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Common Swimming Injuries in Kids/Teens

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A Swim-pressive Sport

Competitive swimming is a physically demanding sport that requires strength, endurance, speed, and agility.  Training includes repetitive drills to develop effective stroke techniques.  Most swimming injuries are caused by overuse and/or faulty stroke mechanics.

A Deeper Dive into Swimming Injuries

Common injuries include:

  • “Swimmer’s Shoulder”: injury to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, or cartilage in the shoulder joint
  • “Swimmer’s Knee”: injury to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, or cartilage in the knee joint
  • Neck and low back pain

Water the Causes of Swimming Injuries?

  • Overtraining
  • Poor stroke mechanics
  • Poor breathing technique
  • Poor flexibility or range of motion
  • Decreased muscle strength
  • Poor core strength or stability

How Can Physiotherapy Help Your Rehab Go Swimmingly?

At PlayWorks Physio, we can help provide education on proper warm up and cool down strategies, to improve or prevent injuries. Our physiotherapists can create a plan to improve flexibility, strength, endurance and improve stroke mechanics. Addressing all of these areas can help prevent future injuries and pain. In addition to the repetitive nature of swimming, kids are constantly growing and their bodies are changing. This makes them more prone to different types of pain and injuries! We always suggest addressing pain sooner, to have faster recovery and prevent more severe injury.

If you have a swimmer who is experiencing pain, has a current/recurring injury or you want to be preventative, you can book your Initial Assessment here.

 

Written by: Melanie Touhey, Interim Physiotherapist

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Heel Pain/Sever’s Disease – What is it?

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Severs- what it is, what is happening, how physio can help

What is Sever’s Disease? 

Sever’s Disease occurs when the C shaped growth plate at the back of your heel gets inflamed from stress from the achilles tendon. Growth plates are areas of cartilage located near the ends of the bones, and this is where bone growth occurs. Since it is the last part of a child’s bone to harden, growth plates are particularly vulnerable to injury. Adults don’t have open growth plates anymore, so this condition is found only in kids. Sever’s Disease is also 2-3 times more likely to occur in boys than girls, and it is associated with big growth spurts!

What my child may complain of?

  • No pain in the morning, but usually is worse with increased load during the day
  • Pain worsens with repetitive activities (example: running or jumping)
  • Tenderness on both the inside and outside of the heel
  • No swelling, redness or skin changes noted with this condition
  • Calf tightness

Things that may make Sever’s worse:

  • Worn out shoes
  • Hard surfaces
  • High amounts of physical activity
  • Big growth spurts
  • Back to activity after a long break

How can physio help?!

At Playworks Physio we specialize only in kiddos! We see kids with this type of heel pain VERY often, especially with the start of sports seasons. Your Physio will take a good look at what is happening and what might be causing it, and give lots of tools to help. Some things include stretching and strengthening activities, suggestions for activity modifications, shoe recommendations, and of course, this will all be FUN for your kiddo.

Our main goal is to help reduce your kiddos pain, solve the source of the issue to prevent it from returning, and improve their ability to participate in their activities again, pain free!

– Darrien Cantelo, Physiotherapist

 

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