What is Swimmer’s Shoulder?
Due to the repeated motion of taking thousands of strokes each practice, swimmers experience shoulder pain fairly often. The shoulder is a ball and socket joint, and has many tendons and muscles that stabilize the joint, and keep the shoulders range of motion fluid. When a swimmer over works their shoulder, it is common to see tendon inflammation and nerve irritation. These kinds of pains can be seen as minor tears or tendonitis.
How do you fix it?
Often times, it is improper technique that causes the shoulder pain to begin with. Correcting the stroke by focusing on more body rotation can help decrease damage. In order to relax the inflamed tendons and stressed muscles, ART is a great tool. ART (Active release treatment) tackles the body’s soft tissues by manipulating movement. This muscle isolation requires the muscle to stretch, and the inflamed tendons to relax. ART is especially beneficial to swimmers as it increases range of motion, and decreases pain caused by overuse of the joint and muscles.