What has surprised you in H1?

Ooh! And today I've been surprised by an update!

EDIT;

Oh... an update that makes it slightly harder to read. Well... it doesn't keep me from the exercises.

Here is a small tip I discovered today-- when doing dislocates, pinch your shoulderblades together at the turning point. I'm a lot closer to this than I'd thought at first; I'd put it down as a stretch that would simply take a lot of time, not a really active exercise involving a fair bit of technique and muscle engagement.

Cool.

Charm said:

Here is a small tip I discovered today-- when doing dislocates, pinch your shoulderblades together. I'm a lot closer to this than I'd thought at first; I'd put it down as a stretch that would simply take a lot of time, not a really active exercise involving a fair bit of technique and muscle engagement.

 

Cool.

when you say pinch your shoulder blades, you mean to do it on the movement portion behind your head? as soon as its going over, pinch, remain pinched and release once back over the top of the head?

KeilaniG said:

when you say pinch your shoulder blades, you mean to do it on the movement portion behind your head? as soon as its going over, pinch, remain pinched and release once back over the top of the head?

(I edited/updated it a moment after you posted to clarify that.)

I mean that at the turning point going over your head, pinch em together.

Makes sense if you visualise it; gives you more room to use the flexibility you have by giving yourself a better angle. No doubt there's a bunch of little details like this that come together to aid this element; I don't know em, but I'm working on identifying em and will post em up in case they can help someone else coming after me.

Charm said:

(I edited/updated it a moment after you posted to clarify that.)

I mean that at the turning point going over your head, pinch em together.

 

Makes sense if you visualise it; gives you more room to use the flexibility you have by giving yourself a better angle. No doubt there's a bunch of little details like this that come together to aid this element; I don't know em, but I'm working on identifying em and will post em up in case they can help someone else coming after me.

I just tried that right now after working at my computer all morning/early afternoon and my shoulders feel righteous! 

tried it with the new 10lb strapped to a bamboo stick. now I understand the movement that the guy in the first PE/iM does with his shoulders when he does the flexion hold. awesome, thanks for the tip! #fistbump

KeilaniG said:

I just tried that right now after working at my computer all morning/early afternoon and my shoulders feel righteous! 

 

tried it with the new 10lb strapped to a bamboo stick. now I understand the movement that the guy in the first PE/iM does with his shoulders when he does the flexion hold. awesome, thanks for the tip! #fistbump

Word. #brofist

I'm pleased with this new understanding of various engagement because over the course of my 5 sets today, I got it down to shoulder width +1hand each side. Keep going with this one until I get that width for the whole 5x5 IM, then on to... the same thing undergrip.

Hurrah! So much closer than I'd expected. Guess this is another case of having the passive flexibility but not the active. Go liquid steel™!

Charm said:

Word. #brofist

 

I'm pleased with this new understanding of various engagement because over the course of my 5 sets today, I got it down to shoulder width +1hand each side. Keep going with this one until I get that width for the whole 5x5 IM, then on to... the same thing undergrip.

 

 

Hurrah! So much closer than I'd expected. Guess this is another case of having the passive flexibility but not the active. Go liquid steel™!

from 1.5 to one handwidth? oh nice! I'll incorporate this to my cool down and keep it 10 wall extensions, 10 shoulder dislocates(dorsal and pull up grip). 

maybe with that, i can get that pesky dorsal grip to match up with the pull up grip width. #goalsforthisweek

KeilaniG said:

from 1.5 to one handwidth? oh nice! I'll incorporate this to my cool down and keep it 10 wall extensions, 10 shoulder dislocates(dorsal and pull up grip). 

 

maybe with that, i can get that pesky dorsal grip to match up with the pull up grip width. #goalsforthisweek

Indeed. I'm thinking the flexibility was there from various practise, but not understanding of how to actually use it.

The undergrip (dorsal) ones will be more difficult for me, but hey, takes as long as it takes! I'll probably start to dabble in them gently as I work for consistency on the overgrip ones.

I was fairly surprised that after a bunch of supine work on the lower back, I started noticing a difference in how I wear my backpack. I can  now fairly consistently feel my backpack with my lower back where as I hadn't felt it there before. So now the backpack fits more "snugly" around my back. Maybe just an anomaly, but I still found it curious.

This discovery is the reason for not over coaching. Once you "get it" and have that sense of discovery you remember it.

question, does hollow body eliminate the lumbar spine curve?

The mobility is put together so well. It confirms to me that most people have mobility that is pathological. In my work as a Physio I treat many people with rotator cuff injuries. They have mobility that comes nowhere near what is in this program. If only they did these mobility exercises before they got injured! This whole program is so well thought out. You are too cheap coach! This is worth way more than $95.

KeilaniG said:

question, does hollow body eliminate the lumbar spine curve?

Maybe not eliminate, but I've found an improvement. I couldn't say it was from hollow body; I'd be more inclined to say it was from the mobility work re-aligning me to an extent.

Nic Branson said:

This discovery is the reason for not over coaching. Once you "get it" and have that sense of discovery you remember it.

Which one, mine or Pashamurs?

Everyone's.

Nic Branson said:

Everyone's.

That's sort of poetic.

I figure we're all in it together, and it's a case of finding the cue that works for your individual mindset that lets you maximise what you're currently working with. My experiences aren't going to help those with more flexible shoulders than me, but it might come along at the right time to keep someone going with dislocates if they happen to be discouraged.

Keep sharing the discoveries, a hand up not a handout as they say!

Dammit!
I posted ^ and then went to my log, and noticed the Easter Egg trigger sign. Got extremely excited for a moment, until I remembered I hadn't done anything new anytime recently >.<

Congrats to whoever won that~

What has surprised me is the range of mobility drills and the sheer volume of progressions.

I can't wait until I get my alignment up to snuff. HS city here I come!

Hell, maybe I'll be walking up and down stairs on my hands one day..

Realised today that it was possible to actually explicitly quantify the dislocate goal width, tape-measured and put tape around my bar.

By the 3rd set, was hitting this width on most IM reps. Another week or two methinks...

It's certainly far too soon to say that I've developed any new actual flexibility from this element, so I have to credit it entirely to putting in some improving my technique and understanding of shoulder movement, and concentrating on one element at a time. Here's the summation of what I have learnt from this element this week;

Make a nice big arc, reach the bar out as far as you comfortably can, and engage the shoulders and back to rotate appropriately to accomodate it. Simple as that. Add some hard focus time and improve.

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but I keep taking myself aback by discovering how simple a lot of these things are when you break them right down. Not easy of course, but remarkably simple when taken as a collection of factors.

ewethestuff said:

What has surprised you in H1?

 

That as mobility work, we should all be doing Jack Lalane  "Hardest Pushups In The World" by the time we finish.

And that's not even the top of the mountain

Bumping this somewhat old thread (already!) to share a related cue I discovered today.

I am trying to wrap my head around there being two approaches to dislocate elements-- there is depending on shoulder capsule flexibility (Dangerous and unwanted past a certain point) and using the assorted shoulder/upper back/trap muscles to create the arc.

My experience was that today, working on H1-IM8, I hit a bit of a wall nudging my fingers in from the outside, and it didn't feel 100% comfortable with it by the end of the 2nd set. Felt like I was stretching my shoulders.

The 3rd set, I decided on a whim to see how far away I was, and rather than taking a small step, moved my hands to shoulder width and eased the bar over to see how far it would go. Quite unexpectedly, I had no trouble rotating the bar comfortably in full ROM-- no grinding, no difficulty-- far easier, in fact, than the previous reps.

My impression is that I started today without engaging the involved muscles properly, so my first couple of sets were performed based on 'flexibility' rather than 'mobility,' if that makes sense. Whereas there was no way I was going to get away with the narrow grip with flexibility alone, so it forced proper technique (and my mobility turned out better than I'd thought).

How does that impression strike people? Have you had something similar, and is this a valid distinction? Something to remain aware of?

NB- Obviously I don't recommend a leap into a much narrower grip than you personally are capable of. I was pretty close to shoulder width on my previous session, so this shouldn't have been strain for me regardless.

I noticed that with HS/PE1>iM, I can get a fully opened "stacked" HS line with it at Shoulder width now, but I can't flex it backwards as if performing half a dislocate, which "I think" is the goal of this iM, I toned the grip down instead of focusing on it as a handstand line and actually had to step back from my grip to wider to "move through" the stick instead of it just being overhead. 

I will say though, this iM using weight has DEFINITELY and unarguably increased my shoulders mobility to a plane it's -never- been in, but I was using the wrong methodology in fear that I was going to hurt myself like i feared a few weeks ago. 

after looking at the HS iM's repeatedely more than 5-6 times each in movement and in static fashion, I noticed that I was not milking the iM's for what they are really worth. 

that said, after making the adjustment of performing the iM's in that fashion, mobility has started picking up again. so I'm going to be excited about trying out different mobility progress now that I have this in mind and the cues that you've shared earlier that have also helped abundantly 

KeilaniG said:

I noticed that with HS/PE1>iM, I can get a fully opened "stacked" HS line with it at Shoulder width now, but I can't flex it backwards as if performing half a dislocate, which "I think" is the goal of this iM

That's how I see it; my approach for H1 warmups has been to do a couple sets of one flexion and one extension IM while my working sets have been dislocates, until my shoulders progressed to replacing the two halves with dislocates at sufficient width. I'm now also doing extension/flexion reps with fingers linked as a very light warmup before picking up the stick.

Charm said:

That's how I see it; my approach for H1 warmups has been to do a couple sets of one flexion and one extension IM while my working sets have been dislocates, until my shoulders progressed to replacing the two halves with dislocates at sufficient width. I'm now also doing extension/flexion reps with fingers linked as a very light warmup before picking up the stick.

can you help me visualize this? 

how many sets x how many reps of which HS iM?