Russian Lsit Dips

No questions this time, just a victorious laugh and sentai pose.

Have been travelling a couple weeks and haven't had access to anything long enough to do these dips on, and before that was struggling to do more than one or two without a hop from the upper arm support. Today I hit 5x3 comfortably and felt so triumphant that I continued on to 10x3 without a single hop. One more microcycle to move confidently through them, pretty sure I could've gotten 5x5 today but what's a couple weeks to get it just right?

For anyone who may be interested, in getting this movement (which just felt hopeless when I began, although normal Russian dips weren't too bad) I did a lot of slow negatives to get that transition from upper arm to bent arm support nice and controlled. I noticed that paying attention to my false grip really made the difference for the normal Russian dips, but not so much for these-- guess it was just ingrained after a couple months narrow focus.

Very pleased with that, especially after a not so triumphant day recovering from jet lag yesterday. Anyone else got a PR this week they want to take this moment to crow about?

Well done; congratz on your triumph Charm

Isn't it interesting how much things improve when we actually take the time to explore them thoroughly, rather than always running willy nilly on to the next new thing that happens to catch our attention.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

This is a random sort of PB, but it's one. I began tuck planche about 4 weeks ago (overseas trip truncated schedule so I restarted the cycles on returning) and was happily plugging away at 12 sec sets, expending far more of my effort on doing the IM (bent arm straddle pl double leg extensions I mean seriously). But for some reason on coming back, I was struggling to break 5-6 seconds in tuck planche. So I took the step back from week 5 to week 1 programming (tuck planche has always been a bit weak for me).

I took a video of my 3x6 sets today, and noticed that it's all lean, finally. No pushing up. It took me a loooong time to understand what Dillon's earlier tutorial meant, by 'lean forward and pick your toes up.' But putting in time on all those planche leans has finally drilled it into my head.

In summary, victory today was losing a lot of time off my almost-right (ie wrong) tuck planche, and establishing correct form to begin rebuilding strength. That's a big step. Thanks Coach, I look forward to reaping the benefits!

PS;

Russian Lsit dips are smooth and easy now at 4x4, and ready to move onto wk 10 next week. Inverted bar hangs and wrist wall HS are finally under control too, and overall I'm feeling very positive about this new cycle.

I formally invite everyone to post today's/this week's personal bests in this thread. No one's boasting, but be proud of what you're accomplishing too the operative word is _personal_ best.

I just want to praise the bent hurdler iMs and my increasingly better lower back/hamstring flexibility . Although I am nowhere close mastering ABH, I have tried several upcoming mobility drills already. Especially the bent hurdler twist feels more in my lower back/obliques than any other stretch out there for the lower back, and as a result I have seen amazing improvement in just a few weeks by doing them outside my F-workouts. 

Samui said:

I just want to praise the bent hurdler iMs and my increasingly better lower back/hamstring flexibility . Although I am nowhere close mastering ABH, I have tried several upcoming mobility drills already. Especially the bent hurdler twist feels more in my lower back/obliques than any other stretch out there for the lower back, and as a result I have seen amazing improvement in just a few weeks by doing them outside my F-workouts. 

Oh yeah, I LOVE these. The twisting ones feel like they are stretching everything in my ribs.

Related, I am shocked by how effective side arch rocks are. I expected windshield wipers to be much more effective in terms of oblique hypertrophy/strength. And although side arch rocks aren't *too* taxing, they seem to build up my waist incredibly fast and disproportionate (IME) to the amount of effort I put into it. It's awesome.

how much weight do you guys use with the Hurdler iM's? I was thinking 10lbs

KeilaniG said:

how much weight do you guys use with the Hurdler iM's? I was thinking 10lbs

That's what Im using. To begin with it was probably slightly heavy, since its held at arms length, id err on the side of a little lighter if i was starting it over

I am using 7.5 kg(16.5lbs). You should hold the majority of weight with the cross arm. The weight really depends on your shoulder strength(too much and you can't hold it for long enough). 

Samui said:

I am using 7.5 kg(16.5lbs). You should hold the majority of weight with the cross arm. The weight really depends on your shoulder strength(too much and you can't hold it for long enough).

Wow, that's a lot of weight at arms length! Impressive niche strength! :-)

An excellent PR discovery on a whim...

All these side lever rocks are paying big dividends. Last night I discovered that on either side I could pull from a 'hang' (hand on tree branch, hand on trunk) to just slightly off a full side lever-- not a long hold, I couldn't quite get high enough to set my shoulders quite right to hold it, but the pull was there and in layout position. This element left me completely nonplused at first, being just awkward, but getting comfortable with them has made me feel excellent about side lever progress. Looking forward to F3 SL work to get me the last of the way, side lever pulls have been a personal goal of mine for a while now!

Jon Douglas said:

I formally invite everyone to post today's/this week's personal bests in this thread. No one's boasting, but be proud of what you're accomplishing too the operative word is _personal_ best.

Resurrected this thread to have a HUGE CROW about 'getting' the Russian Dips (non L-sit version, HBP PE11) after several weeks spent working entirely on the transition part of this movement 

I started this exercise totally unable to get off the bars going forwards. Here's my experience in case it helps anybody else:

At first I had the parallel bars at their steepest incline possible, then I moved onto using the much maligned stretchy bands round my feet, on horizontal parallel bars. I made sure my shoulders and upper chest got a good few seconds stretch on the front part of the transition. Whilst doing all these transitions, I kept up my dip strength with both versions of Koreans.

It took week after week of feeling like nothing much was happening at all - but indeed, you do get there in the end. 

Woop woop! 

I always like it when instead of just giving up, folks find creative ways to get where they know they need to. Nice job!

Now if only I could get my Koreans...then Russians!

Mark Collins said:

Now if only I could get my Koreans...then Russians!

One by one, the nations shall fall!