Just went to a PT who advocates swimming within the scapular plane. Doing all strengthening exercises within the scapular plane (never doing I, T's, or Ys above shoulder level, which I have, alas, been doing). No need, in his opinion, to do internal rotation with therabands; external rotation just 3/4 from front to 45 degrees past waist). No need for overhead rotation exercises; just stresses the shoulder joints.
What does scapular swimming mean? He demonstrated. No high elbows. No EVF.
Use rotation; use lats; use core. Let your arms swim wide and pretty straight during the recovery, but relaxed, with the momentum of your rotation. Don't bend your arms as you pull through the water. Let your lats/core/rotation/and your entire arm be your anchor. (If the lane is crowded he tightens up his recovery a little so he doesn't whack people.)
He was a national champion backstroker/Division I college swimmer. His way of swimming seems revolutionary. He said this is how Janet Evans swam, how Natalie Coughlin swims, how Torres swims, and how Phelps changed his recovery of fly, from bent elbow recovery to swinging over the water momentum recovery.
He says it could avoid a lot of shoulder problems. For me, it will mean relearning to swim.
Hum di dum. Any of you guys ever heard of this approach? At least in demonstrating, his freestyle pulling arm never had a high elbow or bend; he said he was much faster doing backstroke this way and that if I could learn how to do it correctly, I probably would be faster too. And that it would take the stress off my shoulders.
So the idea is never let the arms get above the scapular plane of the body. I need to e-mail him about breaststroke, because I don't see how you can pull without either a fair amount of internal rotation or using high elbows.
Always learning....
I'm not a PT and don't have a medical background but from personal experience I can say that my shoulder problems only occur when my elbow gets behind the plane of my torso (the plane that contains my shoulders and some point further down my spine). That doesn't mean one has to keep the arm straight though. If you do a high elbow recovery with your body flat in the water the elbow immediately moves behind the torso, but if you are rotated onto your left side as you recover your right arm then a high elbow recovery still stays in front of the torso.
I think this is what this guy was referring to. Especially the part of never letting your shoulders get in front of your arms. Always have your arms in front of your shoulders. A challenge. As for the pull, it beats me. I am going to try a shallower, less-bent elbow for today, see how it affects speed for me.
I think the main challenge for someone like me, totally not elite, is that I don't have the decades of knowledge and excellent swimming in my background, and likely depend a lot on my arms rather than my entire body to get me through the water (though I have been kicking a lot). I think about it; I do drills; but my kinesthetic awareness isn't there yet. I do core stuff too, but to put it all together when swimming, in a conscious way, very challenging.
I'm not a PT and don't have a medical background but from personal experience I can say that my shoulder problems only occur when my elbow gets behind the plane of my torso (the plane that contains my shoulders and some point further down my spine). That doesn't mean one has to keep the arm straight though. If you do a high elbow recovery with your body flat in the water the elbow immediately moves behind the torso, but if you are rotated onto your left side as you recover your right arm then a high elbow recovery still stays in front of the torso.
I think this is what this guy was referring to. Especially the part of never letting your shoulders get in front of your arms. Always have your arms in front of your shoulders. A challenge. As for the pull, it beats me. I am going to try a shallower, less-bent elbow for today, see how it affects speed for me.
I think the main challenge for someone like me, totally not elite, is that I don't have the decades of knowledge and excellent swimming in my background, and likely depend a lot on my arms rather than my entire body to get me through the water (though I have been kicking a lot). I think about it; I do drills; but my kinesthetic awareness isn't there yet. I do core stuff too, but to put it all together when swimming, in a conscious way, very challenging.
