If you are interested in any of my three European swimming tours in 2016, please get in contact with me pretty soon as a couple of them have deadlines rapidly approaching. Here they are:

• Cycling and swimming tour of Lake Constance (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) - ‘An El Dorado for cyclists, gourmets, hikers and water sports enthusiasts’ – 20th to 25th August
• Fjords and Coves of Montenegro – swimming and exploring crystal-clear and balmy waters along the Adriatic coast - 26th August to 3rd September
• Lake Orta, 'the most romantic of Italy's northern lakes' - 5th to 12th September.

Finally, while not exactly European, here is the Sydney tour down for March.
• Iconic and Historic Swimming Places of Sydney – where Australian swimming all began - 14th to 18th March
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More details of all of them are on my website at www.otteraquatics.com.au

Swimming offers very few chances of injury, but one that is common is shoulder injury.

Diagnosis of shoulder injury can be difficult and treatment is often frustratingly slow and even ineffective especially if you do not take steps to correct your stroke. The ball-and-socket joint of the shoulder provides for excellent mobility and range of movement, but this is itself a problem because we tend to misuse and overuse the muscles supporting it. These muscles tend to be called ‘the rotator cuff group’ giving rise to terms like ‘rotator cuff injury’. The complexity of the shoulder often means that it is difficult to treat. So we need to concentrate on avoiding this injury. Prevention is better than cure.

The best way to avoid shoulder injury, especially rotator-cuff injury where repetitive awkward pressure on the shoulder causes injury, is to improve your stroke technique. Here are a few tips on how to do it:
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• Do not cross over the centre line on entry or in the pull/push phase of your stroke. Reach directly in front of your shoulders and pull back straight down the sides of your body
•  Improve your catch, in particular work on developing an ‘early vertical forearm’ action
• Do not apply muscular pressure to the pull and push parts of your stroke until your forearm is vertical. This is especially the case when using paddles which, if used incorrectly, can exacerbate shoulder injury
• Avoid continuous one-sided breathing. Bilateral (or three-stroke) breathing should be your default breathing pattern in order to balance and even out your stroke and avoid one sided muscle overuse
• Do not build up your swimming distances too quickly. Allow time for your shoulder muscles to increase in strength
• Obey your body – if your shoulders hurt, you need to ease off your training or take a rest for a week or so, then only resume with correct stroke technique.

Cut back on LSD (Long Slow Distance, in case you were thinking of something else)

To improve your fitness and your swimming efficiency, you need to develop pace versatility in your training. Actually, there is nothing wrong with LSD itself; it’s a great way to relax after a hard day’s work - you get to put all the tensions out of your body and into the water - or just to enjoy yourself in a pleasant aquatic environment.

But, if all you do with your swimming is plodding up and down the pool or leisurely enjoying the delights of the natural environment in the open water, you will never improve your fitness.

​You need to mix up LSD with more cost-effective or value-added training, such as varied cardio intervals. That is why we concentrate on such training in our Sunday swimfit sessions; you do your LSD swimming mid-week.
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