Swimming is a great activity for all ages. The sport provides a non-impact way of improving cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, and even flexibility. However, just like any sport or activity, swimming poses an injury risk. In the following article, we will outline the top 5 tips to prevent swimming injuries so that you can continue to enjoy this wonderful method of exercise.
Never Skip the Warm-up
For some reason, many people consider swimming to be an “easy” form of exercise that doesn’t require a proper warm-up. This could not be further from the truth. A good warm-up before a swim can prime the body for exercise and may reduce the likelihood of injury.
Furthermore, warming up encourages blood flow to the working muscles, enabling you to achieve a higher quality workout than you might if you went into the activity cold.
Work With a Swim Coach
Even just a single session with a swimming expert can help you learn some of the finer points related to swimming. By providing you with minor cues, your swim coach can help you achieve optimal posture while you’re in the water. This, in turn, is likely to help you avoid injuries due to poor form with your various swimming strokes.
It’s understandable that many people may not have the financial means to hire a coach, even for a single session. If this is the case for you, you can still access this information through the wonder of the internet. YouTube provides various tutorials on every aspect of swimming you could ever imagine. At a minimum, make sure you watch some good educational swimming videos before developing any bad habits!
Perform Stretches and Exercises Out of the Water Too
If you swim a lot, you may think that you’re getting all of the exercises you need to be healthy and avoid injuries. But while swimming can provide a host of benefits, there are many other complementary exercises you should consider performing on land as well.
Specifically, you’ll want to work on developing your rotator cuff muscles and your shoulder blade stabilizers. A classic issue with swimmers is the characteristic rounded upper back due to years of freestyle and butterfly practice.
Just a few lifting and stretching sessions a week can counteract this issue and lead you toward a healthier, injury-free swimming career.
Pace Yourself
When you first commit to a swimming program (or any exercise program, for that matter), you will make a lot of improvements very quickly. This is undoubtedly a good thing. However, these initial improvements that are made are mostly a result of increased coordination between the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system.
Therefore, once these improvements occur, many new exercisers experience a plateau, which can be very hard to overcome. When this plateau occurs, many people start training much too hard, and much too often in an attempt to continue making progress. This then can then lead to overuse injuries and general, total body fatigue.
Be sure you take breaks and pace yourself throughout your sessions! The improvements will come with time and consistent effort.
Visit Your Chiropractor Regularly
Your chiropractor can help you develop better posture and better range of motion. These improvements will translate directly to the pool, and you may even start to notice better performance as a result of these chiropractor visits.
By realigning your spine and ensuring that your spine is in good health, your chiropractor can be one of your greatest assets along your swimming journey.
If you’ve suffered a swimmer injury or have other swimming-related concerns, come see us at Awaken Chiropractic, your Parker chiropractor. We are ready to serve you today! Book your appointment now!
