Retract or protract when holding rings turned out?

When im doing basic RTO i wounder if you should retract og protract scapula?

I feel it impossible to retract if i hold the rings very tight to the body, but when im driving the rings slightly more out i can retract?

What is correct posstion of the shoulder/scapula?

Depressed and slightly retracted. 

Joshua Slocum said:

Depressed and slightly retracted. 

Whoops....

I made this mistake a long time too haha~

What do you mean by depress and retract at the same time? You mean push the shoulders forward but trying to push the rings in line with the body. So that the rings dont go forward the body?

To depress the scapulae is actively 'drawing' your shoulders down (so don't let your body 'hang' in between your shoulders/arms - you want your shoulders to move away from your ears). Retraction is basically pinching your shoulder blades together. This can be done at the same time and it should not really matter if the rings are close to your body or not. However, for a correct RTO support ideally only your hands should touch the rings so you're not supposed to have the rings very tightly against the body anyway.

A good rings support (like any position, really) should feel as if you're actively working against the pull of gravity. It should feel as if you're very stable and strong in the position, not just hanging there.

This is my basic rule of thumb when it comes to positioning the scapulae - just do whatever is necessary to prevent your torso from moving along with gravity, or from 'sagging' in general.

The scapula have a range of positions, including:

Protraction / Retraction

Elevation / Depression

Upward Rotation / Downward Rotation

The main point is to make sure you're pushing down or towards the floor.  So in a manna you would retract, in a back lever you would protract and so on.  Obviously in a handstand you have to upwardly rotate, and in a back lever you would have to downwardly rotate.

Where it gets tricky is that you need to hold at least two of these positions at once.  So for a planche you need to depress as well as protract, and as you heard with the support hold before you need to depress as well as retract.

You really need to be careful with scapula positioning.  For example with a front lever you're not supposed to retract so much as widen the scapula, which is a whole other level all together.

The main thing to take away from this is that shoulders are really freaking complicated, and I hate them so much...

i've never seen any of coaches athletes to retract their shoulders in a support hold. i've always thought we should sligthly protract our shoukders while maintaining our chest up.

if i'm wrong could you please post a picture of a correct support hold? because jn btgb i can't see any retraction.

Have you ever seen someone retract in a victorian?  Because it doesn't look like they are, but then the scapula and their surrounding musculature are buried deep in the body...

Bipocni said:

Have you ever seen someone retract in a victorian?  Because it doesn't look like they are, but then the scapula and their surrounding musculature are buried deep in the body...

you can kinda deduce where they are relative to scapula position by looking at the front of their shoulders/seeing how rolled forward they are. better form = better engagement 

Victorians looks like they're incredibly gnarly on the rings, I cannot imagine the type of cramps this stuff creates. it's got to be stuff of legend

The scapular position is fairly neutral in terms of protraction or retraction, you are not intentionally doing either one. You are also trying to press the ground away from you, or the rings into the ground, whichever visualization works better for you.

If your body is upright, meaning perpendicular to the ground, the neutral position in terms of protraction/retraction is kind of automatic.

For me I have to retract a little to get the neutral scapular position because of bad posture.

B1214N said:

For me I have to retract a little to get the neutral scapular position because of bad posture.

I'd like this because I'm in a similar position, but no-one likes bad posture

B1214N said:

For me I have to retract a little to get the neutral scapular position because of bad posture.

As long as you know what to do. This is going to work differently for everyone, even though we are all striving for the same thing, because we all have different obstacles to overcome in terms of posture, body awareness, etc.

Bipocni said:

I'd like this because I'm in a similar position, but no-one likes bad posture

My best advice is to take your time, because it will take a good bit of practice to learn the right position, and record yourself on video so that you can see what you are doing vs. what you THINK you are doing. A partner who knows what you should look like is even better, but they are usually in short supply.