Shoulder issues @ MN/PE6

As I've mentioned before, my left shoulder has had labrum repair done, and is less mobile than the right.

At the moment, the accumulated strain of weighted dislocates (very wide, low weight), half windshield vipers, and negative hanging leg lift is proving to be too much work for the left shoulder. As an immediate fix I will drop the dislocates, because the shoulder gets really irritated by those, particularly in the infraspinatus, although this spells trouble for my progress in H1. Maybe I can begin working those once I'm past the HLL and windshield viper work in the F-series, time will tell.

Anyway, On to my main question: I did 5x1 negative hanging leg lifts a couple of days ago at the prescribed ten second tempo, and afterwards it felt like I had been too close to pulling / straining something, so I'm wondering if this is just due to my left shoulder being weaker than the right (it is), or if I'm using bad technique. I did the HLL's with elevated scapulae to make myself as long as possible, so that the top of my feet would hit the bar, not the shins. Is this wrong, and should the scapulae be depressed?

At the moment I feel this exercise in the shoulders more than anything else, and it feels hard enough that it could be a front lever development exercise. This is likely because I'm substituting lat strength for poor pike flexibility. There is a particular ROM where the shoulders *almost* give out because the strength demand is very high. This ROM is where the legs are just past vertical, ~80 degrees or so, and lowering into 45 degrees above horizontal.

Bump, scapula elevated or depressed?

i (think) elevated due to Coach not wanting us to use Lats for assistance.

wish i could help more, bud. hope you get through this safely

Ummm I guess a video would help, but anyway how about this as a progression??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2344fYrDb0

Played around with my new stall bars today, and tried to lower through the HLL with a bit more depression in the shoulders, which felt a lot better. Here's a video of that, and also a demonstration of my pike flexibility. I assume (yes I know) that my current level of passive flexibility should suffice to proceed with MN/PE6, and that I just need to continue to develop my active flexibility.

 

The first missed attempt at HLL was because I forgot I was doing negatives, not full HLL's

 

Also, my face reveals my fondness of this exercise!

 

Hmm, I would ordinarily say fully elevated and open, but repair and later irritation changes the game completely. Be careful buddy

I think there is merit in (also) doing these with a single bar while actively holding your shoulders open and keeping your lats out of it. I wonder whether leaning on the stall bars to keep your shoulders in place can make you a little vulnerable if you are coming from a deficit?

I may be way off, but it could be worth looking into. You may also be.able to reduce and simplify this movement with scap pullups.

Jon Douglas said:

I wonder whether leaning on the stall bars to keep your shoulders in place can make you a little vulnerable if you are coming from a deficit?

I may be way off, but it could be worth looking into. You may also be.able to reduce and simplify this movement with scap pullups.

Cheers Jon, could you elaborate on this? I'm not quite sure what you mean about leaning and deficit?

Deficit referring to your surgery/ irritation, often requiring careful re training of shoulder to fire correctly.

Leaning referring to using the stall bars to hold shoulders forward without requiring you actively holding them in position.

As i say i could be barking up the wrong tree, but it could be worth an investigation.

You have much better pike flexibility than me, but still it looks like I find HLLs much easier (top portion), so I'm not convinced it is that - it may be with your shoulder issues, but as you said maybe something around active flexibility - proper activation as well.

Another thing you raise your legs well above the rail (that you hold) try to get your feet to the rail, that should enforce movement where you do much more compression than manna extension/FL drill , you can try also to do some warmup with some compression drills to activate this pattern better.

I'm guessing now (no access to stall bars on hand) that if you would try them with lifting only one leg, while keeping other one down would also make it more difficult to FL HLL like you do, also you can try tucked first (to reduce that body extension/load on shoulder at that angle).

Recent times I've done this I was concentrating on keeping lower back glued to the bars as long as possible, and as said feet to the bar, to enforce more piked position (and get much earlier all signs of my poor flexibility - weakness, cramps, etc ).

In your situation with the surgery, I would insert a supplemental exercise in between MN/PE5 and MN/PE6; a hanging V with toes next to or under the rail.  I would build to at least 5x30s.

 

Only counts if the knees are locked and the feet are either at or under the rail.  It goes without saying that the elbows must be locked and no pulling on the bar with the lats.

 

I am curious, are you able to hang with elevated shoulders?  If so, than I expect that the issue is not so much a shoulder or mobility issue (your standing pike position is pretty good), but rather a lack of core strength which your body is attempting to compensate for by pulling down on the rail and in turn leading to etc etc etc as you have already discussed.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

In your situation with the surgery, I would insert a supplemental exercise in between MN/PE5 and MN/PE6; a hanging V with toes next to or under the rail. I would build to at least 5x30s.

Only counts if the knees are locked and the feet are either at or under the rail. It goes without saying that the elbows must be locked and no pulling on the bar with the lats.

I am curious, are you able to hang with elevated shoulders? If so, than I expect that the issue is not so much a shoulder or mobility issue (your standing pike position is pretty good), but rather a lack of core strength which your body is attempting to compensate for by pulling down on the rail and in turn leading to etc etc etc as you have already discussed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I can easily hang with elevated shoulders, it's only when the straight arm strength element kicks in that things become uncomfortable. I like Piotro's suggestion about keeping the back glued to the stall bars for as long as possible. Reviewing my own video and reading your comments lead me to conclude that it must be my active flexibility that is inadequate, since passive piking is ok. In the autumn I worked on straddle L and did not really get anywhere, probably for the same reason - I kept stalling out at straddle L centre hold.

So Coach, that intermediate goal you mentioned, would that entail holding toes to bar for 5x30 secs? I'll begin working on that as soon as deload week is over, thanks so much for offering your advice!

what would the iM be in that 5x30s exercise

Since I obviously have such a deficit in terms of active pike flexibility, I wonder if there's a way to grease the groove for ab compression. The abs and hip flexors can take a LOT of volume (see the FL progressions), so how about a set of seated pike lift holds or pulses every hour?

 

As an aside, I've been doing a few sets of wall slides at the office today, and they gave immediate relief from the irritation in my shoulder, although it sort of creeps back during the day; Light indian club work is also good.

Ravn said:

At the moment I feel this exercise in the shoulders more than anything else, and it feels hard enough that it could be a front lever development exercise. This is likely because I'm substituting lat strength for poor pike flexibility. There is a particular ROM where the shoulders *almost* give out because the strength demand is very high. This ROM is where the legs are just past vertical, ~80 degrees or so, and lowering into 45 degrees above horizontal.

 

I´ve hade shoulder issues and reversing my grip (palms facing backwards) helped. 

Also, if you have not gotten F3-F4, do so. Just the Im´s for HBP are worth the money if your have shoulder issues.

Thanks Mats, I'll try and reverse the hands. It makes sense, since the reverse grip progression is meant to take the lats out of the equation. I've got the whole F-series, so I'll take a look at those iM's too.

Mats Trane said:

Also, if you have not gotten F3-F4, do so. Just the Im´s for HBP are worth the money if your have shoulder issues.

You're not wrong there! I am flabbergasted by the difference, always thought I was quite flexible, but not in every direction it turns out!

The external rotation of my left shoulder is restricted due to the surgery, so it's one of the area's that I'm a bit reluctant about opening up: It's restricted, I suppose, on purpose to prevent future dislocation.

 

In any case, the ROM that HBP/iM15 targets is definitely one of my weak spots. It's not that I have much less range of motion there, it's probably 5% or so less than the right, but when I hit the end ROM, its a fairly hard stop, compared to the right shoulder, where I can gradually squeeze out more ROM on subsequent stretching attempts.

 

I will work on it, but I won't push for complete restoration of mobility in that area/position. 

Update:

 

A couple of days later, and my shoulder is much better.

 

Reversing the grip helped, as did the temporary suspension of weighted dislocates. I now lift with straight legs and hold for time, as per Coach's suggestions. My ROM currently stops at 45 degrees above horizontal, which isn't too bad for a 37 38 year old zombie I suppose, but boy, am I weak in the ROM that remains before I can touch the bar with my toes.

 

I GTG with seated pike pulses and hold throughout the day, I'm excited to see whether that will contribute to my progress.

Glad it helped

Mats Trane said:

I´ve hade shoulder issues and reversing my grip (palms facing backwards) helped. 

 

Interesting, I had the same experience and did rev. grip first, after getting mastery there, regular grip was no problem. I think the lat stretches in the RC progression helped me a lot there as well.

Cole Dano said:

 I think the lat stretches in the RC progression helped me a lot there as well.

 

Definetly!