Hayley Spelman Part 2: Improved Arm Swing Mechanics
In part 1, I told you how I restored normal motion to Hayley Spelman’s surgically repaired shoulder, as well as how we safeguarded it for a career in professional volleyball. I could make Hayley’s shoulder strong as hell, but a risky swing is still a risky swing. It’s going to cost her more energy in wear and tear than she needs. That energy needs to be spent on healing from competition, training, and getting that SC joint nice and tidy. She used to do two things in her attack that unnecessarily stressed her shoulder.
She’d almost exclusively follow through by the side of her body instead of across her body.
When she made contact, her shoulder refused to reach high and she side bent at a few vertebra instead of throughout her spine.
Fixing problem one was simple: I just told her to finish with her arm across her body. Then she went and did it. For the record, finishing by one’s side isn’t implicitly dangerous but doing it all the time proves risky for most athletes because, to put it simply, they don’t have shoulders that are robust enough to handle that position for infinite reps. It puts the shoulder in lots of extension and I find that most tall lanky volleyers lack the intrinsic shoulder strength to handle that.
(These two screenshots are good averages of her swings at these times. They weren’t identical on every rep—she’s not a robot.)
If you look at the above comparison, you’ll see two major differences: her spine and her shoulder position. In the black shirt, she kinks at her lumbar spine. In the white shirt, she has a gradual curve of her entire spine. Implicitly, I bet you know which is better. As for her shoulder, the photo on the left has her elbow nearly in line with her shoulders whereas the white shirt, her elbow is above her shoulder. This new attack is much better organized and safer because it shares forces through more joints instead of bending only at her lumbar spine. It also shows that her body is more comfortable in higher ranges of shoulder motion, which was one of the things we worked on in the gym. What her brain did with her shoulder in the black photo was likely protective and I had to make sure she had enough shoulder integrity to let that crutch go. She didn’t reach higher because I asked her to, she reached higher as a by-product of how I trained her shoulders, spine, and rib cage.
Lastly, it appears that she’s had the black shirt spinal pattern for a long time. Check out the photo below, which was before her injury. So, I concluded that her spine pattern was a habit and her limited shoulder range was because it got cut open and stitched back together.
People are going to side-bend somewhat whenever they hit a volleyball, throw a ball, or hit a forehand. But there are better and worse ways to do it. A better way is bending through each vertebra and rib within the torso, that’s why all those joints are there—to share the load. Each one is designed to move, they want to be used, and they want to be used together. Joints need to move and muscles need to move them. Seems kind of obvious, now that I say it, doesn’t it?
To fix problem two, the side-bend problem, I didn’t need to tell her to contact the ball in a different spot. It’s more complex than that. There’s two categories I factored: the intrinsic properties of Hayley’s body and her skills. The intrinsic properties are: ranges of motion, muscle strength, tendon stiffness, energy levels, pain, soreness, and past injuries. All of those can change someone’s movement. Hayley’s intrinsic properties we addressed in the gym—I got her shoulder strong in normal ranges of motion as described in part 1, and I made each joint in her spine and rib cage do what they are designed to do: bend, twist, flex, and extend.
And then there’s the skill side, which is rooted in how minds predict events. Her predictions could only be addressed on the court.
In general, when volleyball players contact balls in inopportune spots, it was not a problem of where their arms reached. The coaching cues shouldn’t address the arm’s position but the body’s position—where the athlete jumped from was the problem. Volleyball attackers, first and foremost, are just trying to make contact with the ball. If I asked Hayley to reach higher, and she took me literally, she’d miss the ball entirely.
She side-bent because she believed that was where her body needed to be to make contact with the ball. I had to change those beliefs. I had to put her in positions that got her brain to realize it could contact the ball in better places if she jumped from different positions with different approaches.
How did I change where she jumped from? The position she, and any volleyball player jumps from is based on their prediction of the flight path of the ball. They all predict precisely where they can intercept the ball out of the air. Hayley mispredicted that spot and that led to her making contact in inopportune spots. (It also may have been partially caused by intrinsic factors within her body.) So I told her to anticipate hitting the ball with different exaggerations, too low, too high, too far to her left, and too far to her right. Secondly, I told her to jump from many different positions. Especially ones that she felt would be too far away to hit the ball. I’m toying her predictions so they become more accurate.
I could tell she was skeptical because after she tried these adjustments for the first time she said, “It actually worked! My arm felt better and got to better positions!”
Of course it did. I gave her this guidance because I knew it was likely to work.
Changing her side-bend took time, but it was a worthy project for her and her shoulder. Repeating the same thing over and over again wouldn’t work. Adding more exaggeration and variability into her practices—changing approaches, sets, intentions—allowed her to create new body positions to hit the ball. They would also create mistakes. She needed to generate errors to learn and along the way, and discover new positions that are better for her shoulder. What’s better for her shoulder will also be better for her attack—her power should increase over time.
With traditional training and coaching methods, all the changes I described take months, if they happen at all. Hayley and I only spent six weeks together and had fourteen sessions. Then she left for Paris and all its delicious pastries—which she enjoyed immensely. (She had a chocolate covered strawberry cafe by her home. Really, Paris? A whole store dedicated to chocolate covered strawberries? Impressive.) She just finished her season pain free and with a shoulder that feels great instead of like it was surgically repaired. (Her team also one her league’s championship, NBD.) She’s coming back this off-season and I can’t wait to keep evolving her movements and skills.
— Austin
P.S. If you loved this blog post and want to not only help me, but help educate other coaches and athletes, forward this post to someone who could benefit from it. The only way we make noncontact injuries extinct is through education. Help me teach more people.