One of the things that's great about this cool is your ability to see what muscles you're using to pull with. So we try to get away from making sure that there's pressure on the shoulder. And really where the power comes from, and it's to shift everything from the front to the back. And, you know, we focus so much on extension that sometimes there's some stretch that occurs through the side of the chest and the underarms that we want to make sure that if you feel pain like that, that you can really start to identify where the power comes from and to identify the lats in the back in their ability to produce that force, to trying to connect with the arms in front and then pull through with the body. So in this pool with the mirrors and if your eyes are down, if you're lucky, if I'm lucky, you can actually see the lats engage in pop out, you know, some of our really fit athletes. It's really evident as you get older, maybe not as fit. You have to stare a little bit more. But, you know, we do our best to make sure that we can see that there's engagement through the lats and down the side. So I do breaststroke and freestyle and I'm going to keep my eyes down and I might do some breaststroke strokes without breathing so that I have a better opportunity to look down the bottom and see if I am actually engaging with my lats, especially at the widest point when I'm trying to connect out there and freestyle, setting the arm up and then trying to make sure as much power as possible comes from the lats. Take the pressure off the shoulders. 

So wish me luck and maybe we'll see it. The strange thing is I go the same speed for breaststroke as I do for freestyle. Guess that says a lot. 

Even being able to see it, it's not easy. So without being able to see it, it's going to take a tremendous amount of thought in order to set the arm up and try to engage everything from the side brushstrokes. Obviously, much easier to see because you're square to the bottom and there's more force at the same time, which is cool. 

But we talked about it before. If you're feeling pain on the top of the shoulder, I think you're doing it wrong. 

And if you feel pain through stretching through here, then we've talked about maybe decreasing or declining, aiming down a little bit more in the front on your freestyle, but it's really doing the engagement process. You want to push so hard down that you really feel a tension inside. Here I can just feel it happened. And what I'm pushing right there, what you want to slide the hand down and engage from the lats. So move as much as possible to the back and it'll probably feel too easy if you're doing it right. It feels too easy, but you're going the same speed. 

So you're always trying and experimenting. So good luck. 

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Engage the Lats