Swimming and looking after my knees...

[randomthoughts]

A bit of background, about 20 years ago while at uni I tore and shredded cartilage in my knee and snapped my crutiate ligament. As I wasn’t that sporty I didn’t bother with reconstruction (I did have keyhole surgery on the cartilage).

I avoided exercise (apart from walking or the odd swim) for around 15 years, had 2 kids and my weight rocketed to over 95kg. 2 and a half years ago I changed my relationship with food and started regular swimming. I’m now a healthy 68kg, and have maintained this for 2 years.

From the regular swimming (breast stroke only) my fitness has improved, and to keep me motivated I’ve been trying to push myself a little bit more each time. I’m now able to do a 1 hr 45 minute session, swimming about 3600m, which I’m really proud of, but I’m starting to worry about potential damage to my knees. Does anyone have any experience/advice? I haven’t seen a medical professional in over 15 years, would there be any benefit in doing so? I do get some pain in both my knees afterwards, but knee pain has been part of my life since this happened I probably can’t tell if swimming is making it worse!

Any thoughts much appreciated!

Breaststroke is notoriously bad for the knees. Especially if your technique is less than perfect (which, tbh, very few are)

Can you switch to some crawl or backstroke? The advantage with those as well is if your knee does need a rest, you can still swim using a pull bouy.

I can’t get the breathing right with front crawl, I never have been able to, maybe more lengths of backstroke would be a good option, or some lengths using arms only.

I have a float and just kick as breaststroke is no good for me either. Just like swimming lessons again!!

I too have knee problems and swimming is the only regular exercise I get (other than walking!) I used to only be able to do breaststroke but realised it was causing too much knee pain. So I gradually started doing some backstroke, building up to about half and half with some of the breaststroke arms only. I couldn't do crawl. Then one day I accidentally turned up to pool at wrong time, was invited to join a swimming group and had to do some crawl to avoid looking silly. Forcing myself to do it meant I got better. So I bought decent goggles, practised and now do probably 70% crawl, 20% backstroke and 10% arms only breaststroke. It has really reduced the knee pain.

So force yourself to give crawl a go and I bet you'll get the hang of it!

Thanks for the encouragement and positive stories. I can do about half a length of crawl and then need to breathe and revert to breast stroke for the remainder of the length! From my next swim I’m going to try to vary my stroke, rather than focus on number of lengths.

why don't you treat yourself to a one on one technique lesson - you likely wouldn't need more than that - swimming is good as none weight bearing but as others have said if you only do breast stroke you need to ensure technique is right

or watch a few you tubes heres one

Some of the triathletes in the pool have commented that my breast stroke is good quality, so that’s one positive. I’ll take a look at some of the YouTube videos - thanks so much for the suggestions.

Get some lessons and read Leap In by Alexandra Heminsley

I have snapped my cruciate ligament. I was super sporty so am waiting on surgery but I have bugged my surgeon to tell me what sport I can do in the meantime. He advised that I can do rowing ( I guess he's referring to doing it in the gym), cycling or swimming but he did specify not breastroke. This isn't a problem for me as I am v proficient in front crawl but it seems you do need some technique work.

Currently I am swimming arms only with a leg float. So no legs. These are cheap to pick up and would be a worthwhile investment so that you can focus on getting your and and breathing right.

If you can afford it I would say definitely invest in a one to one lesson and get them to focus on your breathing. The ideal is to breathe every three strokes. I don't lift my head, just look to the left or right and the water naturally moves away fe your face in a kind of bow wave. You need some goggles too- no point trying to do front crawl without. But they don't need to be expensive ones.

Otherwise search YouTube for breathing techniques for front crawl (aka freestyle). Then you can practice on your own. Believe me, breathing properly makes such a difference and eventually you will be ploughing up and down, length after length, wishing you had never spent all those years wasting time on breast stroke.