The Right Dance Teacher Can Help You Overcome The Effects Of Injuries On Body Movement To Improve Your Athletic Skill

Hi folks,

FitOldDog's wandering left leg is increasing drag during freestyle swimming.

I have been struggling to optimize my leg position in the pool, but I find that they wander all over the place when I breathe on the left, especially my left leg. Slowly I have nailed this problem down to my left arm recovery stroke, which triggers a twist in my pelvis. I dislocated my left shoulder about eight years ago, and in spite of ‘treatment by flying beer bottle,’ which improved things, I still have less range of motion in the left shoulder than the right. When I stand or sit and do a freestyle swim recovery maneuver with my right arm my pelvis is essentially quiescent. However, when I carry out this movement with my left arm, my pelvis twists markedly in an anticlockwise direction when viewed from above (right side of pelvis twists forward). This action in the water pushes my right leg down, resulting in a counterproductive kick by my left leg in an attempt to keep my body high in the water. The end result is a lot of wasted effort and increased drag from my legs, which is initiated by my damaged left shoulder. My ability to unravel this riddle I attribute to the several years of Feldenkrais training I received from Karen Dold, of Move with Elan (Thank You Karen).

I demonstrated this effect, in a sitting position, to Rebecca, my dance and Continuum instructor, who immediately acknowledged the effect. I then challenged her to fix my dilemma, as I had tried swinging my left arm wide, to no avail. Rebecca’s response followed after about 15 seconds of reflection, when she demonstrated how I should try carrying out my recovery movement close to my midline. This approach is demonstrated in the video below, for which FitOldDog’s number two son, Duncan, operated the iPad. This video discusses the role of posture in running, and then goes on to describe the impact of FitOldDog’s injured shoulder on pelvic motion during the swim recovery stroke, and the corrective approach recommended by Rebecca.

I tried this approach in the water, with an immediate improvement in the position, stability and comfort of my legs (Thank You Rebecca). I now have to incorporate this into my swim, and as I am sure you all know, that can take a little while. It is great to be able keep my hips and legs high without having to fight my body all the time. I suspect that this will pay big dividends in the next few weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Dancing through life with the benefits of skilled instruction from experts in body movement is clearly a key to athletic contentment.

-k @FitOldDog

 Important Note: These posts do not provide medical advice. You should always consult your physician before undertaking or significantly modifying an exercise program.

Copyright © 2010 Kevin T. Morgan aka FitOldDog, Old Dogs in Training, LLC.