Diastasis Recti v.2

Another case of Diastasis Recti again this morning. This time, in an athlete constantly reporting posterior shoulder tightness.

I will admit that bad habits had taken the better of me recently whereby I had been dispensing "the band-aid" rather than looking for the cause of the bleed. But with the national championships coming up and the increasing importance of the need for optimal performance, it was important for me to look elsewhere. 

Looking back, it was easy to get into the trap of "releasing" the tight and symptomatic structures - and I do know better - but again, bad habits are easy to fall into.

My bad.

Most understand the importance of postural stability in the water for efficient streamlining and power generation but being in the "dynamic" end of the stability-motor control continuum, the lats should be relatively free and easy in the recovery phase and pre-catch. And in this case, they lacked the relative ability to dim down when necessary. Hence, the stiffness and tightness constantly reported posterior to the shoulder.

Since the advanced DNS course last fall, Pavel Kolar shed some insight to the potential flaw behind the "lats as a 5th core muscle" way of thinking and in my opinion this is true especially if the demands of sport lie toward the left.

From this morning's assessment, my theoretical rationale for this was inefficient instantaneous intra-abdominal pressure as evidenced by the Diastasis Recti. Fortunately, with training this was able to be reduced but motor learning does need to take place and at this point, motor control has yet to be established.
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It will be a work in progress, but I am confident that efficiency will be improved. It needs to since that's the nature of the beast with swimming.