Swimmer's Shoulder

Excerpt

Swimmers possess a significant potential for shoulder injuries due to the unique nature of the different swimming strokes and the high volume of repetitions required during training. The high number of shoulder revolutions results in an overuse injury to the soft tissue envelope around the shoulder.

Swimmer’s shoulder is a term that can represent numerous shoulder pathologies. The term was first used by Kennedy and Hawkins in 1974 to report the impingement of the supraspinatus tendon beneath the coracoacromial arch, which was found in swimmers due to repeated shoulder abduction and forward flexion movements.

More recently, the term has come to encompass shoulder pains in swimmers due to various causes, including impingement syndrome, rotator cuff tendinitis, labral injuries, instability secondary to ligamentous laxity or muscle imbalance/dysfunction, neuropathy from nerve entrapment, and anatomic variants. For the athlete to return to the sport in an appropriate and timely manner, the clinician must be able to differentiate between these different etiologies.