Shoulder Pain From Swimming? Treat Your Neck

Yes, your shoulder pain is coming from your neck

I had a really interesting case this past week. A patient who's an elite swimmer comes in to our clinic complaining of shoulder pain.

An ultra sound scan and MRI that was done confirms the diagnosis of shoulder subacromial impingement (usually the tendon of the supraspinatus muscle gets irritated from hand above head activities under the acromium).

The doctor my patient saw the the Singapore Sports Institute suggested a steroid (or cortisone) injection to "solve the problem".

R shoulder impingement

Well, the Physiotherapists reading this must be thinking "yeah, what's the big deal". All elite swimmers (or athletes involved with overhead sports like badminton, tennis etc) always get shoulder pain from subacromial impingement at some point of other in their sporting career.

Well, here's the thing, I got the swimmer better just be treating the swimmer's neck. This swimmer did not have any neck pain or signs of nerve root irritation.

I've seen other cases of shoulder impingement when the patient had obvious clues suggesting it was the neck and/ or nerve root irritation causing the shoulder impingement.

This swimmer did not have any neck pain or nerve root irritation signs. The patient did have a forward head posture which can contribute to a C5 nerve root involvement.

Similar to the article referenced below, the swimmer got better very quickly just by cervical retraction, as taught by Gwen Jull. Of course treatment also included other things and not just cervical retraction.

My swimmer went back to full training in three days with no recurrence of symptoms. Good thing my patient said no to the steroid or cortisone injection.

Reference

Pheasant S (2016). Cervical Contribution To Functional Shoulder Impingement: Two Case Reports. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 1196): 980-991.