Lower back pain after swimming

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fb444

2006-10-02 3:42 AM

Veteran

262

Shelby Twp, MI

Subject: Lower back pain after swimming

Swimming is by far my worst discipline so I have been making a big effort to increase both pooltime and focus on technique. My target is 2 sessions per week, each of 1000 yards. Nothing major for many BT'ers.

Recently I have been getting lower back pain after my weekend swims, to the point where this weekend I only went to the pool once. Any thoughts from the experienced swimmers out there on what would cause this. Equally is there a particular drill that would be beneficial?

Any ideas much appreciated.

AdventureBear

2006-10-02 9:12 AM

in reply to: #557274

Coach

9167

Stairway to Seven

Subject: RE: Lower back pain after swimming

A lot of swimmers swim with sagging legs, and in an attempt to get them out of the deep end, arch their back to pull them up. Likewise, a lot of people swimwith their head higher in the water than they should which causes the low back to arch.

I used to get a lot of back pain after swimming, but then I found Total immersion. (I could be an infomercial!)

Total Immersion (TI) first reteaches your balance in the water ot avoid the problem described above. One of the drills that helps most people immediately is to press down into the water with your upper chest or sternum. Your lung are bouyant and so your upper body would bob higher in the water htan your lower if you let it. By pushing your sternum down, your body will align horizontally in the water, brining your hips up to the surface and eliminate the need to arch your back to get your legs in a position to kick.

Go to www.totalimmersion.com and look at some of the videos online.

My swimming back pain and neck pain pretty much dissappeared after I started doing this.

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doublej

2006-10-02 11:13 AM

in reply to: #557274

Veteran

325

Subject: RE: Lower back pain after swimming

I agree with AdventureBear. It probably has something to do with your head position.

Earlier this year I was swimming twice in a day a few times and noticed that my lower back was starting to hurt. My head position is normally pretty good, but when I was pushing off I would tend to look ahead instead of straight down. This was enough to create and arch in my back and cause some pain. Once I corrected this issue the pain went away.

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Sassafras

2006-10-02 4:00 PM

in reply to: #557274

Extreme Veteran

604

Ohio

Subject: RE: Lower back pain after swimming

It likely is your technique, like others mentioned. You might want to see if you can take a few lessons, just to get the correct technique down. Also, if you aren't a swimmer, you might be getting tired more easily, also affecting your technique, as various muscles try to compensate for the tiredness (esp. if swimming two days in a row)...does that make sense? can you space out when you swim, say a tues and sat?

Once you get the technique down, it might be helpful to swim 3x per week. I can get away with swimming 2x per week, but I come from a swimming background. I could never get away with running or biking twice a week, because those are my weaker disciplines (I try, but it doesn't work very well )