Did about an hours swim yesterday, mainly breast stroke.
The inside of my knees are killing today, the pain is in the joint rather than muscular, does anyone else suffer like this?
Apart from not swimming, is there anything I can do?

Are you sure you're swimming properly? Lots of people think the power comes in breaststroke from trying to 'whip' the legs together quickly while straight. This is very bad for your knees, and would give you pain exactly where you've described.

Have you got any known issues? Swimming is about as gentle on your joints as any exercise can be if done properly.

Yeah but breast stroke is the stroke of the devil. It's just not natural. You're not a frog.

Have you tried front crawl? You hardly use your legs in that and distance swimmers typically only use them for balance or a quick spurt.

Have you got any known issues?

Where do I start??

Not with my knees, no.

Also go for all the power through my arms/shoulders, not legs, and in the normal half hour session my knees are fine.

I'm working on my crawl, having ditched it in favour of breast stroke years ago it's somewhere between swimming and drowning at the moment!

Breathe on both sides every third stroke for crawl – makes a big difference to breathing just on one side.

Yeah but breast stroke is the stroke of the devil. It's just not natural. You're not a frog.

Racist.

Surf-Mat that's the conclusion I was starting to come to, every other stroke is too frantic, every fourth and the sense of drowning kicks in.

Yes I've had this with breastroke. Its when you kick mainly with the lower part of your leg, whipping it round too quick. Apparently this is a more efficient stroke because it reduces drag, but it puts more strain on your legs I guess.

My suggestion for you is to build up strength in your BS kick slowly and/or get your stroke checked out.

But if you are going to have your stoke checked out get them to sort your crawl out instead. If you are having trouble breathing, I suggest slow arms and legs down, relax, so your HR is lower and you need to breath less. If you are sitting still now you can hold your breath for 30s easy right? Thats a easily 5 strokes. Remember breath in on stroke but out underwater. Speed it up when you can do it.

Its the stroke, not good for the knees, do front crawl instead.

I can only breathe every other stroke on the same side for crawl. If I went to every three strokes I ran up an oxygen deficit too much – I think going longer without breathing requires a lot of training.

I always look to the same side of the pool though which means my head alternates sides each length, to avoid neck strain. I don't find it frantic, since it's just an extension of the natural rolling you should be doing. Don't jerk your head sideways out of the water for a great big gulp. you just roll over and inhale nice and easy 🙂

And I love breast stroke.. far more smooth and civilised, loads easier for me and only slightly slower.

breastroke = old lady trying not to get her hair wet 🙂

My hair gets wet when I do breast stroke.

your hair should get wet if you are doing breaststoke properly:

I had problems with my knee for years, and it was suggested to me that breast stroke was not helping.

As above try front crawl – don't try to go too fast and just develop a steady rhythm so you are breathing easily and not having a feeling of being about to drown. Ideally you should be trying to breathe on every third stroke i.e. every other side. However some people, including me, have much more movement to one side of their neck. I used to breathe every 4th stroke to the left, and am trying with some success to increase the flexibility of my neck so I can breathe on both sides. I also found it easier to learn to swim front crawl when the pool was quite empty and you didn't feel you were being rushed by faster swimmers or held up by slower ones and you could just go at your own pace and concentrate on your stroke and breathing.

Yeah my hair definitely gets wet when I do breaststroke, and molgrips I love it too, so much more satisfying, until today and this bloody pain!

I also found it easier to learn to swim front crawl when the pool was quite empty and you didn't feel you were being rushed by faster swimmers or held up by slower ones and you could just go at your own pace and concentrate on your stroke and breathing.

Find a pool that has lanes for slow, medium and fast swimmers. It's easy to move to the one that suits you best then. Swimming technique counts massively more than fitness too. You should be aiming to take a few strokes as possible to get from one end to the other. Plenty of books out there on the subject too.

first thing my physio did for my knee pain was banned me from breast stroke; it puts pressure on the knee joint in a way that the skeleton is not evolved to deal with.

breast stroke is not so good if you have knee problems.
bilateral breathing (breathing both sides) improves body roll and stroke form for front crawl. not easy to achieve if you've done years of same side breathing. and front crawl flutter kick is from the hip and not knees.

the "swim smooth" website is an excellent source of advice and technique.

I have knee problems and have no problem with BS, do with backstroke tho.
I usually do all three breast, back strokes, front crawl and the 2 life saving strokes. Due to various back problems I have to mix things up being unable to sustain any 1 stroke for too long 🙄

Which kick do you use? Recreational(heels to bum) or sport(heels hip width)? Might make a difference, might not.

Also go for all the power through my arms/shoulders, not legs, and in the normal half hour session my knees are fine.

Sorry but all wrong. Biggest %age should be from the kick. Kick, glide, pull, breathe. Currently trying to reduce the number of strokes taken from end to end of pool to give an indication of correct technique. Gone from 14/15 to a 9 so far, sacrificing speed for best technique.20mtr pool btw.

Had some physio on my knee a few years ago and the therapist went to great lengths to tell me how bad the breast-stroke kick was for the knee joints.

Jetski.

My work here is done.

hmmm whilst diving is banned there is no mention of jetskis hmmm

Swimming is about as gentle on your joints as any exercise can be if done properly.

Breaststroke is notoriously bad for joints if you do it wrong. If you watch in the pool, unless you're in a university or club training pool, 90% of people do it very wrong. Doing it wrong is also innefficient and slow.

Unless you've been taught lots recently, if you're working based on lessons as a child, you almost certainly don't know how to swim crawl, I know I didn't. For crawl / freestyle, get the total immersion book "Total Immersion : The Revolutionary Way To Swim Better, Faster". It is genius, and makes crawl pretty much as easy as breaststroke. They also do a breaststroke dvd (and I think there was a book too, but I can't find it). Absolutely revolutionised my swimming – I went from being able to do 2 lengths of crawl in a pool to being able to swim it in for miles in the sea.

Joe

Oh and there's also 'The Art of Swimming', which is Alexander Technique based swimming. It works on roughly the same principles as Total Immersion, but explains them a bit differently – a bit more hippy, less training focused. I found total immersion better, but I did get to that first.

Joe

Thanks Joe. I'll check those out.

Have you tried front crawl? You hardly use your legs in that and distance swimmers typically only use them for balance or a quick spurt.

very subjective – from what I remember a good crawl swimmer gets a decent amount of propulsion from the legs (around 20% if I recall correctly), and a good and efficient kick will also lessen drag compared with either a lazy or limited kick. The only thing that changes over distance is the need to develop the most efficient kick you can.

i find reading a bout swimming very frustrating, every time you read something then go off and grasp that drill/ style the next thing comes along and you have to try to change to the "new " style.

i have the same problem with coaches,, i recently bought a watch that works out your efficiency number of strokes/ time then got told i was gliding too much ,,,,

forget breast stroke if it was worth doing all the triathletes would be doing it

but I still enjoy it especialy open water swimming,, still getting faster despite getting older,, 750m in 11.55 today

I vastly improved my crawl by watching a video of some chinese looking kid on the internet. And a few other swimmers too 🙂

+1 for total immersion. Totally changed my effectiveness in the pool. You realise that 19 out of 20 ppl have bad technique. And many have appalling technique! Makes swimming far more satisfying too 🙂

just swim more. you'll be ok.