Changes in Shoulder and Lumbar Injury Incidence in Swimmers After Physical Examination and Exercise Programs.
Hiroki Takayama, Masatoshi Nakamura, Satoshi Kataura and 4 others
PMID 39628778WHAT IT FOUND
In 31 male competitive swimmers, shoulder injury rates were 0.32 and 0.05 per 1,000 practice hours at the first examination and one year later; lumbar rates were 0.16 and 0.03.
No control group means this cannot show the examination and exercises caused the change.
Key findings
01Shoulder injury rates were 0.32 and 0.05 per 1,000 practice hours at the first examination and one year later.
02Lumbar injury rates were 0.16 and 0.03 per 1,000 practice hours at the first examination and one year later; six swimmers with lumbar injury at the first examination had no recurrence, and one of the remaining 25 had a new injury.
03At the first examination, 12 swimmers with shoulder pain had lower internal rotation at 90° flexion (p = 0.003) and higher external rotation at 90° abduction (p = 0.034) than 19 without shoulder pain; after one year, no measured parameters differed significantly between groups.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The study included only 31 male high school and college swimmers, and no female swimmers were included. There was no control group, so the one-year injury counts and rates cannot be compared with what would have happened without the examination and exercise program. The swimmers received several supports together: physical examination, injury-history interview, prescribed exercise program, weekly pain and fatigue interviews, and physiotherapist monitoring, so the contribution of any single part cannot be separated. The physical examination focused on mobility, while the exercise program included strength and endurance work, so the measurements did not fully match the intervention. Measurements were carried out by 11 physiotherapists and 2 athletic trainers, but examiner reliability is not reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the physical examination and exercise program caused the lower injury rates. The study had only 31 male swimmers, no control group, and the swimmers received physical examination, injury-history interview, prescribed exercise program, weekly pain and fatigue interviews, and physiotherapist monitoring together, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated.