Good Stretches Before Swimming?

imabigvegan

Hi All,

I have recently started swimming for exercise 5 days a week M-F and I am just loving it. I am concerned that I will injure myself from overuse especially at the shoulder. I have already started to feel some joint pain in the shoulder and I would like to try and avoid this getting worse and avoid future injury as well. I recently purchased a kick-board (flutter-board) so that I can alternate sets of laps that I am doing of the breaststroke and just do some of kicking only.

1. Can anyone suggest some warmup exercises or stretches before I get in the pool to limber up and warm my upper body.

2. Once there is pain in the shoulders, does anyone have any recommendations as to how to avoid it turning into a full blown episode of swimmers shoulder or injury?

Now that I have found exercise that I love, I would be devastated if I had to take a break to heal an injury.

Any help you can provide would be great!

Les

SHBoss1673

look up adductor and abductor stretches, alternatively you could look up iliopsoas stretches. these are around the groin and hip area. Also for the shoulder, there are some wonderful stretches that you can do cross body and behind the back. You should be able to google all of these and see the stretches but here are some links. Oh and don't forget about your neck, lots of neck movement with swimming (more than one would think).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0j9kHFUZyQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0gGD_3ycMc

dragonbug300

I'm no swimmer, but I have a friend who showed me a few warm-ups that he does for swimming:

Start with slow, controlled neck rolls to the front
nod your head side to side and front/back
shoulder rolls
bend over so that your back is flat and flap your arms--bringing your hands as far back as you can and then letting your arms swing down into a self-hug sort of thing (this one is really hard to describe...)
rotate your arms forward and back
with your feet wider than shoulder-width and knees bent, abs engaged, rotate your torso side-to-side

hope this helps get you started.

k8edge

I swim lots too! I love it...

I am a big "stretching" after the exercise person. But I usually just do a few arm/shoulder stretches to loosen everything up. If you are worried about injury you can ask your doctor for a list of stretches that will help to strengthen the area that is bothering you.

I am curious to see what other people come up with!

- Kait