Swimming hurting my knees

[Lostinspace84]

I started swimming again about 6 months ago and am now doing about 5 miles a week

However, the last few months my knees have been getting more and more painful (the inside knee). For the first 10 lengths or so when I swim they're so painful I feel I might need to stop, then it sort of warms up and is ok. However, the pain is so bad that some times it wakes me up at night and it hurts when I walk.

I thought swimming was supposed to be easy on the joints

Do you only do breaststroke?

5 miles/wk is a lot!

Thanks for you reply. I'd say I do 60% breaststroke and then the rest front crawl or backstroke.

Breaststroke can be hard on the knees and hips. You might hav to consider doing front crawl more.

Have even

My knee injuries stop me doing front crawl
but I can do breast stroke for miles
I did adjust my kick about ten years ago which helped

Thanks, this is really interesting! I had no idea it could hurt knees so much...!

the trouble with front crawl is that it half kills me as it's such hard work I'm wondering if I could use a float for some lengths and kick my legs but not do the arms as I build up to doing more?

Don't do breaststroke

If it’s the inside of your knee that hurts it’s most likely your medical meniscus (cartilage) which is giving you grief, caused by the kicking out motion of the breast stroke

Yes using a kickboard is good exercise too, but still hard work!

Get a pullbuoy and use just your arms if you want to build up the frontcrawl.

Worth looking at your breastrike kick too, the knee pain you describe sounds like an incorrect kick. Most people I see swimming kick far too wide.

I've had surgery for both my knees, and for the problem I had, I was advised to not do breaststroke legs. You can do the arms with crawl legs if you want, see if that's better.

Personally I've stopped going swimming, never enjoyed it that much anyway. One thing that's good for strengthening your legs and getting some cardio without the twist to your knees is the static bike, particularly the one with a chair type seat. I also do yoga and Pilates.

Hope you get it sorted soon and don't have to have treatment.

Agree with soulrider about the breat stroke kick.
I was told to think of it as
Jumping off the water with my feet shoulder width apart ...
So feet are not very wide and not particularly turned out but FLAT so that there is a push.

Back stroke kick I'm ok
But front crawl kick, even with arms on a float feels like knitting needles being pushed through my knees.

All injuries have their idiosyncrasies

TalkinPeace - if you can kick on your back without pain but not on your front it sounds like you're not kicking from the hip properly for front crawl which is quite common, knees should hardly be bending at all

Quite probably !
But I'm too old to learn it now

Seriously, thank you all so much! I thought I was going mad saying how much swimming is hurting my knees!

I am going to try all the suggestions, but do you think physio would help in the mean time?

TBH the thing that reduces my knee pain more than anything else is keeping my BMI below 22.5 - because then the physical pressure on the joints is reduced.

Walking backwards up and down the pool as fast as you can is a really good exercise for hips and knees
or walking forwards, lifting your knees as high as you can

Yes OP, go to physio. You will get assessed and see if anything underlying is wrong and get some exercises to help and advice on the best exercise to do generally.