Exact shoulder position ([hinge] rows)

Zach Armijo said:

It blows my mind how over thought this PE is. Amusing to say the least. You are all forgetting this is just a step to make a regular body row easier by crippling the load. I the video, Jeff starts by glutes on the ground, hands ear level. Then lowers to shoulders a few inches off the ground, less than 4 to be sure, and glutes barely brushing if at all on the ground. When he pulls up, you can clearly see his glutes are in contact with the ground the original sitting position. This is one of those exercises that you look at the video, read the 2 notes, and just do it. My general opinion of this PE anyways....

I'm only speaking for myself here, but the only time I got confused about how to do the exercise was when I read various comments here on the forums that said the glutes should be off the floor. If you try this exercise with the glutes off the floor during the entire movement, it becomes far more challenging; hardly a beginner rowing exercise! The demonstration video demonstrates the exercise perfectly, but the seemingly contradictory comments confused me to no end.

To be honest, I actually mastered the exercise the hard way that I described above. I tested mastery with the correct form and passed easily, but I also tested RC/PE2 and demonstrated mastery of that as well.

I guess all's well that ends well...

Try not to freak out about most of the details. Just don't claim mastery if your glutes are bearing any weight.

So zach says glutes can touch at the top of the movement and naterman says they can't. Could coach or Cory tiebreak this please? I feel like I have been wasting a lot of time on this move and making it harder than the subsequent exercises.

If you're doing something that's challenging you, you're probably not wasting your time.

That being said, I think you're right that the mixed messages have made things confusing. A final verdict from Coach or one of the official trainers would be useful.

xray said:

So zach says glutes can touch at the top of the movement and naterman says they can't. Could coach or Cory tiebreak this please? I feel like I have been wasting a lot of time on this move and making it harder than the subsequent exercises.

I did not say they won't touch, I said they will not bear any weight. If you can feel any pressure, at all, on your sit bones (ischial tuberosities), meaning that if it feels like you are sitting even a little bit, you still have the opportunity to gain strength here and have not really mastered the movement.

Touching means that you can feel the ground because your butt is brushing the ground, but the muscle is relaxed and there is no doubt in your mind that your butt is NOT helping you to support your body weight.

Joshua Naterman said:

Try not to freak out about most of the details. Just don't claim mastery if your glutes are bearing any weight.

Don't bear weight on your butt. 

i also would like to hear some official statements from coach.

from what i was understanding so far is.
a) glutes are allowed to BRUSH the floor on the top part of the movement. this seems pretty logical to me. if you reall start
with your shoulders right above the ground there is no way you wont brush the floor, except you pull your body UPWARDS
in the end of the movement. but this is not what we should do in this movement. we only should concentrate on bringing our upperbody in an upright position.
b) deadhang at the the bottom part of the movement. yeah i know i claimed we should stay retracted all the time, but after watching the rowing movements again i changed my mind. you can clearly see how the chest muscles of the athletes change at the bottom of the movement. this would look different with retracted shoulders.
 

Way too much thinking on a PE 1 going on here.

Your glutes can touch the ground. Some people will not some will. Not a huge concern. Do not sit down at the top of the movement. You don't need to completely dead hang at the bottom just let the scapula move naturally.

Zach Armijo said:

It blows my mind how over thought this PE is. Amusing to say the least. You are all forgetting this is just a step to make a regular body row easier by crippling the load. I the video, Jeff starts by glutes on the ground, hands ear level. Then lowers to shoulders a few inches off the ground, less than 4 to be sure, and glutes barely brushing if at all on the ground. When he pulls up, you can clearly see his glutes are in contact with the ground the original sitting position. This is one of those exercises that you look at the video, read the 2 notes, and just do it. My general opinion of this PE anyways....

Thanks for this reply Zach, I had been very frustrated by the conflicting form cues given in this thread/forum in regards to this exercise and it took this reply to snap me out of that state of "paralysis by analysis".

I've since decided to simply trust the demo videos and form cues that Coach has included in the course, copy them as best I can, video myself periodically, and then compare the videos of myself performing the exercises to the demo videos.

In the demo video the athlete's butt is very clearly on the ground at the top of the video and bearing at least some of his weight. This is most clearly illustrated by watching the athlete's feet during the exercise and noting that they move forwards and backwards slightly during the exercise. If he was in fact supporting all of the weight on his heels (and none on his butt), this could not happen. Either the feet would stay perfectly stationary, would only move forwards and the athlete's trunk angle would continue to decrease relative to the ground, or they would move in the opposite direction that they do.

Had coach wanted this exercise performed differently, then he would have corrected the athlete in the video and posted a different demo video. So, anyone suggesting that the video doesn't demonstrate the correct form is to suggest that Coach is wrong about his own exercises or that someone knows better than Coach about how to perform them. Both are kind of laughable suggestions IMO.

So thanks again.

P5yx said:

......Ive always read on this forum that you should retract your shoulders all the time.....

Curious where you think you read this... 

P5yx said:

i also would like to hear some official statements from coach.

If it's clear that lots of people are doing things dangerously wrong, I think coach will jump in instantly. If tiny details were important, he would have put a page long description for every exercise with precise shoulder and scapula position and the top and bottom of the movement. Just keep your ass up and row.

Bipocni said:

Curious where you think you read this... 

i've found a few details on scapula position in this sticky:

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/5959-scapula-position-for-basic-and-static-exercises/

nevertheless the statement did only regard to front levers not FL rows. so i apologize for misleading here.

also like i've stated before my initial thougts on RC/PE1 regarding to hold the scaps retracted all the time were wrong!

it's better to deadhang at the bottom of the movement.

P5yx said:

i've found a few details on scapula position in this sticky:

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/5959-scapula-position-for-basic-and-static-exercises/

 

nevertheless the statement did only regard to front levers not FL rows. so i apologize for misleading here.

also like i've stated before my initial thougts on RC/PE1 regarding to hold the scaps retracted all the time were wrong!

it's better to deadhang at the bottom of the movement.

Mmm. The only exercise I've read where people advise retraction the whole time is manna.  Front lever you're supposed to widen the scapula, we debated recently two types of pullups, with both retraction and protraction, and with rows the scapula should move through a full ROM. 

Pretty much the only advice I've ever seen is if you're moving, start at the scapula, and move it well.