Shoulder Engagement in Pulling Work.

[Marlon]

I've just finished up a 9 month program at a circus school and I have a question regarding proper activation of the shoulders during pulling exercises. The school that I was attending is heavily focused on aerial disciplines and one of the first concepts that the coaches made sure to introduce the students to was engaging the shoulders by retracting the shoulder down as far as possible and squeezing the shoulder blades together. Forgive me for not knowing any of the proper terms for what I'm trying to describe happening in the shoulder's anatomy, but it's essentially the opposite of the type of shoulder extension that one strives for in hand balancing. The coaches explained that without this type of shoulder engagement any kind of pulling movements, especially dynamic ones were dangerous and damaging to the shoulder joint.

I was very surprised by this because I don't believe I've ever heard anything about shoulder engagement in this sense even mentioned by coach Sommer or anyone else on this forum. And I feel like all of the gymnasts that I've seen on highbar and rings perform giants and other skills that put extreme stress on the shoulders with their shoulders fully extended. I'd love to hear any opinions or information from people on this forum on whether it necessary or important to engage shoulder joint in this way, and if it's actually dangerous not to.

[Nick Van Bockxmeer]

keep in mind aerials is mostly static type work, so failure to keep tension in the shoulders makes it harder to assume and maintain a clean position. Try doing a one arm hang with a loose shoulder, the body will twist around its axis. The opposite is true of handbalancing since your are applying force in the opposite directions. If the shoulders sag handstand will topple over.

I do not think dynamic work is inherently dangerous. You will see gymnasts relax and tense the shoulders to get more power out of swings and explosive movements. If you try and restrict the motion by keeping tension it will kill all your momentum. hopefully someone will have a bit more input about this.

[braindx]

For most people this occurs naturally unlike with pressing movements (in some cases).

Obviously, it needs to be emphasized when you're working a lot more one arm / unilateral skills because all of your bodyweight is on that joint.

Again, we don't really need to discuss it because most people will naturally do it... if they don't then they tend to progress slower until we can spot at out as a deficiency. Retracting the scaps and depressing them is a lot more stable position from which the arms can exert force

[Joshua Naterman]

You see this mentioned to some extent in Ido's posts regarding shoulder health and scapular mobility, but you're right: It doesn't get discussed directly in terms of our progressions. The only exception is Coach's recommendations on FL work. He specifically says that it is very important to retract the scapulae the whole time.

[Marlon]

Thanks for the responses guys, I do remember that post by ido portal, and the mention of retracting the scaps for front lever work, but it does still surprise me that it's only been touched upon because while there is certainly a lot more static work in aerial circus disciplines than gymnastics, the most emphasis on engaging was put on the dynamic skills such as beating on a trapeze. One of coaches even gave the example of Miguel vazquez, the first man ever to do a quad back on flying trapeze, have serious shoulder problems as a result of dynamically engaging his shoulders only towards the end of swings in order to generate more power.