You know that tightness between your neck and your shoulder on one or both sides? You're feeling your upper trapezius muscle. In swimmers we work with, it's a pretty common finding. The tricky part of working with tightness there is that it can be a bunch of different things.
For instance, a muscle can be tight if it's too short or if it's too long. You read that right. It would seem logical that if a muscle feels tight, it probably needs to be stretched, and that is a common recommendation from physcial therapists, chiropractors, and coaches. It's often not the best choice though.
A simple resting postural evaluation of the shoulders will typically be able to tell you which it is, too long or too short. If you find that an athlete's collar bones are roughly parallel to the ground, that's a dead giveaway that the upper traps are likely too long and the shoulder are sitting in depression. Ideally, we want the top of the shoulder blades to be positioned slightly below the T1 vertebrae. In the case of lengthened upper trap, they're likely to be sitting below T2.
When we have athletes with this type of presentation, these lengthened muscles are constantly on stretch making them feel tight all the time. Given that the upper traps are already lengthened, you'd certainly not want to stretch them. Instead, you'd want to consider what's causing the shoulders to sit too low.
One of the biggest contributors to this in swimmers is overactive lat muscles pulling the shoulder girdle down. Swimmers use their lats to pull themselves through the water. Given the volume of swimming that most of them do, it's very easy for the lats to become stiff and tight. Combined with tight and stiff lats, it's common to see a hyperextended lower back, flat thoracic spine (between shoulder blades), limited shoulder flexion (bringing arms overhead), and palms that point backward due to the internal rotation pull of the lats.
In order to help tone down the lats, foam rolling can certainly help. It is usually a little uncomfortable, but can help reduce some of the stiffness and limited range of motion that an athlete is likely to have.
Bar Lat Hang
Following up foam rolling with inhibition exercises is a great next step. There are many different options, but a bar lat hang works well. Given that the overactive lats can pull the athlete into a gross extension pattern like mentioned above, an exercise where we can get a little lat length while working on reducing extension is key. It also allows the ribs to come down in front and create much better breathing mechanics by emphasizing full exhalations and inhalations without ribs flaring or overactivity of the neck muscles to get air in. This is incredibly important.
Other things to consider with respect to depressed shoulders involve posture throughout the day and our exercise selection. When seated, it's a good idea to use arm supports. When arms are left to hang for longer periods of time, it can further contribute to depressed shoulders.
Here’s an example of two kettlebells in the rack position during a squat
When we're programming for these athletes, we're less inclined to give them heavy loading in the hands to further pull downward on the shoulder girdle. It only makes sense that shoulders sitting lower would possibly be made worse by adding weight to their arms at their sides. This would mean a preference toward kettlebells in the rack position or barbell loading with a front squat grip, for example. Focusing more on horizontal pulling and less on vertical pulling also helps in the initial stages to not continue to focus on strengthening the lats while we work on reducing their tone.
In part two, we'll tackle the opposite issue, shoulders sitting too high.