What are the top 5-10 exercises to avoid “swimmer’s shoulder”? Not necessarily to rehab it but for prevention?

Question

Dr. Brian Cunningham · Answer

What are your top 5 to 10 exercises to avoid swimmers shoulder? Not necessarily to rehab but for prevention. Great question. I'm going to go over to George Alderman and Julie Alderman swim exercises for warm up. George is on this app. So it's working on swim specific dynamic warm up to warm up the rotator cuff and the scapula muscles. So you're going to do this. I like to do it for time based. I have the athletes stand and think about tall posture. So you're moving in and out, windshield wipers. The next one you put your hands in your back pockets. And then you're going to emphasize tall posture. Trying to bring your shoulders around and your elbows to touch and then squeeze. Just be careful that you're not lifting your chest but you're really doing it from your shoulders and your scapula. This will help with internal rotation and work with external rotation for pulling muscles. And then the next one is scarecrow. Again, anywhere between 25 and 30 seconds. And you just continue to move from one exercise to the next. And then the next exercise, I'm going to go to the side. You want to start with your elbows at shoulder level and then press them out and back. Or out and forwards and then squeeze them back. Most athletes will emphasize always the back movements. But what you want to emphasize is the forward movements to help that upward rotation. And the last one is I tend to reach forwards, a bad streamline, and then down. Hopefully that will help, Rachel. If you can get this information out to your team and spread it around. This is really helped to prevent shoulder injuries. Hopefully you like it. Let me know if you got any questions.

Cheryl Alden, PT · Answer

What are the five to ten top exercises to avoid swimmers shoulder? Not necessarily to rehab but for prevention. So I'd like to break it up between mobility exercises and strength exercises. For mobility we want to make sure that thoracic spine can move because that's where that shoulder attaches. So on your hands and knees putting one hand behind your head you can rotate toward that arm that's on the ground and then you're gonna lift that elbow towards the ceiling. So getting into some good rotation through that upper back. Also to open up through the chest and to continue with that thoracic mobility onto your side lifting the arm up and then thinking about opening through the chest and shoulder getting that nice length through the chest but again trying to keep those hips relatively stacked. You could do that a few times and then we also have to think about that latissimus dorsi length. So taking a foam roller you can roll on it this is a soft foam roller just kind of putting around your shoulder area and then just rolling back and forth keeping that arm long as you roll back and forth and if you feel that you have any particular areas that are tight you can kind of roll back and forth as well as up and down. We also have to think about strength obviously so rotator cuff is a huge thing you get you can do it by your side but we also have to think about all these other planes of motion because swimming is an overhead activity so working that external rotation to balance all that forward movement but we do want to balance out that internal rotation and again you can think about a lot of different planes of motion. Going on to your stomach going to the classic Y's and T's. I do it on a ball reaching your arms out to the side reaching them overhead to get into that good scapular stabilization strength as well.

Julie Stenner, MSC, PT · Answer

Excellent. What are the top 5 to 10 exercises to avoid swimmer shoulder, i.e. prevention instead of rehab? Excellent. First of all, you want to address any technique errors or training volume, of course, before we move into the physical therapy exercises. So a couple of my favorites are I, T's and Y's. We want to be working the posterior chain, so firing up the lower traps and as well working into the rotator cuff, ensuring that everything is balanced and strong within that muscle group. So, thumbs up, we're going to do I, T's and Y's to fire up the lower traps. So arms straight ahead, out at a V or a Y, and then out to the side. So those are going to ensure that the posterior chain fires up the lower traps and you want to ensure with your swimmer that their scapula are moving up and down, side to side, symmetrically and fully. Another exercise to work through that is taking a block or a pillow and doing some flexion, trying to avoid this, trying to ensure that your shoulders stay down. And of course, working into the rotator cuff at all angles, banded or weighted at 90 degrees external, internal as well to ensure balance in that rotator cuff.

Alex Meyer · Answer

Personally, I like to do a lot of external rotation on the shoulder. Swimming is very heavily focused on internal rotation when you're grabbing that water, especially in that catch position and pushing back, you're really internally rotating your shoulder. For me, it feels really good to do anything, whether it's with a band or whether it's throwing a ball, like a two-pound ball with sand in it against the wall like this, that external rotation just really helps me feel more stable and more resilient in my shoulder. You don't want to do too much of any one thing without also working the opposite movement, otherwise you're going to get a little bit out of balance and you're going to be less resistant to injury. External rotation in general almost doesn't even matter how you get it, just even mix it up with different stuff. That helps me a lot.

Atiba Wade · Answer

Performing bench dips are a common on-deck dryland exercise, but they can be harmful to swimmers. This is mainly due to the potential strain it puts on the shoulder joints. When you dip down on the bench, your shoulders rotate inward, which can put pressure on the joints and cause pain or injury over time. Additionally, if you have any pre-existing shoulder conditions, like impingement or tendinitis, bench dips can exacerbate these issues, making them even worse. If you're looking for an alternative bodyweight exercise to bench dips, consider doing tricep push-ups. Start in a plank position with your hands shoulder-width apart. Lower yourself down by bending your elbows and keeping them close to your body, and complete the rep by pushing yourself back up into the starting position. This exercise targets the triceps as well as the chest and shoulders, along with it being a potentially safer alternative exercise. Another advantage to the tricep push-up is that it can be scaled to meet the desired level of challenge for virtually any competitive swimmer.

Swimming

Strength

Triathlon

Photography

Track & Field

Nutrition

Physical Therapy

Running

Pets

Cycling

Podcasting

HealthCare

Musculoskeletal

Hockey

First Responders

Integrative Medicine

Chiropractic

Cross Country Skiing

Adaptive Sports

Mental Health

Surfing

Climbing

Tennis

Military

Mind Body

Scholars

Criminal Justice

Liquor

Golf

CrossFit

Soccer

Pickleball

Hunting

Public Speaking

Venture Capital

"What are the top 5-10 exercises to avoid “swimmer’s shoulder”? Not necessarily to rehab it but for prevention?"