RC and HBP progress dysbalance

Hi everyone, just felt like sharing some experience here and maybe getting a few tips.

My progress with RC has stalled, I've repeated weeks 9,10,11 and 12 of RC PE4 three times (that's three months of work) and although 4x8r goes fine with what I believe to be good form, when I get to 10r on week 10 I lose my form from set 3 or 4. I have managed 5x10r but either my form isn't up to standard or I have to rest slightly more than IM time so I cycle back to week 9 again...

On the other hand, HBP is progressing really well and has from the beggining of F1. Have proved mastery of HBP PE10 and am milking PEs 7,8,9 and 10 as won't have access to Parallel bars until beginning of University Semester.

I do have a history of military service and army style training which kind of implied push ups all day everyday which I thought could explain this huge Push/Press dysbalance... do you think it a possible explanation...?

Concerning this RC stall, I was thinking of going back to week 5 (where it should be very easy) and doing 4 or 5 times RC a week instead of 3, good idea? What about adding some pulling work? Kind of stuck here... I get quite angry and frustrated failing those last reps for mastery for three cycles now... ^^ !

Any tips or advice more than welcome =) !!

Keep working hard everyone, this is an awesome journey.

Mark

I'm not nearly as smart as Naterman, Slocum, Coach, or Charm, but maybe master 5x5 on the Elevated Rows, then add in an extra rep each week afterwards? So it would look like this:

Week 1: 5x5

2: 5x6

3: 5x7

4: 5x4

5: 5x8

6: 5x9

7: 5x10

8: 5x5

Hope all is going well in your life.

Just keep adding reps on RC. You'll get there eventually, and it'll make your shoulders healthier as too much press without rowing is bad for some people.

It's natural to be good at some things and suck at others .

You could also consider using a lower box to elevate your legs on. Gradually increase the height of the box until you're where you need to be. Doing higher volume on the preceding sets of PE3, as suggested above, would help build endurance, which seems to be your main sticking point. Either that or just do the iM slower 😆

I have been stuck on RC/PE3 for so long now. Curse my beginner strength.

The same thing happened to me on RC PE3. I eventually got it by just repeating the last mini cycle. I expect the same will happen on RC PE4. In the past I did not do much horizontal pulling, which is why I am now taking time to get through these.

I have had similar things happen to me in some exercises. I have tried different ways to deal with it and noticed that if I just repeat a four week cycle, I will fail pretty much on the same spot when I reach it again. I don't seem to benefit much from repeating set/rep counts which I already can do, or at least, progress is slow that way.

I am finding it more effective to continue pushing the failure point instead. So, say that I cannot make 4x12. Say it is 12, 12, 5, 2 instead. I would just keep trying for 4x12, and I will see that I will get a few reps closer each time, like 12, 12, 7, 3, and then 12, 12, 10, 4, and so on.

Im adding reps the exact same as Erik do. Small increments is better then big jjumps.

Thanks for your input guys. About your method Erik:

Erik Rissanen said:

 

I am finding it more effective to continue pushing the failure point instead. So, say that I cannot make 4x12. Say it is 12, 12, 5, 2 instead. I would just keep trying for 4x12, and I will see that I will get a few reps closer each time, like 12, 12, 7, 3, and then 12, 12, 10, 4, and so on.

 

I seem to remember reading something somewhere in the gymnasticbodies world about NOT regularly training to failure beeing somewhat a key to succeeding, anyone remember something like that? Maybe in BtGB not quite sure...

Mark Balsom said:

Thanks for your input guys. About your method Erik:

 

 

 

I seem to remember reading something somewhere in the gymnasticbodies world about NOT regularly training to failure beeing somewhat a key to succeeding, anyone remember something like that? Maybe in BtGB not quite sure...

'All Muscle, No Iron' article. Training to failure isn't necessary and is counterproductive to more frequent training sessions, while maximal contraction *is* necessary.

Yes, I have also read this advice about not training to failure. I'm just this guy doing F1, so don't take my advice too authoritatively. But it works for me. I also tried repeating a mini cycle, and was dissappointed to find that the month gave me almost nothing. I haven't done any real systematic studies. I'm just happy I have found a way to make progress in these situations which works for me.

But I don't push myself to collapse. I just try hard to get as many good or very close to good reps as possible. When I can tell I will fail, I will stop. Although it works for me, it might not be optimal for most people.

I don't know why it works, but it might be that not going for a hard target easily puts me in my comfort zone. The mastery templates are very good at pushing hard to making progress, rather than just doing a comfy workout, not actually challenging my body. I used to do comfy workouts all the time at the gym with the mainstream type of weight programs. Also, we have a deload week every four weeks, which I think is very important for being able to train hard.

If have found what works well for your body stick with it. Training to failure never worked that well for me. My body tends to respond to frequent training a couple of reps short of failure.

I use Erik's approach too, and it worked well in mastering HBP2 and RC6. Just repeating a cycle does very little for me,I need to provide progressive overload to improve.

I too have been stuck on RC/PE3 for months (6 months to be exact). I started from PE1 of course, but did it seated as in the video. This was very easy at the mastery level, and so was PE2, but on getting to PE3 I failed to progress beyond 5x8, even after 6 months of going through microcycles 2 and 3. Now, I have gone back to PE1, but doing it with my butt raised slightly above the ground at all times. I don't know if it will help me through the PE3 plateau, but I certainly feel that I'm actually getting somewhere. 

Erik Rissanen said:

 (...)

I am finding it more effective to continue pushing the failure point instead. So, say that I cannot make 4x12. Say it is 12, 12, 5, 2 instead. I would just keep trying for 4x12, and I will see that I will get a few reps closer each time, like 12, 12, 7, 3, and then 12, 12, 10, 4, and so on.

Interesting

I am wondering why you are attempting 4x12r if you badly fail the last two sets; wouldn't it be more beneficial to increase one rep once you can do the full 4 sets?

Like this: If you cannot finish the 4x12r, maybe you are very close to the 4x10r?

maybe 10, 10, 10, 8

Then 10,10,10,10 (success, increase 1 rep)

Then 11,11,10,8

Then 11,11,11,9

then 11,11,11,11 (success, increase 1 rep)

then 12, etc...

(this is the Joshua Naterman method)

Ground rows, RC/PE3, would be very amenable to GTG (grease the groove). You may not have rings everywhere, but you could GTG with a table or desk quite easily. Multiple times a day just get down and whip out 3-5 reps. not enough to make it hard, just enough to get the muscle memory going. by the end of the day you've got 50+ reps without undo fatigue. a week of that and you'll be cranking out your PE3 mastery with no problem. GTG has been covered elsewhere more completely, but in short it is a great way to focus and get past plateaus on one exercise in particular. You really can't utilize it on more than 1 exercise and it does put you more at risk of overtraining if you do. Hope that is helpful.

FredInChina said:

Interesting

I am wondering why you are attempting 4x12r if you badly fail the last two sets; wouldn't it be more beneficial to increase one rep once you can do the full 4 sets?

Like this: If you cannot finish the 4x12r, maybe you are very close to the 4x10r?

maybe 10, 10, 10, 8

Then 10,10,10,10 (success, increase 1 rep)

Then 11,11,10,8

Then 11,11,11,9

then 11,11,11,11 (success, increase 1 rep)

then 12, etc...

 

(this is the Joshua Naterman method)

I did that too at some point. It also works if I recall. I then I tried the 12, 12, low, low approach and I got used to it. I guess I could give Joshua's method a go again to compare. It might be better. It's sort of hard to compare two methods which work though.

Mark Collins said:

If have found what works well for your body stick with it. Training to failure never worked that well for me. My body tends to respond to frequent training a couple of reps short of failure.

I never tried to increase the frequency. I had my program fixed at the 4 day schedule. The question was whether it would better for me to repeat a full mini cycle, or whether to aim for the next target in the mastery template. Repeating the mini cycle has been recommended here in various threads, so that is what I tried first, but it was not of much use for me, although it lead to comfortable workouts.

I just did 3xF7 the first time this week to increase my frequency, so I will see what that leads to, and whether I need to scale back the intensity to handle the higher load. FredInChina also pointed to the option of increasing the reps one at a time, and I'll try that too at some point.

Anyway, as long as I can find a method which leads to consistent progress, I'm happy. Progress and patience in combination will lead to success. Even if it can be hard to find the truly optimal solution.

Yes Erik, I don't think there is only one method here - it is likely that consistency is what works, at the level of push ups and Hrows, probably every road will work.

Lets not forget that form improvement may be hidden and hard to perceive, & cannot be quantified; it surely significantly muddles the water as far as exercise difficulty (translated in numbers done properly) is concerned.

I wanted to post an update. I have tried Joshua's method now too, although not for long, and I would say it's probably better than what I have been doing. Doing as I did such heavy early sets leads to early failure in the later sets, which I suspect might lead to slower progress.

So, I would recommend that anyone reading this thread tries Joshua's method before what I described.

To also post an update I have gone back to week 9-12 of ground rows but focusing on a slower eccentric phase. Am now on deload week 12 and will reattempt elevated rows from week 9 or using Joshua's method, will decide depending on success or not =)

Another point, which I came up on just today. I did my training and I actually dropped a bit back on Arch Body Rocks. It could have been that I have a small cold today and I missed a couple of workouts because of travel, but I think it's mainly that my form is improving. Last time I filmed I noticed that I was not holding my legs and arms straigth and together. I now corrected for this, and I think I am also learning better how to hold a smooth arch in my body for a much smoother roll than before.

I have noticed this a few times, that as I learn a movement, my form gets better over a few weeks, which makes the exercise much harder strength wise.

So in this case, I'll drop back and start over from a lower point in the master template because it's not really a case about platteauing, rather than that I am not strong enough to be at this level currently.

Erik Rissanen said:

 

I have noticed this a few times, that as I learn a movement, my form gets better over a few weeks, which makes the exercise much harder strength wise.

 

So in this case, I'll drop back and start over from a lower point in the master template because it's not really a case about platteauing, rather than that I am not strong enough to be at this level currently.

So exactly like you said Erik, it was definitely a case of form just getting better every cycle. I have basically been doing RC PE4 (elevated rows) since 11th March 2013, basically 6 months work almost always cycling through week 5 to 9 or 12. When I look at my training log I noted failing mastery on monday 25th March and yet I only really mastered it two weeks ago. 

To anyone who might believe they're wasting time getting stuck 6 months on an element trust me your not! It was well worth the effort I then demonstrated mastery on PE5 in one session and straight to PE6 4x48s.