Full ROM Xiaopeng forwards/backwards

At the London seminar coach had mentioned that the proper full ROM on the Xiaopengs is to keep the arm rotated forward with the thumb towards the ground instead of the palm down for the portion of the movement where the arm is behind the back.

After the seminar my Xeopeng as per the form in the video was feeling quite strong, but I needed to decrease the weight a bit to do the motion in the way coached described. It took a bit of work but eventually the X-forward was feeling strong and I've recently moved onto X-backwards with the increased ROM. But recently I've had a bit of pain in the top front of my right shoulder that seems to come up only with the forward roll of the shoulder that is required to turn the thumb towards the ground. Today I went through my entire F1/H1 workout without any shoulder pain , including X-backwards with palm down as per the F1 video form without any pain. It's only when I turn into the that slightly increased ROM that I feel a bit of impingement in my right shoulder.

I'm wondering how I should proceed with this iM, should I just continue with the form as per the video and increase the ROM later? Is the additional ROM something that might come up in F3/4? Essentially I'm not sure if this is something that will just sort itself out as I progress through my normal Foundation workouts or if it's something I should put in extra work to sort out now (though I'm not entirely clear on what sort of extra work would be required).

Pain is a sign you are proceeding too aggressively. Reduce the ROM until you are pain free and then reduce it a little more. Patience.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks Coach, I'll take another crack at it.

Hi Colin!

I had a go at doing this when my Xiaopengs came up and couldn't even get my brain around trying to rotate the thumb downwards at the right point in the movement. I will re-visit this method when my shoulder/chest/thoracic flexibility are all improved.

I did have a go at Xiaopengs with no weights at all to see how it felt and the arm flew around and felt really strong 

Good luck with the training.

Best wishes,

Kate

This is an amazing exercise, and my first PE2... just started this week. The pushups feel quite straightforward compared to the demands of this iM. Love it!

Colin, I hope your shoulder sorts itself out soon!

I've started to play around with a half turn down with the thumb at about 45 degrees from pointing to the ground which feels good.

The difficulty on this variation I've found it actually two-fold. Not only is the mobility requirement much higher with the thumb facing down, but in that position but the triceps are working directly against gravity which makes holding the lockout in the arm that much more challenging! 

How's this looking, do I need to keep more upright? I lean a bit at the top.

I think I can also work towards a stronger lock out for the second half of the movement on my left side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExKl8duxn_s

What's the verdict, can I start working on increasing weight? Or should I improve my form?

In my opinion i suppose you can start to increase weight only when you can reduce substantially the degree of upper body rotation.

As every IM elements in the foundation series you have to increase the weight as the compensation (for lack of flexibility) is reduced. for HS the compensation is use a large grip, here is use a side rotation. To have a reasonable feedback do it with the shoulders you are rotating near the wall reducing the rotation.

alex87 said:

In my opinion i suppose you can start to increase weight only when you can reduce substantially the degree of upper body rotation.

 

Thanks, I'll have to try them like that. The course video shows him rotating completely to the side with every rep, so that's as far as I've ever tried to go. But I can appreciate that doing them without rotation would demonstrate much better shoulder mobility.

One step forwards, two steps back.

At the seminar yesterday coach said that after you turn the thumb down you have to square your shoulders back. He recommended doing the exercise against a wall so you don't abduct your arm to compensate.

xray said:

At the seminar yesterday coach said that after you turn the thumb down you have to square your shoulders back. He recommended doing the exercise against a wall so you don't abduct your arm to compensate.

Thanks for the feedback, that's the way I'm working them now. Against a wall without rotating my body.

In addition, I've found that warming up with this stretch:

totally gets rid of the clicking in my shoulders.

Thanks for the tip xray, gold!

Happy to help. I wish I was smart enough to come up with it myself!