The #1 Reason Why You Have Rounded Shoulders and Are Weak

Photo Courtesy: Annie Grevers

By Dr. G. John Mullen, DPT, CSCS

Current dryland programs contain many flaws. Programs incorporate dinky band exercises for injury prevention. These exercises aren’t hard enough for building strength, power, and prevent rounded shoulders. I’ve discussed postural and provided the ultimate guide to fixing swimmer’s posture previously. This article discussed the entire body, as poor posture is a cascade of many body parts. The main area for most swimmer’s posture are rounded shoulders.

Manske (2015) recently published a study demonstrating typical band exercises (band extensions, internal rotation, external rotation, flexion, abduction) minimally improve shoulder strength compared to swimmers who didn’t perform band exercises. Yes, over a 12-week period the group who didn’t do any exercises had similar strength gains! The only area the resistance training group improved was external rotation! This routine used progressively harder exercises, by providing harder bands once the swimmer reported the exercises were less than a 6/10 in difficulty. Despite this progression, I would call minimal improvements over a non-exercise group a failure in the training methodology.

Programming Problem for Rounded Shoulders

The program in this study had swimmers perform the typical band exercises for 2 sets of 15 repetitions. This program is designed for endurance, not building strength and power! For building strength and power, lower repetition ranges and higher intensities are needed! Like the transition towards higher-intensity swimming, higher intensity dryland and injury prevention programs are warranted! I spoke about this on the Swimming Science Podcast with Dr. Lee Brown, Ph.D.

As an editor for the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA Personal Trainer Quarterly), I review many strength training programs and this program was too high in volume to build strength and power. This high volume is one reason why swimmers have rounded shoulders and are weak.

Strength

The NSCA recommends for basic strength, high-intensity exercises at 80 – 90% of an athlete’s 1 repetition maximum. They also recommend 3 – 5 sets of 4 – 8 repetitions for strength gains.

Power

Power requires even greater intensity, with recommendations of 87 – 95% 1 repetition maximum with a low volume, 3 – 5 sets of 2 – 5 repetitions.

Periodization for Rounded Shoulders

Strength programs shouldn’t focus on one area, but should be periodized. Perdioziation would include working on strength, power, endurance, etc. Emphasis on these phases doesn’t have to be equal, but should exist. Most swimming programs solely focus on building endurance strength of the shoulders, when swimmers need more strength, power, and hypertrophy for swimmer’s shoulder injury prevention! Programs must focus on a well-balanced strategic prevention approach.

Finding Challenging Exercises

Finding hard exercises without weights is difficult. This challenge likely prohibits programs from working on strength and power.

The heavy band row is an exercise you can set up at home, if you don’t have weights or a heavy bar lying around. This exercise only requires a resistance band and a pole. Many swimmers and coaches will claim they already perform this exercise, but ensure your band is challenging enough to nearly cause failure at the end of the goal repetition scheme [more repetitions were used in this video for demonstration purposes, also try to stabilize the head, not having it protract and retract as seen in the video].

Building strength in the midback and shoulders help prevent shoulder and low back injuries, but also helps posture. Postural strength is highly important on land and in the pool, as drag greatly influences swimming performance.

Heavy Band Row Directions:

Wrap a heavy band around a sturdy pole or pillar. Next, sit back in a half to full squat position with your weight on your heels. Next, pull your arms back, attempting to have the hands come to the ribs. Return the band slowly. This exercise engages the scapular retractors and back muscles

Reference:

Manske RC, Lewis S, Wolff S, Smith B. EFFECTS OF A DRY-LAND STRENGTHENING PROGRAM IN COMPETITIVE ADOLESCENT SWIMMERS. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2015 Nov;10(6):858-867.

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