Which F1 exercise is your Nemesis?

Even though I was stronger with some exercises than others, I began at PE1/Week 1 for everything.

As the weeks have progressed (week 10 right now), I have found that EVERY exercise is my nemesis; because there isn't a single one with which I haven't at the very least, improved form.

That said; the Arch Body Hold practically reduced me to tears by the 4th set on Monday and it became my 1st failure - got to about 50 secs and just could not hold myself up off the floor any longer.  This is going to take me a LONG time to master.

I think I'm getting worse at RC/PE6...

I don't know what my problem is, I can do plenty of strict pullups and difficult variations, but this is giving me real grief. I guess I just keep plugging away at it, as I have been for a few months...

For the moment I guess it's likely just because I'm testing through F2, so I'm doing a lot of new exercises that are strengthening me in new and interesting ways. I'll shunt it back to the start of my F sessions to refocus on it, and do what I can.

I won't master RC/PE6 during this cycle (I'm at week 10), so I'm beginning to think about strategies for how to deal with it. Greasing the groove is out of the question for me, will definitely screw too much with recovery, and just mess up my schedule. I may begin at week five, but add 8 or 16 kg to build capacity, and then drop the weights at week 11 to get an extra boost. Don't know if it'll work though.

G2G was working well for me, but then I got sidetracked with F2...

Maybe that's the best thing to do. I can solidly hit 2 sets of 60 but after that it drops off so fast. It may have been anomalous, but today was a notch below my best...

The annoying thing is that this is getting too high for G2G to be ideal.  Still, 30sec holds G2G style holds might help keep my nervous system calmer when doing longer sets. Welcoming any advice here!

Charm said:

I think I'm getting worse at RC/PE6...

I don't know what my problem is, I can do plenty of strict pullups and difficult variations, but this is giving me real grief. I guess I just keep plugging away at it, as I have been for a few months...

 

For the moment I guess it's likely just because I'm testing through F2, so I'm doing a lot of new exercises that are strengthening me in new and interesting ways. I'll shunt it back to the start of my F sessions to refocus on it, and do what I can.

Don't worry; keep your chin up! 

it's kind of refreshing to know that I am not the only one struggling with  SL/PE1 !

I will probably have a front lever before trying the F2 variations of SL

RC/PE3 are too difficult to master. I am slowly adding reps (currently 4x 8 reps) but struglle to add more without loosing form.

Charm said:

...help keep my nervous system calmer when doing longer sets.

Know what you mean - it's an anxiety-provoking exercise. One minute you're telling yourself to calm down, it's not so bad, next minute uncontrollable leg spasms and 'Nnnnnnngghh nnnnnngh!!!!!'. Just evil.

Hari_Seldon said:

Don't worry; keep your chin up! 

I see what you did there

I don't get the leg spasms Ravn, and I think the stress I do get in my biceps is mostly imaginary >.< but I can't seem to get my head past it. It's like learning low horse all over again, except the arms can't spread the load as efficiently.

There's a thought. Although most of the work is in my back, is that what (one of) the goal(s) of this exercise is? To learn to shift the pull work more efficiently and unconsciously to the back instead of arms? And that my arms will keep suffering until they learn that?

I most certainly don't think the stress in the biceps is imaginary, I think you are persuading your biceps to believe that it is though!

There's definitely something to be gained by just contracting hard enough that the chin stays up. An overly hard contraction will burn the candle faster.

And don't worry, just hang in there!

I dunno, ill keep at it and drop occasional shorter sets in as practise on the recruitment part. Cheers, good luck with yours

Charm said:

I think I'm getting worse at RC/PE6...

I don't know what my problem is, I can do plenty of strict pullups and difficult variations, but this is giving me real grief. I guess I just keep plugging away at it, as I have been for a few months...

 

For the moment I guess it's likely just because I'm testing through F2, so I'm doing a lot of new exercises that are strengthening me in new and interesting ways. I'll shunt it back to the start of my F sessions to refocus on it, and do what I can.

I think the I will struggle with these as well. I am strong in pull ups but holding for 5x60secs will get me.

Mark Collins said:

I think the I will struggle with these as well. I am strong in pull ups but holding for 5x60secs will get me.

Don't write yourself off beforehand I'm unsure what my weak link is, no reason it should be yours too.

ABH -- After finally getting through 5x60 last week, I was dissapointed to realize I can't do the 'rock' at all; so I guess I'm starting over with more "arch".

HBP PPP+Xiao Peng was definitely the hardest few weeks for the HBP routine. Everything after that felt like a breeze in comparison.

SLS PE2 Twisting Squat mobility was pretty brutal. I should definitely cycle back through the end of that again...

SLS/SE1! It's not that I cannot perform the movement, (I can squat very well), the problem is I tend to lose balance for either over compensating a lean toward the front with arms out or under compensating by leaning too far back and fall smack on my cranium and arse.

There are times where I actually get a really great set in with total focus and perform the movement beautifully.

Previously I was working on single leg progressions long before I bought the F1 program however it seems to me I've got some work ahead of me this month to get "balanced" in my routine. (Pun intended.) I couldn't get deep enough when I was doing training a different way so I opted for using a bench/plyometric boxes to make progressive degrees of deeper single legged squats.

(Side thought: Perhaps this could be of use to those of use who are wanting something to do until ALL of the Foundation series is released and mastered the lasted and greatest SLS progression.)

 SL/PE1 and HBP/PE2.  Week 11 of HBP/PE2 is rough, I can only do 9 push ups in the last 2 sets.

HBP/pe2 is rough indeed. I had to repeat a microcycle, where my strategy was to keep adding reps throughout the cycle. The reps looked like this last night: 20/20/15/12/10, which adds up to a total of 77. The total for mastery is 75, so I hope I'm able to hit those 5x15 tomorrow. No guarantees though.

Ravn said:

HBP/pe2 is rough indeed. I had to repeat a microcycle, where my strategy was to keep adding reps throughout the cycle. The reps looked like this last night: 20/20/15/12/10, which adds up to a total of 77. The total for mastery is 75, so I hope I'm able to hit those 5x15 tomorrow. No guarantees though.

Out of curiosity, why 20 for the first 2 sets?  Won't those extra reps tire you out?

Woo to the hoo to the yeehaw. I finally got a good night sleep and knocked out 5x60s RC6 first thing in my Foundations sessions this morning.

The only thing I did was to keep my mind firmly on pulling down with shoulders and lats, keeping lats thoroughly engaged, and waiting out the dull forearm pump. I think 90% of that was just getting sick of failing.

Definitely keep 1x60s in warmup, I've gotten masochistically fond of this element with our long time together, but I'll be pleased to test up on F2 RC. Foundation one finished today! XD

prinny said:

Out of curiosity, why 20 for the first 2 sets?  Won't those extra reps tire you out?

Well, the idea is to just increase volume to the point where 5x15 becomes easy. We'll see if it works.

Charm said:

Woo to the hoo to the yeehaw. I finally got a good night sleep and knocked out 5x60s RC6 first thing in my Foundations sessions this morning.

The only thing I did was to keep my mind firmly on pulling down with shoulders and lats, keeping lats thoroughly engaged, and waiting out the dull forearm pump. I think 90% of that was just getting sick of failing.

 

Definitely keep 1x60s in warmup, I've gotten masochistically fond of this element with our long time together, but I'll be pleased to test up on F2 RC. Foundation one finished today! XD

Congratulations for nailing it brother All the best for your further way hitting RC in F2

Charm said:

Woo to the hoo to the yeehaw. I finally got a good night sleep and knocked out 5x60s RC6 first thing in my Foundations sessions this morning.

The only thing I did was to keep my mind firmly on pulling down with shoulders and lats, keeping lats thoroughly engaged, and waiting out the dull forearm pump. I think 90% of that was just getting sick of failing.

 

Definitely keep 1x60s in warmup, I've gotten masochistically fond of this element with our long time together, but I'll be pleased to test up on F2 RC. Foundation one finished today! XD

Congratulations, that's a big step forward!

Cheers guys, I know plenty of people breezed past it the first time they tried but it took some time for me, so it feels like a big accomplishment. And my reward is.... next challenge~!

Edit;

Wait, I didn't include my top-secret pre-workout supplement. 75% cacao choco coffee beans.

Potent medicine, not to be abused.

Ravn said:

Well, the idea is to just increase volume to the point where 5x15 becomes easy. We'll see if it works.

Gotcha, hope it works out 

I have been working hard with the HBP/PE2. Have been stuck at 4x12 some time now and progress is slow. But I realized one reason for slow progress is the sPL/PE1 I do just before and it is also quite taxing on the muscles. As soon as I finish the last progression of sPL/Pe1 I think the HBP/Pe2 will progress faster.

Gripjj said:

I have been working hard with the HBP/PE2. Have been stuck at 4x12 some time now and progress is slow. But I realized one reason for slow progress is the sPL/PE1 I do just before and it is also quite taxing on the muscles. As soon as I finish the last progression of sPL/Pe1 I think the HBP/Pe2 will progress faster.

I've been doing HBP/PE2 first instead since it's the most taxing.  Now I wonder if my sPL/PE1 progress slow because of it.