It’s true ladders are mostly leg. It’s not the best analogy perhaps a better one is pulling yourself up onto a box. You wouldn’t put your hands close to the cen

It’s true ladders are mostly leg. It’s not the best analogy perhaps a better one is pulling yourself up onto a box. You wouldn’t put your hands close to the center of the body, you’d have them out wide as you push. Not sure what you’re referring to in terms of lifting diagonally, but as another comment noted in swimming you’re rotating around the center line with each stroke. If you were doing right-arm cable pull downs, you likely aren’t going to have the most strength with your right hand level with your left shoulder. You may rotate, using your core an back to bring the arm down but in those cases I doubt you’re crossing the center line high up in that motion. Because of the rotation in swimming you can end up with your arm that way which will impinge on the rotator cuff. Essentially you want to stabilize your shoulder with your lats and scapular muscles so that it doesn’t fall forward in the socket. That is what causes swimming repetitive use injuries. I say this as someone with two surgically repaired shoulders. I’ve done a lot of stroke work to keep them fixed after years of bad form.