I can barely touch my knees together while doing this, but I do make it a conscious effort to keep my feet parallel and thighs as well, no straddling whatsoever.
This forum is archived information and is no longer active.
SL/PE1 Arch Body Hold (ABH)
Started by Bobby Bogdanovski, March 5, 2013 · 467 Replies · 32,074 Views
I never noticed if my knees touched, but my feet do.
Coach Sommer said:Legs straight with feet together.
Whether or not your knees are also together will depend upon your own individual structure.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
I wouldn't worry about the knees if your feet are together... see Coach's post from waaaay back on page 1. 
Yes I read that, but just the fact that I know I can keep them together makes me wanna do it just for the hell of it. It's just a whole lot harder lol.
If your knees can touch then you probably should train like that, some people can't because their large thighs won't allow it.
When we say 'feet' does that mean any part of the foot, toes or heels for example, or should we strive for whole inner edge of get touching. Like of we were standing?
I thought it was the whole inner edge like you say as if we were standing. If it was just the heels touching then the legs might rotate out a bit, if it's just the toes then you might get some internal rotation. Both not what we want.
something to report as of late that was a huge break through for me. I have been foam rolling for a while now per recommendation of Nic Branson and i noticed some instant relief in my knees and felt no stretch in my quads while trying out PPT involving movements or positions.
about a few days ago, I got my indo board back from a friend who was using it in a circus class and i had lent him the squishy pancake thing and the barrel to balance on.
one day, I decided to try out rolling my calves and thighs and MAN, were my calves feeling totally different with this amount of pressure! the tension that I had been feeling in my calves while using my soft roller had about reached as far as it could help me and when I tried it with the indo board roller, it felt VERY different. while rolling my calves, i worked on a few tension spots and once I made it to the thighs...it's where the magic happened.
my rectus fermoris was -very- painful to work on. 
I was working 2-3in spaces because i just couldnt move through those spots...no wonder my anterior pelvic tilt and lack of internal rotation was so limited! I worked on the next couple of inches down the middle of my thigh and finally the pain was over...only to resume on the IT band and the muscle 45degrees relative to the rectus fermoris....again, worked through the pain, long story short, my leg was almost crayon pink from all the work on the area and even developed a small sored green spot...today was my SL/PE1 day and...the ROM shocked me. I was reaching almost as high as the athlete on the video! i took a picture but i'm gonna have to post it tomorrow from my computer and post a comparative of how I was doing it prior to the rolling.
hopefully my experience can be of some point to work on to make a quantum leap on this PE once and for all. 
KailaniG, is foam rolling something simple to do or there's a good dvd/youtube tutorial for FR? I'm interested in this kind of massage for my quads.
KeilaniG
I started with a foam roller for the quads and now primarily use a Rumble Roller which seems to dig a little deeper (they also sell them on Amazon too):
Some people use a PVC pipe to increase the intensity when they feel like foam just doesn't do it for them anymore.
Also, one time I had a painful hip flexor from overuse and this "Wall Quad Stretch" identified a really tight knot in my quad (to my surprise maybe 6 inches or so from the painful hip flexor):
Even though I continued to use my hip flexor it healed up pretty quickly doing the "Wall Quad Stretch" everyday and the bad knot in my quad went away almost immediately.
Gray said:KailaniG, is foam rolling something simple to do or there's a good dvd/youtube tutorial for FR?
it is simple, I used a barrel shaped object to do the rolling and i focused on putting my weight on it as I worked through the tension and it dissipated. work in 2-3 inch spots, roll for like 15-20-30 times in the same spot or as the tension merits. some places, i was literally there for around 3 minutes. I'm gonna be making this a weekly ritual to ensure my body doesn't try to compensate.
something else to add to my progress is that once I started doing the MN/PE1 with my quads rolled, i could feel the exercise target my abs more. like I could feel my abs tingling after just doing a set of 9 reps(week 5 programming)
might have to take some time to consolidate the reps before progressing onward.
check out the new ROM.
with only three or four specific applications of rolling(because it wasn't foam, if you've owned an indo board, the barrel is hard plastic to withstand BW)
Coach, is this ROM favorable for Mastery? could I proceed with the weeks as prescribed at this height or do I have anything else to focus on before that?
KeilaniG, that new ROM is sincerely impressive. In my opinion you've the same ROM the the ahlete on F1. Seriously, congrats.
Just foam rolling on quads? Some information of how our quads are so bad?
Kei, impressive again!
Adriano Flo said:KeilaniG, that new ROM is sincerely impressive. In my opinion you've the same ROM the the ahlete on F1. Seriously, congrats.
Just foam rolling on quads? Some information of how our quads are so bad?
Kei, impressive again!
gracias, hermano!
i've been foam rolling my tension spots, i'm also kind of a nerd and investigated what could be causing such a pull, went back to basics and what was making my anterior pelvic tilt so gnarly is that my abs were getting really stretched out by my quads. so i started rolling in spots to disipate the tension and bam!
suddenly my stomach got flatter and i started getting faint cramps in my back due to using new muscles to maintain balance. now feel more work in my core during manna work, my SL work is gonna sky rocket now due to the ROM and my SLS/PE1>iM (skiers) got evened out on both sides.
my quads were really bad due to just not ever stretching or anything. I rode bikes for a long time and focused a lot on pressing with my legs. that kind of made things worse. I still have some tension that I need to work on, so im gonna keep rolling in my repetoire after every week or so of training.
edit; Nic Brancon recommended I start with rolling calves. so just roll everything. make -sure- to work on the tension, don't wimp out! (i still need to work on quite a bit of tension spots, let's see if it directly impacts internal rotation gains because i have a lot of tension still on the outside of my thigh)
Keilani, that's quite a difference in ROM you got there, I really need to try this out. Can it be done by just using a wooden staff and applying pressure using your arms?
Hip flexors are the #1 most under-stretched muscle family. Good work!
gohei_ said:Keilani, that's quite a difference in ROM you got there, I really need to try this out. Can it be done by just using a wooden staff and applying pressure using your arms?
I think you'll get tired quick. just buy maybe 2ft of a thick PVC pipe or a rumble roller( be warned, based on your level of tension, it will feel completely different than someone who only needs a few applications of rolling as i still have a lot of work to do)
Very impressive KeilaniG. I think I'll have to be looking into foam rolling also
Nice ROM. My problem is maintaining that . After 5x36s the last seconds I'm barely hovering over the ground. But I'm getting there. If the mastery was 4x24s I think I would have gotten it. I'll spend a year in ABH. Atleast the stuff after ABH and ABR looks easy by comparison.
dritar said:Nice ROM. My problem is maintaining that
idk man....75 arch ups in one SL prep session? 75 curl ups? 75 straddle leg lifts? 75 pike leg lifts? idk. looks we've only made it past the first farm in the shire and still need to get to mordor. 
KeilaniG said:idk man....75 arch ups in one SL prep session? 75 curl ups? 75 straddle leg lifts? 75 pike leg lifts? idk. looks we've only made it past the first farm in the shire and still need to get to mordor.
Ha, that's true, but on the other hand, I do feel like a lot of us are getting stuck on these first ones because we're all basically trying to find our ways to get past our own particular.. issues. Whether it's tight hips, tight quads, weak glutes, trigger points, whatever.. Once we hack away all these issues, hopefully we'll find ourselves back on a .. not necessarily quick path, but a smoother one. Until we encounter our next particular issue. (c:
Here's my ABH. Do you guys have any advice on what I need to improve (except time)? I worked up to 5x30 seconds in a lesser ROM before starting over with what you see in the photo.
KeilaniG said:idk man....75 arch ups in one SL prep session? 75 curl ups? 75 straddle leg lifts? 75 pike leg lifts? idk. looks we've only made it past the first farm in the shire and still need to get to mordor.
Well, earlier this year before aquiring F1 I kinda pulled a back muscle warming up for a deadlift, so for a bit of rehab I did SL PE6 for high reps. Like 3,4 sets of 20. Maybe I wasn't doing them right, but in any case, this exercise felt good. By comparison ABH feels awful in the last second of the last sets.
Personally I think I adapt better to the low-rep end of the spectrum rather than high-reps or time. I any case, I don't think all the progressions in F1 are as "progressive" as the ones on BtGB. Mainly, I think of them as a family of elements that will address weaknesses and build a ... foundation (that analogy is sure getting old around here), so some later progressions may feel easier than some earlier ones.
Of course, I leave open the possibility that the later progressions in F2, F3 or F4 may disabuse me of this notion.
Joakim Anderson said:Here's my ABH. Do you guys have any advice on what I need to improve (except time)? I worked up to 5x30 seconds in a lesser ROM before starting over with what you see in the photo.
retracting my scapula and either elevating them or keeping them neutral helps me with the "upper body" pull portion of the ABH. maybe this can help you, since it's a little bit hard to see if you're engaging the scapula.
dritar said:Well, earlier this year before aquiring F1 I kinda pulled a back muscle warming up for a deadlift, so for a bit of rehab I did SL PE6 for high reps. Like 3,4 sets of 20. Maybe I wasn't doing them right, but in any case, this exercise felt good. By comparison ABH feels awful in the last second of the last sets.
Personally I think I adapt better to the low-rep end of the spectrum rather than high-reps or time. I any case, I don't think all the progressions in F1 are as "progressive" as the ones on BtGB. Mainly, I think of them as a family of elements that will address weaknesses and build a ... foundation (that analogy is sure getting old around here), so some later progressions may feel easier than some earlier ones.
Of course, I leave open the possibility that the later progressions in F2, F3 or F4 may disabuse me of this notion.
yeah, i agree, since this will eventually somehow tie in to back levers and HBP progressions. it's an interesting matrix, how they built it
Joakim Anderson said:Here's my ABH. Do you guys have any advice on what I need to improve (except time)? I worked up to 5x30 seconds in a lesser ROM before starting over with what you see in the photo.
That looks pretty good to me!
KeilaniG said:retracting my scapula and either elevating them or keeping them neutral helps me with the "upper body" pull portion of the ABH. maybe this can help you, since it's a little bit hard to see if you're engaging the scapula.
I'm doing the most I can with that, I just can't get the shoulders straighter than what's shown in the photo.