This time we’re looking at being able to draw your shoulder blades back, stretch yourself tall, encourage your elbows to be by your ears and your hands to sit on top of one another, to improve the position you’re in when streamlining off the wall.

You may think that’s all well and good but to be honest I don’t care about being streamlined off the wall, there’s no walls in open water! I accept this point BUT……here’s the thing;

a)      we are trying to help ourselves be more flexible and stretchy and with the amount of turns we do, being properly streamlined is a workout every 25 metres

b)      you have chance to engage the muscles you want to be using whilst you’re actually swimming so why not give them an extra workout at each turn!!

c)      Engaging the right muscles generates more power in your stroke

I could go on and am sure you’re convinced so I’ll just tell you about the stretches now! Same caveat as last week, don’t force any of this, it’s important to build into the stretches and to work within your own range.

1.      Arms by your sides, circle your shoulders up, back and down

2.      Arms by your sides, circle your shoulders back, up and down

3.      Arm circles, forwards and backwards each arm. Keep the rotations under control don’t fling your arms round like a windmill (please)

4.      YWTL (like the YMCA – a bit!)

a.      Stand tall and stretch your arms up so that with them and your body you resemble a Y, draw your shoulder blades back and together

b.      From the Y, squeeze your shoulder blades together and drop your elbows so your arms resemble a W

c.      From the W, keep shoulder blades squeezed together, stretch your arms out so that they are at right angles to your body – this is the T

d.      From the T, keep the shoulder blades squeezed together and bring your elbows into your waist, each arm should then look like an L and a back to front L for the pedants amongst you J

5.      Now reach tall and drawing your shoulder blades back, lift from your waist, feel your lats as part of the stretch and encourage your elbows to be by your ears and your hands to be on top of one another (like the head of an arrow in my world)

I’d suggest you do several reps of each so that you spend 10 or so minutes 2-3 times a week with this one and report back when I next see you. The shoulder rolls are good ones to remember if you spend a lot of time at a computer or in a car…