That gentle head-up breaststroke you’ve been doing? It’s silently punishing your spine with each lap. Physiotherapists are seeing a pattern of neck stiffness, shoulder tightness, and lower back pain that traces directly back to this common swimming habit—and fixing it requires just a few simple adjustments.
For years, swimmers have lifted their chins high to stay dry and protect their backs—but physiotherapists reveal this habit causes the exact opposite effect. Sustained head elevation in breaststroke forces your spine into repeated hyperextension, affecting half of all breaststroke swimmers at some point. The fix requires unlearning a protective instinct and relearning proper stroke timing.
After three years of gasping through ten-minute swims, a coach revealed two subtle mistakes in my technique that were quietly doubling my effort. By fixing my head position and breath control, I went from exhausted in minutes to swimming thirty lengths without crushing fatigue.
