Swim Like an Olympian

Olympic swimming makes moving quickly through the water look almost effortless.

Of course, it isn't.

Elite swimmers spend years developing fitness, strength, skill and an extraordinary feel for the water. Small improvements in body position, starts, turns and stroke mechanics can make a meaningful difference when races are decided by fractions of a second.

One of the foundations underneath all of this is a simple concept: reducing unnecessary drag.

This is where streamline becomes important.

Our Swimming Physiotherapy service looks at the physical qualities that help swimmers tolerate training and perform efficiently in the water, while our Sports Physiotherapy team works with athletes across injury rehabilitation, strength and return to performance.

What Is Streamline?

Streamline is the position swimmers use to reduce resistance as they move through the water.

You see it most clearly after a dive or push-off from the wall: arms overhead, the body long and aligned, and as little unnecessary surface area exposed to the water as possible.

Water creates much more resistance than air, so relatively small changes in body position can influence drag.

A good streamline helps the swimmer preserve the speed generated from the start or turn before transitioning back into their stroke.

Why Does Body Position Matter So Much in Swimming?

Swimming performance is a balance between creating propulsion and limiting drag.

If the legs drop, the trunk loses position or the arms cannot comfortably reach overhead, the swimmer may expose more surface area to the water.

That can mean more effort is required to maintain the same speed.

But body position is not determined by one muscle or one flexibility test.

It depends on a combination of:

• Swimming technique.
• Shoulder mobility.
• Thoracic spine movement.
• Trunk control.
• Hip position.
• Ankle movement.
• Strength and endurance.
• The ability to maintain technique when fatigued.

That last point is important. A swimmer might be able to create an excellent position on the pool deck but struggle to maintain it after several kilometres of training.

Is Flexibility the Key to Better Streamline?

Flexibility can matter, but more flexibility is not automatically better.

The older approach to swimming often placed a very heavy emphasis on stretching and shoulder range of motion.

More recent research is less convincing that simply having greater shoulder range protects swimmers from shoulder pain or injury.

The better question is:

Does this swimmer have enough movement for the positions their stroke requires?

If a meaningful restriction is present, targeted mobility work may help.

If range is already adequate, repeatedly trying to become more flexible may provide little benefit and can distract from other important qualities such as strength, endurance and training-load management.

Strength Matters Just as Much as Mobility

Swimming involves enormous repetition.

A competitive swimmer may complete thousands of arm revolutions across a training week. Being able to reach a good position once is therefore very different from being able to control that position repeatedly under fatigue.

Strength work for swimmers may target:

• Posterior shoulder strength and endurance.
• Rotator cuff capacity.
• Scapular muscle strength.
• Trunk strength and control.
• Hip strength.
• General upper and lower-body strength.

Current research suggests that reduced posterior shoulder strength-endurance may be one of the more clinically relevant modifiable factors associated with shoulder injury in competitive swimmers.

That makes dry-land strength work more than simply an optional extra for many swimmers.

What About Core Strength?

The word "core" gets used a lot, but in swimming the trunk genuinely has an important job.

The trunk provides a connection between the upper and lower body and helps the swimmer maintain body position while force is being generated through the arms and legs.

In freestyle and backstroke, controlled trunk rotation contributes to efficient stroke mechanics. During streamline, the trunk helps maintain alignment rather than allowing the ribs, pelvis or legs to drift into positions that increase resistance.

That does not mean swimmers need endless planks.

A useful strength program should progressively challenge the trunk in ways that complement the demands of swimming.

Can Poor Streamline Cause Shoulder Pain?

It is probably too simplistic to say that losing streamline directly causes a shoulder injury.

Shoulder pain in swimmers is multifactorial.

Factors that may be relevant include:

• Training-load changes.
• Previous shoulder pain or injury.
• Stroke technique.
• Shoulder strength-endurance.
• Fatigue.
• The demands of the swimmer's squad and competition level.

A swimmer with limited mobility may sometimes compensate elsewhere to achieve the positions required in the pool, but a physical screening cannot simply predict who will develop shoulder pain.

The more useful role of assessment is to identify physical qualities that may be limiting performance or rehabilitation and decide whether they are actually worth changing.

How Should Swimmers Work on Mobility?

Mobility work is most useful when it addresses something that is actually limiting the swimmer.

For one athlete, that may be shoulder flexion. For another, thoracic movement. Someone else may already have more than enough range and instead need greater control or strength.

There is also no requirement for every swimmer to complete long stretching routines three times per day.

A practical mobility program can often be incorporated around training and should have a clear purpose:

• Prepare for the positions required in the session.
• Maintain useful movement across a heavy training block.
• Improve a specific restriction where there is a reason to do so.

If the exercise does not relate to a meaningful limitation, simply doing more stretching is unlikely to unlock a secret level of swimming performance.

Training Load Matters

Swimming is unusual because athletes can accumulate enormous training volumes with relatively little impact loading.

That does not mean the shoulders are immune to changes in workload.

Recent swimming research suggests that inconsistent training load is one factor both swimming experts and available research consider relevant to shoulder injury.

This might occur when a swimmer:

• Returns from a break and rapidly increases kilometres.
• Moves into a higher-volume squad.
• Adds significantly more race-pace work.
• Returns from injury too quickly.
• Suddenly changes stroke volume or training emphasis.

The answer is generally not to avoid hard training. High-level swimming requires hard training.

The aim is to develop enough physical capacity and progress training sensibly enough to tolerate it.

Can a Physiotherapist Make You Swim Faster?

A physiotherapist is not your swimming coach.

Stroke technique, pacing, starts, turns and race strategy belong primarily in the coaching environment.

Where physiotherapy can contribute is by asking whether your body is capable of doing what your coach is asking it to do.

If you are struggling to reach a position because of pain, a meaningful movement restriction, reduced shoulder endurance or incomplete rehabilitation from a previous injury, addressing that limitation may help you train more effectively.

That is the value of combining coaching with swimming-specific physiotherapy.

Swim Like an Olympian: Focus on the Foundations

Most of us are not going to swim an Olympic final.

But the principles used at the highest level still have relevance.

Good swimming performance is built on:

• Consistent training.
• Efficient technique.
• Enough mobility for the task.
• Strength and endurance to maintain position.
• Sensible progression of training load.
• Managing injuries properly when they occur.

Streamline is one visible example of all of these things coming together.

It is not simply about being flexible enough to put your hands above your head. It is about creating an efficient position and having the physical capacity to reproduce it when it matters.

If shoulder pain, reduced mobility or another physical limitation is affecting your swimming, our Swimming Physiotherapy and Sports Physiotherapy services can help work out what is limiting you and develop a plan around your swimming goals.

Author in the know

Sam Donaldson

Director, APA titled Sports and Exercise Physiotherapist. Sam loves to treat athletes with lower limb injuries and has a special interest in knees of all ages; adolescent knee pain, athlete with knee pain, ACL injuries, ACL rehabilitation, Knee Osteoarthritis and Knee Replacement recovery. He is a Dad, Football enthusiast and loves to move. BAppSci (HMS), MPhtyStudies, MPHTY (Sports)