DOI: 10.69601/meandrosmdj.1738914 ISSN: 2149-9063

Swimming Frequency And Shoulder Pathologies In Self-Learned Swimmers

Ferit Tufan Özgezmez, Vahit Yıldız
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Objective: Shoulder is the most common site of injury in swimmers. Swimming frequency is known to affect pathological outcomes, but, for swimmers who are self-trained or self-learned the association is yet to be established. This cross-sectional study aims to achieve this objective using benchmark arthroscopic findings. Methods: Files of the total of 783 patients with chronic shoulder pain who underwent shoulder arthroscopy were retrospectively analysed. Among them, 112 were identified as self-learned swimmers and did not participate in overhead sports other than moderate leisurely swimming. Swimmers were divided into 3 groups according to weekly swimming hours: 1–2 hours, between 2 and 5 hours, and more than 5 hours per week. Then, inter and intra-group comparisons of arthroscopic findings were performed between the groups.Results: The total number of lesions was 125 (61 impingement, 21 supraspinatus tears, 39 SLAP and 4 Bankart’s). Lesions were distributed in three groups as impingement (11, 19, 31), supraspinatus tears (6, 11, 49), SLAP (25, 12, 2) and Bankart’s lesion (4,0,0), respectively. Conclusion: Occurrences of shoulder lesions in this particular group of swimmers examined in this study still seem to greatly depend on swimming frequency. As the cause of shoulder pain in these individuals, impingement is more commonly seen in high-frequency swimmers, but SLAPs occur more often in low-frequency swimmers. As SLAP lesions are harder to detect, the possibility of such lesions should be taken into consideration, especially while evaluating short-term swimmers with shoulder pain.

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