Common Diving Injuries

Summary

Diving is a physically demanding sport. It requires flexibility, strength, coordination and precision. If your technique is inconsistent, you have muscle imbalances, or you skip the warm-up, it can cause diving injuries. Common diving injuries occur in the shoulder, wrist, back, neck, and knee.

We recommended that divers suffering from an injury seek advice quickly to avoid exacerbating the problem. At White House Clinic, our diving physiotherapists in Yorkshire, North East Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire offer targeted exercises and bespoke treatments.

Common diving injuries

As a diver, you'll experience forceful impacts, extreme ranges of motion and repetitive movements. According to research, up to one in five diving athletes sustain an injury or illness during periods of competition. Divers most frequently reported injuries to the shoulder, lower back, trunk and wrist. ^[1]

Here are some of the common diving injuries we see in our clinic:

Shoulder pain

Repetitive overarm movements, poor technique, and increased training volumes can strain the rotator cuff muscles, causing shoulder pain when diving. This can cause the tendon inside the shoulder to swell and rub against tissue or bone, causing pain when you lift your arm^[2].

Wrist injuries

The impact of a less-than-perfect entry into the water can strain the wrists, leading to sprains, tendonitis and even fractures. At the French National Diving Championships, 85.7% of 10 m platform divers experienced wrist pain.

Back pain

Some dives require hyperextension of the spine. The hyperextension, combined with forceful muscle contractions to rotate the body and enter the water, can contribute to stress fractures and low back pain for divers. The Japanese Swimming Federation found low back pain to be the most common diving injury. The study concludes that shoulder rotation width correlates with lower back pain, particularly in male divers.

Neck Pain

Maintaining specific neck and head positions during entries and rotations can strain the neck muscles and ligaments. This can lead to divers having pain and stiffness in the neck.

Knee pain

Take-offs and landings require forceful leg movements. Without adequate strength and conditioning training and a good warm-up, divers can overload the patellofemoral joint (kneecap) and the patellar tendon, causing knee pain. Known as 'Jumper's Knee', the pain is felt just below the kneecap and comes on gradually.

How to prevent diving injuries

Being held back by injury is frustrating for any athlete. To avoid common diving injuries, it's essential to do more than dive. Your training needs to be structured and include strength and conditioning, mobility, and flexibility training.

Reducing your risk of a diving injury starts before you even think about diving in the pool. At the poolside, you should have a specific poolside warm-up. Swimming.org suggests the warm-up should raise, mobilise, activate and prime. Divers should raise their body temperature with cardio, perform mobilisation movements, activate muscle groups with targeted exercises, and finish with prime exercises such as squats and push-ups.

When it comes to the dive, you should focus on proper technique. Expert coaching will ensure correct form during take-offs, aerial manoeuvres and entries. Proper form is paramount in reducing stress on joints and muscles. If you're not working with a coach, you should follow a training plan to avoid overtraining or increasing volume too soon.

Preventing diving injuries doesn't end in the pool. Divers need to spend time in the gym, too. Incorporating exercises that strengthen the core, shoulders, back and legs provides stability and control during dives and helps absorb impact forces. Elite British diver, Scarlett Mew Jensen, has a specific leg workout including squats, calf raises, hip thrusters, and squats to develop leg strength outside the pool.

Olympic Diver, Chris Mears, understands this first-hand how necessary training out of the water is. He explains how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, he primarily focused on strength training. He says, "We couldn't dive, so we could only really focus on strength and core work, so we actually came back in a really good position."

Strength and conditioning sessions should include flexibility training. Maintaining good flexibility in the shoulders, back, and hips allows you to move in the right range of motion without excessive strain.

To prevent diving injuries, you should listen to your body. Notice any early signs of pain and discomfort and seek help before it becomes more serious, which could lead to taking time off the board.

How White House Clinic Can Help Prevent Diving Injuries

At White House Clinic, our team of skilled physiotherapists understand the unique demands placed on the diver's body. From assessments and diagnosis to prevention strategies and training plans, we will help you dive at your best without injury.

Diving requires strength, mobility, and flexibility. Our experienced professionals share specific warm-ups, cool downs and workouts to keep you mobile and injury-free for your dives. Through our assessments, we will address muscle imbalances and help improve stability in the shoulders, core, back, wrists and knees.

Our understanding of diving goes deeper. We can identify and correct biomechanics, giving you bespoke advice on your dive technique.

We help you prevent injuries, and we help you recover, too. Our experts create a plan for your recovery, offering pain relief injections, shockwave therapy, and manual therapy. Using smart plans with your coaching team, we will design a plan that helps you return to diving gradually.

Don't let injury get in the way of your diving. At the White House Clinic, our experienced team helps you recover, boost performance and stay well in the water.

We look forward to helping you achieve your aquatic goals.

REFERENCES

• ‍Swimming World Magazine
• ‍NHS
• ‍BUPA
• ^[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19417381241255329
• ^[2] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/shoulder-impingement-syndrome/‍