A Host of Angels
I was inspired to write this blog after reading an article in GoSwim - an online video magazine on swimming. The article was coaching what they call a “snow angel” but really it is the molten equivalent, so I am going to call it a “water angel”. Basically you float on your back with a pull buoy (float) between your ankles and make angel wing shapes with your arms. The purpose of their drill is to train balance & stability in the water while moving the arms. I teach a similarly shaped move on land called a ‘floor angel’, the aim here is to explore and improve shoulder range of motion. What I am hoping that you might see by the end of this letter is that core stability (on water and land) is perhaps surprisingly related to shoulder range of motion.
I coach the younger kids at my local swim club. Many of them have difficulty finding balance in the water - hips sink, legs sink and when they swim front-crawl or backstroke they often tend to wiggle their torsos left-to-right. Efficient swimmers rotate (or really roll) their torsos but do not snake side-to-side. In the article linked above they state:
“In order to swim fast, you must hold enough tension in the torso to maintain a stable shape. And you need to maintain stability while being fluid with the arms”
Indeed, but how do you teach that? Most of my 8-year olds are too busy cavorting about like baby manatees and bashing each other with kickboards to listen to any nuanced instruction, which is probably why swim coaches the world over reduce the concept of core stability to the instruction “tighten your core”. I have a beef with this instruction not least because it is not clear what this ‘tighten’ action should be and what amount of tightening is required. It can also contribute to the idea that we should be ‘pulling’ in our abdomen All. The. Time.
I am especially interested in core and pelvic floor rehab in adults and a common presentation in many people dealing with these issues is actually too much tension in the core all the time. So I rail against teaching youngsters to ‘tighten’ their core muscles. This instruction encourages an arbitrary and potentially inappropriate amount of tension in the core muscles, rather than allowing the muscles to respond reflexively and appropriately to need. Perhaps more importantly, we might not even be addressing the root cause of the lack of stability in the water, but band-aiding the situation with core tension.
Rather than telling kids to tighten their core muscles I am much more a fan of balance type drills like ‘water angels’. These drills show kids how the position of their head, ribs and hips affects their balance in the water. By cueing them to keep those parts relatively horizontally aligned helps them reflexively find the appropriate amount of work in their torso muscles.
But and this is a big but, I would argue that we also need to look beyond the abdominal muscles when we see a stability issue in the water, and as it so happens, we also need to look beyond the abdomen when dealing with a core issue (e.g low back pain, hernia, diastasis recti, digestive issues) and when we are trying to work on land-based core strength and stability.
Swimming is an overhead sport, requiring full shoulder range of motion and I hope you all do some practice that requires your arms to move overhead fairly regularly: the *health of your shoulders and upper back depends on these motions. But here is the thing, due to modern life where shoulders are mostly in ‘computer shape’ they are probably missing full and fluid range of motion and strength. Shoulders that don’t move well can start to pull on other structures -think ribs and spine- that in turn can pull our abdominal muscles out of their best position to create force and maintain stability while we move.
If you are in the water in ‘angel’ position and take the arms overhead but the shoulders don’t have the required amount of mobility, the rib cage will start to rotate and the spine will arch to help get those arms overhead; unfortunately your hips will start to sink at the same time - think more fallen angel than archangel. Now, you may not be a swimmer, but a similar thing can happen every time you reach up with your arms; you may only be able to execute an arms-overhead move by arching your back and losing core stability - less of an issue if you are reaching for a jam jar on the top shelf, more of an issue if you are pressing 20kg overhead.
This brings us nicely to the final member of our ‘host’ for today: the ‘floor angel’. I invite you to give it a go; it is a great way to improve shoulder range of motion while managing any compensation in the spine that might be affecting your core.
Lie on the floor on your back. Check that your mid back is on the floor. If your chin juts to the ceiling, the mid back is not on the floor or your ribcage is thrusted upwards, place a folded blanket or pillow under your head (most folk need something so if in doubt put something there).
Place your hands by your side and turn your palms up. Sweep angel wing shapes with your arms trying to keep the hands on the ground, or close to it, as you move the arms overhead. Do not force the arms to the ground.
Repeat making wing shapes but now pay attention to the rib cage and spine: as you move your arms up overhead do you notice that the back of the rib cage starts to lift from the floor and the front of the rib cage thrusts upwards? You might also notice more of an arch in your lower back. If this is happening some of the distance your arm moved was not as a result of shoulder movement but as a result of spine movement.
Now work on not allowing the rib cage to lift and see how much your shoulders can actually move.
A final point is we absolutely want our spine to move and we do need some upper back spinal movement (extension) to get our arms fully overhead, but what often happens is that shoulders are so limited we end up arching our spine excessively to ‘throw’ our arms overhead. This puts our abdominal muscles at a disadvantage, as well as setting us up for low back discomfort.
*full disclaimer: intense swimming training alone may not be the path to long-term shoulder health due to its repetitive and intense nature. Best recipe is to balance some swimming with a mix of other movement practices.