The authors evaluated 56 swimmers from Porto Alegre (112 shoulders) looking for relationships between competitive swimming, shoulder pain and impingement syndrome. The athletes were divided into two groups: group I (G1) with 32 competitive swimmers, and group II (G2) with 24 recreational swimmers. The average age was 16.9 years in G1 and 27.25 years in G2. In G1, the swimmers were training 4.56 Km/day, 5 or 6 times/week, and in G2 they were training 1.38 Km/day, 2 or 3 times/week. In G1, 62% of swimmers had shoulder pain during physical examination, while in G2, only 12.5% had the same symptom. After statistical analysis (c2 test) the authors conclude that there exists a positive relationship between competitive swimming, shoulder pain and impingement syndrome.
Swimming; Shoulder; Impingement syndrome
