Muscle cramps can be a royal pain in the rear….and hamstring, calf, quad, … the list goes on. Even with the most disciplined training, fueling and hydration plan, a bad cramp can still find a way to hold you down on the day of a competition and completely change your performance. In fact, it is one of the most common medical problems encountered by competitors in an Ironman or any other ultra-distance event as well as affecting athletes of many other sports – especially during the conditioning phases early in pre-season training. 

In the culture of swimming, it’s often expected to “train through the pain” in order to get to the top¹. If you consider yourself a competitive swimmer, you likely have experienced shoulder pain at some point in your career, with it being the most common musculoskeletal complaint in swimming with an incidence ranging from 52% to 73% in elite swimmers². A competitive swimmer usually exceeds 4000 strokes for one shoulder in a single workout³! Needless to say, the shoulder can make or break a swimmer’s season and athletes should focus on prevention to avoid a season-ending injury.

Swimmer’s shoulder usually involves impingement or pinching of the rotator cuff muscles by the acromion bone as they pass through a narrow opening called the subacromial space (see figure below).

What is your typical warm-up routine? Or, perhaps a better question is, do you have a warm-up? So many of us are guilty of squeezing in a quick gym session and cutting the warm-up short or eliminating it altogether. Unfortunately, in training and competition, tightness and soreness is a hindrance and without a proper warm-up you could be wasting precious practice time.