Exercise Therapy for the Treatment of Knee Pain in Breaststroke Swimmers

Abstract

Breaststroker’s knee is a common overuse injury in competitive swimmers who practice breaststroke, usually marked by medial knee pain that greatly affects the quality of training and the life of an athlete. It is not caused by a single cause but instead, poor kick technique, imbalance between the muscles of the lower limbs, and repeated mechanical loading at high intensity are the main etiological factors. Conventional physical therapy and pharmacological treatment are likely to offer temporary relief of pain, but they do not tend to be effective in treating the causes of the pain, and have a high rate of recurrence. As evidenced by recent studies, through two types of exercise therapies—technical correction and muscle strength balance training can help meet various therapeutic goals, such as pain reduction, optimization of movement patterns, and functional recovery. This paper is a systematic review of the intervention programs and the available evidence of such exercise therapy and examines the shortcomings of existing studies to give them a theoretical framework in order to rehabilitate, prevent, and then conduct further experimental research on breaststroker’s knee injuries.