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....
Cool videos, helpful. Love the progression to full stroke drill.
Based on what Kipp (PT) was telling me, the high elbow in your recovery for free in the first video may be putting too much stress on your AC joint. He was advocating a less bent elbow and a more swung-out-to-the-side arm recovery, using core strength for stability.
In the second sculling video, again based on what I understood from this PT, on the way down it looks like your arms are going beyond your "scapular plane" (extending behind your back and your shoulder joints) and so would be stressing your shoulder joint; on the second length you look much more in alignment with your shoulders, which is what the PT would advocate to avoid joint pain. I *think* he would advocate more squeezing of shoulder blades together with arms still staying very close to shoulder joint, rather than squeezing arms and shoulders behind your upper back (scapular plane).
In the progression to full stroke drill, you look like you are awesomely parallel to your shoulder plane: that is, your arm stays right in line with your shoulder and side. Good drill. I am going to try that. I can't tell with the high elbow recovery if that is crunching your armbone into your shoulder joint a little bit, per the PT.
As far as EVF, I am not a good observer of that. Someone else will have to weigh in. Thanks for sharing these videos.
I am going to get Kipp to see if he can post some demos on YouTube so I'll have an idea of how he swims. When he does, I'll post them here.
Cool videos, helpful. Love the progression to full stroke drill.
Based on what Kipp (PT) was telling me, the high elbow in your recovery for free in the first video may be putting too much stress on your AC joint. He was advocating a less bent elbow and a more swung-out-to-the-side arm recovery, using core strength for stability.
In the second sculling video, again based on what I understood from this PT, on the way down it looks like your arms are going beyond your "scapular plane" (extending behind your back and your shoulder joints) and so would be stressing your shoulder joint; on the second length you look much more in alignment with your shoulders, which is what the PT would advocate to avoid joint pain. I *think* he would advocate more squeezing of shoulder blades together with arms still staying very close to shoulder joint, rather than squeezing arms and shoulders behind your upper back (scapular plane).
In the progression to full stroke drill, you look like you are awesomely parallel to your shoulder plane: that is, your arm stays right in line with your shoulder and side. Good drill. I am going to try that. I can't tell with the high elbow recovery if that is crunching your armbone into your shoulder joint a little bit, per the PT.
As far as EVF, I am not a good observer of that. Someone else will have to weigh in. Thanks for sharing these videos.
I am going to get Kipp to see if he can post some demos on YouTube so I'll have an idea of how he swims. When he does, I'll post them here.
