Neural Trained or Athletic?

Neural training and control are essential skills for elite athletes. These skills combined with strength, agility, and flexibility are a few characteristics which separate professional athletes from pretenders. Some sports demand more neural control for success than others, but no matter the sport the elite athletes utilize precise neural control. I've worked with elite swimmers, NHL, and NBA players helping me grasp the varying level of neural control required at the top. From my experience, swimmers reply more on neural control compared to other sports.

One reason I feel neural control is higher in swimmers is due to the volume of swimmers who are purely 'aquatic animals'. These swimmers run like they are wearing stilts while riding a unicycle! During dryland, coaches cringe and pray that these swimmers will not injure themselves as they run around with their feet pigeon toed and back arched.

These one-dimensional swimmers are unique; it is rare to find another sport where the participants can only perform their sport. This may be due to the aqueous medium, the novel/unnatural movements, or the complex movements required in swimming. Nonetheless, swimming requires more neural control. Requiring more neural control has its pros and cons.

• Pro: It is easier to become an 'elite' athlete. If mastering specific movements is the highest contributor to success, than athlete's with lower amounts of elite physical characteristics have potential for successful. This is one reason many old school, grinder coaches love the sport. These coaches often feel they can paint the lines of a zebra and create a thoroughbred.
• Con: Many swimmers and swim coaches rely heavily on this neural control, neglecting the importance of athleticism and overall fitness. This inhibits overall success and potential.

Other Sports
In other sports, excelling can involve being good at one specific movement. For example, a good basketball player may only be good at one aspect of basketball, rebounding. Being a dominant force on the glass makes an elite basketball player. In swimming, just being good at streamlining doesn't make you elite. Most good swimmers are good at swimming. They can be mediocre at starts or turns, but being good at swimming is essential (note this is for long course, short course relies more on turns, allowing athletic ability more important).

Finale
Despite this high volume of neural training required for swimming success, there is no need to dismiss athletic ability in swimming. Athleticism and neural control are additive, not separate entities. As one rises, the other does not fall. Unfortunately, many inhibit the volume of athlete's in the sport, impairing the top percentage of athletes in the sport. I feel this is the main reason the United State's dominance in the sport is rapidly decreasing. Equalize neural and athletic training to enhance both. 


By Dr. G. John Mullen, DPT, CSCS. He is the founder of the Center of Optimal Restoration, creator of the Swimmer's Shoulder System, and head strength coach at Santa Clara Swim Club.

Perturbation Training and the Shoulder: A Look into the COR System

If you haven’t read last week’s posts yet, I recommend you do so.  I posted an article about external focus cues for skill acquisition and Dr. John followed with a related post on the swimmer as a reactive animal.  A common theme in each of these posts is conditioning the swimmer to adapt to his or her surroundings.  The more we can rely on the autonomic nervous system to control our movements, the more efficiently we can allocate our mental energy.  The same principles that we discussed in the performance and skill realms can also apply in the rehab and injury prevention contexts.  Whether you’re a sprinter, distance, high mileage, low mileage, free, or IM, these concepts of reactivity are compatible with any swimming system.  

There’s an old saying that “Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”  Such is the case with perturbation training in the performance, general fitness, and rehabilitation realms.  Perturbation training first hit mainstream as clinicians of the 1990s and 2000s realized therapy was about more than isolated muscle testing and modalities.  Unfortunately, many fitness professionals (and some rehab professionals too), have made a total mess of perturbation training with trainers in an endless competition to create the most outlandish BOSU exercise.

 
Sarcasm aside, as with any tool, it’s important to properly match the application of the tool to the needs of the individual(s) we are training or coaching.  If you read the preview of the COR Shoulder Guide last week or saw Dr. John’s post on Swimming World, you’ll note a few perturbation exercises included, such as push ups and catches.  Perturbation comes in various forms such as those initiated by the athlete/patient/client, those initiated by an outside source, and those combining these two forms.  You’ll find all of these in the COR Shoulder System.

The key factor for perturbation training is muscle timing.  Even though pool swimming involves repetitive use in discrete patterns (unlike team sports, which are entirely unpredictable), the nature of the water is ever changing around us.  Even if you are alone in the pool, the water is constantly changing in ways the body can’t see or fully predict.   Proficiency is a function of how well the brain can predict the turbulence of the aquatic environment, hence the term “feel for the water.”  In fact, the difference between elite athletes and non-elites in many sports is noted by sport-specific perceptive ability (Kioumourtzoglou 1998). One hypothesis why many rehab and prevention protocols fail is they don’t address this unpredictability.    

The two main properties addressed via perturbation training are anticipation and deceleration.  We’ll talk about anticipation first.  Whether swimming in the water or moving on land, the body must react subconsciously to changes that it can’t see.  Even though your shoulders may be “strong” in a quantitative sense (how much you can lift), they might be woefully underprepared to handle the proprioreceptive demands foisted upon them by competitive swimming.  Muscle length, strength, and timing all matter for optimal shoulder health and no property should be overlooked.  

By training the body to handle the unpredictable via perturbations, the better we condition it to handle the demands for dynamic stability in the water.  Muscle timing can differ significantly in comparing a healthy shoulder with an unhealthy shoulder.  Impinged shoulders routinely show decreased and/or delayed firing patterns in the serratus anterior, rotator cuff, and lower and middle trapezius.  The upper trapezius and middle deltoid tend to fire early (Phadke 2009).  Think of muscle timing like a musical group.  Everyone can hit all the right notes, but if people are singing at the wrong times, you’ll end up with an incoherent musical mess!  

Although not a swimming study, Popa (2008) found that specific training could help divers create an effective frame of reference to deal with pending perturbations.  The nature of perturbations in swimming is different than those of the diving board/platform, but there is evidence that dealing with perturbations is a trainable skill.  Pain, injury, and surgical interventions can alter the body’s awareness of the shoulder, necessitating specific training to restore optimal muscle timing (Myers 2000, Sarfan 2001).  Perturbations can help in this role.          

Deceleration is an overlooked property in many rehab and strengthening protocols, which is unfortunate.  Escamilla (2009) and Dr. James Andrews conducted an exhaustive study of overhead sports and found the highest torque, force, and muscle activity occurred during the deceleration and arm cocking phases of overhead movements.   These are both acts of changing direction.  Deceleration affects individual joint systems but the body as a whole, which is why you’ll find perturbation exercises in the COR Shoulder System in both compound movements push ups and pull ups, and in localized shoulder movements.  It is believed that most injuries occur during the deceleration and arm cocking phases of movement.

Although we aren’t imposing anywhere near maximal forces with perturbation exercises, a perturbation forces the body decelerate in response to an outside force and bring the joint back into centration.  If the body does not make the appropriate response to the perturbation, the joint would either dislocate (an extreme example, though unlikely) or we’d completely lose balance and fall.  Repetition of perturbation tasks should result in optimal timing for the appropriate muscles to keep the joint in place and avoid stress on the surrounding structures.  Shoulder health is not just about strengthening that which is thought to be weak; it is also about calming that which has a tendency to overpower.

Summary
Perturbation training is often a missing link in shoulder programs to address propriorecption in and around the joint.  Through this post we have offered a preview behind the “Why” of perturbation training when you see these exercises in the COR Shoulder System.  Perturbation exercises complement training of muscle length and strength, thereby allowing for full expression of these properties in a healthy shoulder and to restore the health of the injured shoulder.   

By Allan Phillips. Allan and his wife Katherine are heavily involved in the strength and conditioning community, for more information refer to Pike Athletics.

References

1. Escamilla RF, Andrews JR.  Shoulder muscle recruitment patterns and related biomechanics during upper extremity sports. Sports Med. 2009;39(7):569-90. doi: 10.2165/00007256-200939070-00004.
2. Myers JB, Lephart SM.  The role of the sensorimotor system in the athletic shoulder. J Athl Train. 2000 Jul;35(3):351-63.
3. Safran MR, Borsa PA, Lephart SM, Fu FH, Warner JJ.  Shoulder proprioception in baseball pitchers.  J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2001 Sep-Oct;10(5):438-44.
4. Kioumourtzoglou E, Kourtessis T, Michalopoulou M, Derri V.Percept Mot Skills. Differences in several perceptual abilities between experts and novices in basketball, volleyball and water-polo. 1998 Jun;86(3 Pt 1):899-912.
5. Popa T, Bonifazi M, della Volpe R, Rossi A, Mazzocchio R.  Anticipatory control of impending postural perturbation in elite springboard divers.Eur J Appl Physiol. 2008 Dec;104(6):1007-11. Epub 2008 Aug 26.
6. Phadke V, Camargo P, Ludewig P.  Scapular and rotator cuff muscle activity during arm elevation: A review of normal function and alterations with shoulder impingement. Rev Bras Fisioter. 2009 Feb 1;13(1):1-9.

Weekly Round-up

1. 7 Things I learned in 2007 with Eric Cressey.
2. Butterfly: Both Kicks Should be Created Equal by Russell Mark. 
3. Coaches in the Know: Paul Yetter.
4. Fix your Technique, Fix your Shoulder by Russell Mark. Looking to prevent shoulder pain? Buy the Swimmer's Shoulder System today!
5. Prevent Overtraining by Charles Poliquin. 
6. Interview - Mike Bottom. 
7. Training Tip Thursday - Catch Drills. 

COR Swimmer's Shoulder System

Below is the preface from my e-book, a part of the COR Swimmer's Shoulder System. I've been working on this piece for the past few years and am proud of how it came out. I put a lot of work into this system and truly believe it will change many shoulder prevention programs for the better. More importantly, I know it will prolong and improve many swimmer's careers.

If you're a habitual reader of this website, thank you! When I started Swim Sci we used to receive 10 visits on a popular day. Now we receive more than 1,000 page views a day and have a great, expanding staff of writers. The goal of this website is to remain free with minimal ads and great content, which is difficult due to the time requirements associated with maintaining a website. If you've been a regular reader of this website, you've enjoyed many hours of free content. For this website to be successful, we must support our writers with their individual projects. We here at Swim Sci do not ask much of our readers, but we are asking you to support our writers and website by purchasing, or encouraging others to purchase, the COR Swimmer's Shoulder System. Thanks for all the support and keep swimming!

Preface

I’ve been involved in swimming for a long time. At the age of three I was tossed into swim lessons, and at the ripe age of four I started swimming year- round for the local YMCA team. I became deeply involved in the sport. Through the ups and downs, ranging from older kids tying my shoelaces in knots during practice to accepting a collegiate scholarship, I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed my time and hope my enjoyment never ends. My lifelong passion for the sport has led me to make this product. I hope everyone exposed to swimming has a similar feeling and, if they wish, a long-lasting experience as an athlete, coach, and/or parent.

Whether you have followed me on Swimming Science, Swimming World Magazine, Swimmer Magazine, or at the Center of Optimal Restoration, LLC, you know I delve into a wide variety of topics. I’m easily immersed in many topics with passion and curiosity as my driving force. My recent passion is injury prevention, and a After helping countless injured athletes, it has occurred to me that injury prevention is much easier than injury rehabilitation.

Swimming careers are often slowed or interrupted by shoulder injuries. Shoulder pain runs rampant in the sport, and it is estimated that 80% of swimmers suffer from shoulder pain at some point during their career (McMaster, 1993). With acknowledgement that complete eradication of shoulder injuries would be impossible, it is my goal to reduce and prevent shoulder pain as much as possible. The only way to completely prevent musculoskeletal injuries is inactivity, but this leads to cardiovascular disease, chronic pathologies, and other serious problems. The goal of this product is to help every swimmer prolong his or her swimming career, whether this person is a masters swimmer who dives into the pool at 6 am to start the day, an up-and-coming age group swimmer who peaks too early due to shoulder pain, or a world record holder pushing the limit of the body to go where no person has gone before.

Over the years I’ve worked with many top athletes who have suffered with shoulder pain, and through using the techniques described in this product, I was able to help them continue swimming towards their goals. I hope this product prevents athletes from reaching the point of questioning their careers, and helps keep alive their desire to have chronically dry skin and chlorine bleached hair.

Keep Swimming,

Dr. John, DPT, CSCS