Supplementary Active Flexibility for MN2 haters :)

Hey all,

Here's a discovery I made. I haven't done much in the way of Mn 2 since I mastered it a while back, and was dismayed the other day to discover that my active straddle compression had died off a bit-- had difficulty getting full ROM despite the movement being very easy. However, I did notice that Mn3 V-Ups were about the easiest thing in the world.

In my warmups I have been working a lot of stall bar HLL variations, and I reasoned that these were (blatantly obviously) maintaining my active pike flexibility for V-Ups. The logical juncture was to work on some straddle HLL. Did these on stall bars for strict but comfortable sets of 5 when passing the bar hanging over my kitchen door this week, with an emphasis on keeping hips down and using only active flexibility to touch my toes to outside my shoulders. In a few days of focused work this has quickly rebuilt my active compression-- practising some Mn2 today is easy.

For whatever reason, I find that the hanging straddle lifts are more difficult (in terms of active flexibility) but more comfortable to practise for multiple sets than the seated straddle-ups. If this sounds like you, then you may want to give them a glance either to initially build or to maintain that active compression.

Hope this helps anyone that may be finding Mn2 a sticking point if you're careful to stay strict with it, it's a good drill.

Jon

Well... 'supplementary' is stretching the term a bit, it's the same movement but with the leg lift part isolated

do you raise the straddle up to L or V or as high as you can while maintaining PPT?

I vote video demonstration.

KeilaniG said:

do you raise the straddle up to L or V or as high as you can while maintaining PPT?

I vote video demonstration.

Hmm, had lower back on bars... so yeah, high as possible while maintaining that I guess. Just going for that 'lovely' active hip feeling.

I think it's fairly self-explanatory once you try it and I'm sort of flying to Greece tomorrow so... someone else may be able to video this...

ppt then lift, got it lol enjoy europa, hermano

Is it possible to do them free hanging?

Badi said:

Is it possible to do them free hanging?

In the same way that it's possible to do strict HLL free hanging, yes. You need to be very aware of the position of your shoulders to avoid leaning back, so stall bars make it somewhat simpler, but anything is better than nothing

cool thanks im about to try it, maybe ill post a vid, cause I dont really know how to do them correctly

Sorta like this?

Hmmmm posting YouTube link on iPhone seems difficult, does anyone see the top one?

Christian said:

Sorta like this?

Hmmmm posting YouTube link on iPhone seems difficult, does anyone see the top one?

I only saw the top video.

But yeah, like that, except I had stall bars behind me so I couldn't go all the way up asin the video. I stopped lifting at the point I would normally lift my lower back (in a full HLL) and put a static hold/hip clench in there; seeing it from the outside that was probably an unnecessary detail, straddle HLL's would probably be fine.

Shown in the video is probably better version of what I was describing

Charm said:

 (...) to touch my toes to outside my shoulders (...)

With straight legs?

Video or it did not happen! B)

I gave this a try today.  Whoa.

I'm thinking that these are definitely something that I'm going to work on.

I can lift my legs higher if I allow my lower back to come off of the stall bars, but like Charm suggested, it seems beneficial to keep it flat against the bars and raise as high as possible that way.