Reply To: Back in the water after 43 years

[Juniper]

Loosening up those tight shoulders is one of the best first steps towards improving your freestyle swimming. Try some shoulder rotation stretches and a few bent arm hang stretches. Side-to-side and up-and-down stretches, and neck rotations can help too. These types of exercises focus on increasing the range of motion of your shoulder joints, which will certainly help you out in the pool. Some of my favorite stretches to keep my shoulders limber are shoulder circles, arm reachbacks, and arm cross reachovers.