No Pain, No Gain: Normalizing Attitudes Associated with Shoulder Pain in Adolescent Swimmers

Abstract

Introduction: “Swimmer’s shoulder” is the colloquial phrase describing pain and injury in the anterolateral region of the shoulder and is reported by 40-91% of adolescent competitive swimmers (1-3). Early detection of shoulder pain is beneficial to long-term health of athletes across similar sports requiring repetitive overhead shoulder motions as shoulder pain can signal imminent overuse injury (4). However, prior studies indicate that 86% of athletes implicitly or explicitly endorse swimming through practice pain, and 84% express reluctance towards the idea of taking time off (5). Such normalization is likely derived from theories that relate …