Swimmer’s shoulder symptoms can also be caused by instability of ligaments in the shoulder that become stretched and lax over time. This loosening of ligaments can cause shoulder joint instability, leading to pinching in your shoulder.
While these symptoms have been attributed to frequent swimming, as you may have assumed, these symptoms are not limited to only swimmers. Baseball players, tennis players, construction workers, and others who often have to use their shoulders for repetitive motions can all experience swimmer’s shoulder and tendon pain.
Causes of Swimmer’s Shoulder
We’ve touched on a few contributing factors to swimmer’s shoulder, but below we’ll explore some additional contributing factors and ways in which swimmer’s shoulder might be prevented.
The pain and discomfort of swimmer’s shoulder can seemingly come from nowhere for swimmers and other athletes. After months or years of practice, you could suddenly be stricken with the pain and immobility of tendon inflammation, leaving you to wonder why now?
Shoulder Fatigue
For athletes, specifically swimmers, studies have shown that fatigue is one of the biggest contributing factors to swimmer’s shoulder pain. Fatigue is a large umbrella that can encompass many things: excessive training like long distances, not resting between workouts or reps, and overuse. Interestingly enough, perceived range of motion and flexibility did not predict shoulder pain.
Poor Swimming Technique
If you’re going to swim frequently, it’s important to swim correctly. Excellent technique doesn’t just give swimmers a competitive edge, but also helps hugely in preventing injury. Keeping body roll in check is one of the main ways swimmers can prevent swimmer’s shoulder. Too much or too little body roll can put the shoulders at a mechanical disadvantage, contributing to inflammation and pain.
Poor Posture
Activities like swimming exercise specific parts of our body, repeatedly, while leaving other parts ignored. Upper body strength is built up in swimming activities while the lower body extremities and muscles are underdeveloped. When this is combined with the poor posture that most people have developed from sitting and slouching in front of screens so much, we’ve created a prime opportunity for injury.
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Swimmer’s Shoulder Prevention Tips
Swimmer’s shoulder must be diagnosed and subsequently treated by professionals, but knowing the causes of this syndrome, you can be better equipped to prevent it in the first place.
Sleep on Your Back
One thing that can really exacerbate painful shoulders is sleeping on them. Going to sleep on a painful swimmer’s shoulder typically results in restless nights, where you’re woken up by more pain in your shoulder. It’s best to use pillows or other sleep aids to help move you onto your back. To help you get comfortable, and to help get your shoulders in the proper position for healing, try lying on your back with your hands on your chest.
Improve Spine Mobility
While swimmers are often coached incessantly about having strong and flexible pecks and hips, the mobility of the thoracic spine is often overlooked. The thoracic spine refers to the upper and middle parts of your spine, which is built for rotation, flexion, and extension. Poor thoracic spine mobility can affect many things. In order to stretch and strengthen it, try using a foam roller under your back to promote extension.
Strengthen Rotator Cuffs
Swimmers probably already have a set of rotator cuff exercises they do daily to avoid shoulder pain. Prioritize crossover arm stretches and pendulum exercises that strengthen your rotator cuffs.
Practice Proper Swimming Techniques
This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s important to maintain for injury prevention. Swimming is a resistance exercise, and having excellent technique and posture promotes fast swimming and shoulder health.
Diagnosis and Treatment of Swimmer’s Shoulder
As we mentioned, swimmer’s shoulder can be diagnosed by a medical professional, such as those in our Atlanta office. This syndrome can be identified through a routine clinical examination. While different professionals may have slightly varying techniques and tests, here are some routine exam techniques you can expect when visiting an orthopedic office:
Palpation
You have probably experienced this if you’ve ever been to a chiropractor before, but you probably didn’t know what it was called! Palpation is simply the act of using your hands or fingers to identify an injury to the body by feeling the skin and the muscles, ligaments, and more below the skin to identify the size, shape, firmness, or location of a potential issue.
Strength Measurements
These examinations will test varying muscles in your shoulders and arms to gauge your level of ability.
Special Shoulder Tests
These are a series of tests in which a professional might touch or provide light pressure on various points along your back or shoulders to see if certain points cause or ease the pain.
After performing these examinations, you may be referred to get X-rays, but more often than not, you will be recommended a course of treatment.
Types of Swimmer’s Shoulder Treatments
Our orthopedic specialists and chiropractors at our Atlanta office will recommend a course of treatment in line with your diagnosis. These treatment plans typically involve managing pain and inflammation within the shoulder. Our offices offer a range of specialized care from chiropractic adjustments to relieve pain and leave you in better shape than we found you to surgical options. There are many options available to you for a swimmer’s shoulder diagnosis, and we’re here to help you navigate which options will be right for your case.
Medication
Before you think you might get addicted to some high-octane pain killers, many professionals recommend over-the-counter anti-inflammatory and painkillers to ease your comfort. In addition to managing pain and inflammation, you will likely also be prescribed rest and a break from swimming or whatever activity might have contributed to swimmer’s shoulder.
Physical Therapy
Physical therapists can be useful in providing safe exercises and mobility treatments to improve your pain and inflammation. Through various methods of heating, icing, taping, or stimulation, physical therapy is typically a medication-free treatment plan for healing.
Injections
Some people suffering from swimmer’s shoulder may be prescribed, and benefit from, cortisone injections. These powerful injections are delivered straight to the shoulder, giving you a powerful dose of anti-inflammation medication. These injections are meant to decrease the pain and swelling in your shoulder.
Surgery
Should all other treatments fail, or should your case be severe enough, a doctor may recommend surgery to help you recover. Depending on the severity of the problem and the doctor’s recommendation, recovery time is typically 6 to 10 weeks.
Most people are desperate for relief and want to know what recovery will look like. For most people, bouts of swimmer’s shoulder will last from 8 to 10 weeks. This can seem like a long time to experience limited mobility and pain. More often than not, symptoms dissipate on their own after several months of rest and gentle stretching or exercise. As you improve, maintain shoulder exercises to keep your shoulder strong as you return to your swimming activities.
Helpful Exercises for Swimmer’s Shoulder
Whether these were recommended as preventative or as part of a treatment plan, make sure you have your orthopedic professional’s approval before you try any of these. These exercises are meant to improve mobility and improve inflammation and pain.
Internal Rotation Towel Stretch
This exercise promotes stretching in the shoulder joint:
- Hold a towel over the shoulder that is experiencing pain.
- Reach behind your back with your other arm and grab the towel.
- While holding the towel behind your back, slowly pull the towel up until a gentle stretch is felt in your shoulder with the hand behind your back.
- Hold this position for 15 seconds, and then slowly relax and release this hold.
- Repeat this exercise 5 times.
Prone Scapula Squeeze
Improper or irregular scapular movements can often contribute to swimmer’s shoulder pain. This exercise helps mitigate that risk by strengthening the area.
- Lie on your stomach on a bed or couch with your painful arm hanging down to the floor.
- Slowly lift your arm to the side while keeping your elbow straight.
- Once your straight arm is parallel to the floor, hold the position for 3 seconds, and then slowly lower your arm down.
- Repeat the exercise 15 times.
Rotator Cuff Strengthening
We mentioned earlier the importance of a strong rotator cuff in mitigating the pain caused by swimmer’s shoulder. This specific exercise can help greatly in maintaining good rotator cuff strength.
- Lie on your side with your painful shoulder on top.
- Bend your elbow 90 degrees while keeping it against your rib cage.
- Slowly lift the back of your hand up towards the ceiling. Be sure to keep your elbow bent and pressed against your ribs as you lift.
- Hold for 3 seconds, and then slowly lower.
- Repeat the exercise 15 times.
Moving Forward with Swimmer’s Shoulder
To recap, swimmer’s shoulder is typically caused by repeated shoulder strain that can cause inflammation in the tendons and muscles, resulting in pain and joint instability. This can cause immobility in the shoulder and can lead to further problems if untreated. While swimmer’s shoulder is most often found in swimmers, it can be a result of other repeated use or lax ligaments in the shoulder. Treatment is typically physical therapy, medication, or a combination of both. On occasion, cortisone injections can be used to manage pain and inflammation, and in rarer cases still, surgery might be required. Rest, stretching, proper posture and technique, as well as strengthening of the shoulder and surrounding muscles, can help prevent pain. Most episodes of swimmer’s shoulder last from 8 to 10 weeks. Doctors are needed to diagnose and treat swimmer’s shoulder.