SL/PE1 Arch Body Hold (ABH)

Did my first 60 second ABH set last week. Going forward.

The iM for this movement is 5 hip circles in one direction and 5 the other right?

DESTINY said:

Failed 4x48 today, had it last cycle and a few more before that. I hope it's because my form is getting better. Very frustrating! Probably gonna step back to 4x24 or whatever week 5 is.

If you take videos periodically you can tell whether or not form is improving.

I'm still trying to master ABH PE1 5x30 (5x60 seems pretty far away) so I started a little grease the groove where I do a single practice set maybe once or twice a day on my non-ABH Foundation 1 days.  This single set hold time may not be as long as the Foundation 1 recommended hold time for that particular week because I want to stay fresh for the next scheduled ABH session.

The reason for this is I'm trying to improve the neurological adaptation in addition to the obvious goal of increasing static hold time by increasing weekly volume.

IcedDante said:

The iM for this movement is 5 hip circles in one direction and 5 the other right?

That's what I do. Really recommend circling both ways, as they mobilize the muscles differently.

Any tips on form? The video is attached because I don't understand how to put it in the post

Capture_20140128_3.wmv

Ethan, I recommend reading Wheezer's post and following that advice. Your form is pretty sloppy right now as it seems like your legs are bent and your arms are not extended.

For future reference posting a YouTube link is preferable. You can even make the video private so that it is accessible by hyperlink only if you don't want it out on Internet-land

how do you do that?

Sign in to youtube with gmail (or G+) account, or creat a new account if you dont have one.

Once in youtube click on "upload" button, select your video,  select privacy to "Unlisted" and when it's uploaded paste the link here. The interface is pretty intuitive.

Trying something new.. going to add 3 seconds every workout. At 5x30 so ideally () I would finish 5x60 in 5 weeks. 

Today, while doing ABH, I decided to add 2 lbs of ankle weights to each leg for the first 3 sets of 4x60, and remove the weights on the last set.

Result. No difference between the 3rd set and the 4th set in terms of fatigue.

On the 4th set, my legs felt no lighter with the ankle weights removed, and my "suffering" was no less burdensome than the three sets prior.

Regardless, I'm going to keep doing this for a few weeks for the psychological boost it gives me, going into the last set, realizing that from an endurance perspective it's probably not adding any benefits.

Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions about this contraption?  

~Atticus said:

Today, while doing ABH, I decided to add 2 lbs of ankle weights to each leg for the first 3 sets of 4x60, and remove the weights on the last set.

 

Result. No difference between the 3rd set and the 4th set in terms of fatigue.

 

On the 4th set, my legs felt no lighter with the ankle weights removed, and my "suffering" was no less burdensome than the three sets prior.

 

Regardless, I'm going to keep doing this for a few weeks for the psychological boost it gives me, going into the last set, realizing that from an endurance perspective it's probably not adding any benefits.

 

Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions about this contraption?  

If you want some fun put the weights on your wrists

Legs is 'just' a case of locking em in and out-stubborning the clock. Not so much strength as activation and willingness to hold till the beep.

I returned to week 1 so many times but I think my form is improving... What do you think?

I this form good enough to start building volume? Would it be enough for mastery?

Looks good mlaen!

Warming up with bridges and hip flexor stretching makes ABH so much easier...

So, after months of doing Sl/PE0.5 (legs bent and arms pointing towards feet) today it was time to start on the real deal again.

By my eyes it looks kinda like the demo video and I am pretty happy with my form to be honest. Tell me what you guys think.

That's looking good!!   Are your toes and heels touching?

Jennifer said:

That's looking good!!   Are your toes and heels touching?

Yes they are   I am a bit worried that my knees aren't touching though, thanks to my legs rotating outwards a tiny bit.

Yeah, heels touching is what makes it extra special, right?  lol

Well, I have always done them with with toes and heels together, even before F1, so I'm kinda used to that 

Ok, I've been struggling massively with those.

I hope this week (deload week) I've made some breakthrough, will see during regular weeks. How deload week could help with progress?

Taking a step back, nearly everytime during SL my lower back was suffering (plus hamstring were getting way to tight, sometimes I was getting a bit of numb feeling in foot at the end of the set), lower back pain/shaking/cramps wasn't what was expected here I was thinking, hence probably rightly, head was giving up first (30s max). There was good Kit advice earlier, but I couldn't get it to work. I've started doing glute activation (Kit's video) and shortly I've started feeling glutes starting to activate during SL, but lower back issue was still there and final effect was the same. I've decided to try greasing it a bit, delod week came, I didn't do normal programming for this week, instead tried to do a small bit of SL most of the days while playing with starting position and activation (i.e. I've tried number of times to get into arch - dropping down quickly everytime I was feeling I'm stressing lower back too much). And suddenly in last couple of days I was able to do a 60s set feeling it mostly in glutes (some combination of flat back and butt squeeze before starting lifting worked), at the end no pain in the lower back and small doms next day (best butt pain I could get ). ROM is still bad despite some work, but I would like to be able to finally increase sets time while trying to increase ROM further. Still have to see if this is going to really help later, but now I'm finally a bit positive.

So, why I'm posting this long (sorry) text? - if you are in similar situation try to work on your starting position and how you get into arch, maybe this could be the solution.

Found this old post by Cole Dano, which I thought interesting in relation to my previous question about why it can look like the majority of the bend is happening in the lower back, even amongst well trained athletes.  So in case anyone else was interested in that, here is the post:

"I've seen plenty of girls (and even some men) with extreme backbends that are only in the lower back.

I had one male colleague who had a very extreme back bend and he said you just had to get one vertebra in lower back loose. Well this is a very bad way to think and i don't agree with it whatsoever. There are countless young girls out there that have been injured from doing bad backbends with poor coaches.

I know because they wind up in yoga classes as adults.

You have to spread the bend over the whole spine.

Now if you can do this properly and get to the point you are doing a very deep backbend, it can look like the body is bent at one place, the mid-back, however that because the spine is actually moving into the chest cavity."

I can't say I understand what that means, that the spine moves into the chest cavity, but if anyone knows I would love to hear more.  cheers. 

gohei_ said:

So, after months of doing Sl/PE0.5 (legs bent and arms pointing towards feet) today it was time to start on the real deal again.

By my eyes it looks kinda like the demo video and I am pretty happy with my form to be honest. Tell me what you guys think.

 

slpe1.png

 Looking really good Gohei; I'm so proud that a fellow 0.5er made it to that point! Did you go straight from arms pointing back to arms pointing forward, or did you work on an intermediate step such as arms pointing 90 degrees away from your body?

-MR said:

 Looking really good Gohei; I'm so proud that a fellow 0.5er made it to that point! Did you go straight from arms pointing back to arms pointing forward, or did you work on an intermediate step such as arms pointing 90 degrees away from your body?

Thanks  No I went to the real ABH directly. 

Amir Giles said:

...

Now if you can do this properly and get to the point you are doing a very deep backbend, it can look like the body is bent at one place, the mid-back, however that because the spine is actually moving into the chest cavity."

 

I can't say I understand what that means, that the spine moves into the chest cavity, but if anyone knows I would love to hear more.  cheers. 

He means, looking side on, the curve of the thoracic spine is obscured by the ribs and the musculature making it appear less curved than it actually is.