Last few seconds of Bent Hollow Body Hold

I’m up to Week 10 of Bent Hollow Body Hold (4 x 60s).

In the last 10-15 seconds of the last set - when my core is exhausted - my knees gradually straighten out in front of me until my legs are 45 degrees up in the air. When I try to bend them back in, I feel my shoulders start moving towards the ground. So, at that stage of fatigue, my legs need to be straight in order to keep my torso bent.

Just checking why this is?

My guess is… at the moment my lower core is stronger at this exercise than my upper core. With the fatigue of the last 10 seconds, I’m capable of less core compression, so the lower core muscles assist the upper core muscles by taking on more leverage (straightening the legs) in order to create more rocking-forward-to-feet force, meaning less resistance on my upper core to keep my back bent.

Would that be right?

(Either way, I'll be working on keeping the legs where they should be!)

you're right about the compression.

don't take my word for it, but the Rectus Abdominus is one muscle. it connects to the bottom of the ribcage and at a certain point in the pelvis. muscles do not hold onto muscles, they have an inserstion point and an origin. i may be mistaken with this. however, your observation of this can lead to something apart from your previous thoughts and that's that your hip flexors are also strengthening.

perhaps in wrong, but it could be that. one set of muscles "bows" our body when standing and another brings the knees up. this Progression works both

Thanks! Good point about the hip flexors. Also wondered if the iliopsoas might factor into it.

Will work on strengthening both holds.

something that's subconsciously worked with keeping tension is when i'm pointing my toes, compressing up into the hold and look far off with the angle of my spine is compress my glutes. before, i noticed that as i got stronger, i would compress the hold more. until i saw myself one day and toned it down a notch. with that, i realized why some forum members mentioned glute tension during the Hollow hold's 

at first, my glutes would fire like "really? you want me to hold in this position? you sure? okay. seriously, are you sure? i'm gonna back out. why are you making me tension on an ab exercise?"

now that I feel more prepared to enter week 9 holds and onward, I don't have to think much about the glute tension, it just happens.  

KeilaniG said:

compress my glutes.

I'll try it out!

Reminds me of Pavel Tsatsouline talking about "irradiation": squeezing the glutes/clenching the abs channels more power, creating more strength for several movements. Such as rising out of a squat, squeezing something with your hands etc. I don't understand how this works, but it does work in my experience. Maybe this works in a siimlar way.

think of it as a pole with 4 cables, 2 of them symbolize the obliques and the abs are one cable and the other is the glutes.

if you pull on one, it's ABH. if you pull on the other way, its a hollow hold. what we really want to do is pull on them both to create a nice taught tension.