Detailed question on scap-protraction in PL work

[Foghorn]

Thanks slizzardman

[Tarun Suri]

Right. The shoulder stays in the socket while the scaps rise all the way up. In other words, your traps are stretching out. You never let your shoulder come out of the socket, that's terrible for the joint and connective tissue. Your delts and external rotators and biceps/triceps will all have tension that keeps the ball of the humerus solidly placed in the shoudler socket. The shoulder socket is part of the scapula, so remember that the scapular is moving but the shoulder is not coming out of the socket. That should be a given, because your body isn't going to let you do that anyways unless you either have some seriously dysfunctional neural patterns and/or you have suffered severe shoulder trauma in the past and have not fully recovered.

I guess that answers my previous question about whether or not to have active shoulders during my hanging FSPs.

[Cole Dano]

Slizz is right, your body knows not to over-relax the shoulder socket. I guess its open to debate if it is somewhat relaxed, feels that way to me. BUT on initiating the lift, the shoulder first screw deeply in socket, coordinating with the depression of the scapula.

For that reason, doing a set or two of hanging shrugs is very important, particularly for beginners, the scapular and shoulder socket muscles (i.e. rotator cuff group) have to be strengthened and coordinated.

This is why i love this forum, people actually can discuss this kind of thing.

[Marlon]

If i might ask, why is it that the chin up grip hang, done as one of the grtting started correctly positions is done with shoulders shrugged up?

Isn't that kind of like doing a wall handstand with your shoulders completely relaxed into scapula depression. Wouldnt you build more strength that would have more carry over to front levers and pulling movements in general if that very first static position was done with scapular retraction and depression?

[Cole Dano]

I think of that aspect as more of a stretch. Actually most novices will not be able to do a full hang as there will be some tension in the shoulder girdle preventing it.

So in the short run it won't build any more than grip strength, but in the long run, particularly with swinging elements as well as handstands in mind it build good shoulder mechanics.

[Joshua Naterman]

Building strength in the stretched position tends to cause adaptations that lead to increased strength throughout the range of motion. Because this is always the weakest range of motion in terms of a muscle's ability to produce force, gains here allow you to move OUT of this position and into a more advantageous position.

Of course you are right in believing that practicing depression will lead to better depression ability, but that is more of a motor coordination and activation issue. Training the tissue directly is different than training the neural patterns that activate the tissue. You can't really do either in isolation but the stretched position is much more of a pure tissue stress stimulus and the retracted and/or depressed position is more of a neural activation stimulus. It still stresses the muscle tissue of course, but in a more advantaged position.

[Tarun Suri]

That makes a lot of sense if you apply it to German Hangs as well. That must be why everyone advocates 3x30s GH prior to Back Levers.

[Rafael David]

I think you guys are talking too much and doing too little, not even the professionals think of these things, why an amateur athlete should worry about so much? Only train! I can do a straddle planche 5s on the pb and never thought about these things... Do the basics, you'll never know everything about everything, just follow the book and train, damn! :roll:

[learningtofly]

Well, this is mainly the purpose of this forum I guess !

For long term results, and especially to keep going without injury, the more you know the best it is (consistent knowledge I mean).

The more you know, the better you'll train. You know better how to activate muscles (phasic and tonics, superfical and profound, each reponding better to different patterns), how to stretch them, how to coordinate them, how to re-inforce them etc etc.. Each tissue has it's own propreties, and the more you'll know about it the more you'll be able to use them.

This includes the brain...

Then, in the course of training, some of those explicits may become implicits.

So many reasons in fact I realise it's pretentious to write them down

Same with nutrition etc.

Some people are talented enough to reach high levels quite "naturally", as it seems to be you're case, others will have to relay more on explicits.

Of course, knowledge won't replace will (but what is will ?), and they are times where a "bad" shift can occure.

But then you eventually go back to hard work, but hard smart work.

Wich of course is better...

And, finally, as you get older, the more you know, the more you can teach witout mistakes and in a way that is adapted to each.

Now it's time to train, damn ! :wink: .

[Marlon]

I think you are right to a point michael, and some people do just fine when they just put the peddle to the metal and train. But other people really dont use efficient movement patterns naturally. There was a guy at ny circus school who was doing handstands for quite a while intentionally trying to go into scapula depression before a coach told him to push through his shoulders. He was doing fine and he had a handstand, but you can progress quite a bit faster when you have a good understanding of the body mechanics involved in what you are trying to do.

Alot of professionals do stuff without really knowing how they do it because they have a lot of talent. Not everyone is so lucky, and having a little bit more knowledge about something can be the difference between making progress and just spinning your wheels and then getting injured

[Rafael David]

You are absolutely correct, it is obvious that knowledge is important, no doubt, I just wanted to say that the layman like me and like most of us here do not need to delve much into this ocean of information because you can end in drowning. We need this knowledge chewed up, ready to be used without much brains.

[AlexX]

Mikael ask any professional athlete about where their shoulders are during a handstand press, planche, or maltese and most will be able to give a very detailed answer. Heck most 7 year old girl gymnasts will tell you a proper shoulder position in a handstand and other basic moves. So I wouldn't assume that most professional athletes don't worry about these things, if anything I'd say professional athletes sometimes worry about them to a great extent.

[Joshua Naterman]

I think you guys are talking too much and doing too little, not even the professionals think of these things, why an amateur athlete should worry about so much? Only train! I can do a straddle planche 5s on the pb and never thought about these things... Do the basics, you'll never know everything about everything, just follow the book and train, damn! :roll:

I have to disagree. Some people have had injuries or lived lives that have led to their bodies not working the way they originally did. When that happens, we have to go into detail to fix things. I'm now helping run strength and conditioning at my old high school for football and I'm working on that with them as well.

Just because you have not had to deal with this doesn't mean that the majority is in the same position.

You're right, only training will produce results, but if these people who come here don't know what they are doing and can't hold a correct position they are just going to get hurt. Discussions like this help us prevent the injuries and help us all teach each other.