I shared this clip of a shoulder warm up on IG the other day, and people were really into it, which is always nice. But then I got to thinking about what was happening in the body in the exercise, and that set off my nerd brain. And when that happens, I gotta write a blog post.
Well, here we are. Ta-da!
So, here’s the exercise:
I was using this exercise as a warm up for this sequence I put in an act I was preparing to perform:
Notice how the arm moves through essentially the same pathway in both clips. The big difference is what’s happening with the body.
In the warm up drill, my body is the fixed point and my arm is moving around me.
In the sequence, my hand becomes the fixed point for much of the movement, and my body is moving relative to my hand.
This means that my shoulder is WAAAAY more loaded than it was with just the band, and that both my shoulder and my ribs need to feel comfortable moving in this pathway relative to each other.
In simpler words, my ribs need to be able to move under my shoulder as much as my shoulder moves around my ribs.
What’s interesting about this movement is that the arm is moving through its full end range of motion. In the clip of the exercise above, you can see my arm go from in front and across my body, to over head, to behind me, to behind and across my back.
We use parts of this overall pathway all the time in aerial!
If we’re using both arms, this pathway takes us to a skin the cat. You could even turn into a back flag from there to finish the pathway on one side.
(No, I don’t have a clip of that. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about)
And that’s basically the same pathway you would use to invert and roll into an armbreaker.
If you’re on one arm, this will take you into a flamenco grip.
If you kept rolling with that flamenco grip you could end up, yet again, in an arm breaker. That’s what I’m doing in the clip up there.
Yet another very similar pathway is doing a roll up into an armbreaker.
(Let’s just pretend I actually rolled UP into something, okay?)
But with all these examples that I shared, while my arm and shoulder are doing a lot, the rest of my body still has some support from the apparatus.
What happens if you’re only supported by your arm?
Well, then you’re doing a switch.
This clearly isn’t me. It’s my very talented, and very STRONG friend Leah Jones. She’s amazing, check her out.
You can see how her hand is the fixed point, and shoulder is the fulcrum for her whole body to move around, and yet it’s still essentially the same pathway in that original exercise up at the top.
Meathook, overhead, rotating behind the back, into a back flag.
Pretty freaking cool, right?
So, while I’m sure you already knew that you want strong and mobile shoulders for all your aerial dreams, hopefully now you have a better idea of WHY you want strong and mobile shoulders.
So you can do Bad Ass shit like Leah!
If you want some more details about the exercise I shared, check out this tutorial! I get into what’s happening in the exercise, and ways that I use it in my classes to teach various pathways.
And if you love this sort of nerdery, I’m opening registration for my online course Aerial for Nerds VERY SOON!The course digs into all sorts of repeating aerial pathways, and I’m adding some exciting things. The waitlist is open now!
