Breaststroke: Could it be bad for you?

You've been told by a medical professional that you need to exercise more. You always liked swimming. You cant stand the thought of going for a run, or a cycle or going to a gym! By far the most easiest swimming stroke to perform with regards to cardio-vascular strain is breaststroke. You probably see it yourself when you go swimming, you see the fast lane full of people doing length after length of front crawl or freestyle, then the medium and slow lanes are primarily full of people doing breaststroke.

So what's wrong with breaststroke? Breaststroke puts extreme strains through 4 key areas of your body!

Stand up, try to adopt the posture you need to in standing, that you would need to perform breaststroke. Is anything aching already? Can you actually stand in this posture?

Let's look at the key areas that are affected

1. The low back and neck I think the image speaks for itself. People who perform breaststroke, and I don't mean this unkindly, are typically those who do not want to get their hair wet! So they alter their posture to avoid this! They arch their backs and tilt their heads back. They're putting the lumbar spine (lower back) and cervical spine (neck) into extreme extension. By doing this, they are over working their lumbar and cervical extensors, increasing the likelihood of neck and low back pain

2. The knees

Again, hopefully this image speaks for itself. When in our every day lives, do we feel it is necessary to use the frogs legs movement? The rotational forces used in this stroke put extreme and altered biomechanical forces through the medial aspect (inner side) of our knees, similar forces that can create a meniscal tear or a medial collateral ligament (MCL) tear. These forces can increase your risk of Osteo-Arthritis later in life!

3. The hips and gluteals

Take a look at the image on the left. Not only is the lumbar spine in anterior tilt, see my previous blog here

http://mikestampphysio.wixsite.com/mikestampphysio/single-post/2016/11/05/Tuck-those-hips-under

but, without fully extending the hip and leg (straightening) your gluteals cannot activate! By maintaining a flexed hip and knee, you over activate your medial hamstrings and calves, leading to greater muscle imbalance! I think it's evident that breaststroke can potentially cause more problems then solutions! When people ask me in clinic, particularly those who are injured from running, whether swimming would be OK? I always ask them, "what stroke would or do you perform?" If the answer is breaststroke, then I certainly ensure I explain the above to them.