Common Swimming Injuries

Don’t make the black line a red line.

We treat a medley of swimming injuries every year.

You follow that black line. Lap after lap, you stroke your way across the pool, counting the turns and the touches. Your day simply wouldn’t be complete without the smell of chlorine in the morning.

Whether you’re a year-round swimmer or you throw yourself into the deep-end every summer, swimming is a great, low-impact form of exercise. Until, of course, you hurt yourself. And it won’t feel like a low-impact exercise at that point.

It will probably be a shoulder injury too—90% of all the swimming injuries we see at Northern District Physiotherapy and Sports Clinic are shoulder related. You don’t need to look too far to understand why ‘swimmer’s shoulder’ happens. Think about how many times you rotate your shoulder as you swim. The more laps you do, the more work they take on.

It’s possible to develop swimmer’s shoulder from overuse, overtraining, a sudden spike in workload, or even incorrect technique. And don’t underestimate the impact of poor posture—when you’re not swimming—on your technique. Stiffness in your thoracic spine can throw you off your stroke and make your shoulders have to work much harder.

So if you start to experience pain during or after your swim, give our physiotherapists at NDPE a call. We’re used to treating swimming injuries. The first thing we’ll do is conduct a thorough assessment of your condition. We want to understand the cause, not the symptoms.

Then we’ll work to get you back in the water as soon as we can. As part of our treatment, we’ll educate you on what caused the problem, and work with you to find ways to avoid the same thing happening again.

If you’re in pain when you swim, take the plunge and call NDPE on 02 9874 8410.