Is there a point where you decide to move on?

I've been working on RC/PE1 for 15 weeks now and the last 10 weeks have been spent trying to move from 4x6 to 4x9. Although I have made a bit of progress, I'll be on this step all year at the rate I'm going and it's getting frustrating.

I think I'll move a lot faster after this PE, I'm no stranger to rows and pullups, but I'm really stalling on this one. Is there a strategy for when this happens or is there ever a point where you decide it's not worth it and give the next step a try?

Rather try to understand what the weak link/problem is and address it, this will eventually help with progress and may be needed at later steps as well.

Now, I know it is easy to say and not necessarily that easy to do (and I have own experience), but if you don't fix those weak links - these are going to bite you later anyway. If you are stuck try to post video, you may get interesting points regarding your form and/or advice about how to progress from there.

One I can give you already, that was said here many times before - are you working hard enough? are you allowing your mind to quit before your muscles?

For me it was nutrition it took close to 1 year. Months stuck at 4x12. Been trying to cut fat so I was on a slight caloric deficit. Then added bcaa back into my diet and bam progress on all the areas i was stuck. Dead lift back to 365lbs just mastered hinge rows close on push ups. Sadly no help on arch body hold but thats a mobility problem. Perhaps look at the workout nutrition thread it may help.

My general trouble shooting process when I plateau (not necessarily specific to GST) in performance is to check my:

1. Diet- Am I getting enough protein, carbs, healthy fats and calories to give my body the raw materials that it needs to make the physiological/structural improvements I am asking it to make?

2. Rest-Am I getting enough quality sleep to allow my body to repair and improve itself and to allow my Endocrine system (hormones) to function properly and handle the stress that I am putting on my body?

3. Life/Activity stress-Am I going through a very stressful time in my life at present (family stress, work stress, financial stress, etc...) or am I doing a lot of "extracurricular" activity outside of my strength training (lots of yard work, shoveling lots of snow, my job is extra physically demanding during that period, playing lots of sports recreationally, etc...) that is using up my energy and taxing my body to the point where it is having a hard time keeping up with the recovery demands?

4. Volume/Intensity ratio-Am I doing too much too intensely to be able to recover? If so, maybe I would want to try lowering the frequency/volume or lowering the intensity (or at least cycling it more) to see if that allowed my body to adapt more easily.

If all of those check out ok, then I may start playing with different set/rep schemes, looking into accessory exercises to bring up perceived weak links, etc...

IMO skipping ahead before achieving mastery is missing the point of the Foundation series. It's not a race to the finish, it's about making sure that all of the links in the chain are balanced and strong so that we can perform to our true potentials and avoid injury in the process. RC PE1 has obviously highlighted a weak link in your kinetic chain; if you ignore it you could pay the consequences later on down the road.

As piotro said, the progressions are there to help you to address weak points. Skipping the ones you have difficulty with defeats the whole purpose of having them!

Some strategies I would consider:

- post a form check - maybe you're doing something slightly wrong that is impairing your progress

- check how hard you are working. On the sets where you fail, did you really push yourself until you had nothing left, or did you stop due to discomfort?

- experiment with different amounts of weekly volume: maybe you're doing too much, or too little

- are you progressing well in other elements? If not that could be a sign that an external factor is at play, such as sleep, too much total work volume, or nutrition. 

Patience is key doing Foundation. There is always going to be a move where one get stuck. It happened to me and I'm sure for just about everyone.

My advice without seeing a video:

When you pull, make sure the first part of the pull is done with straight arms using your stronger back muscles. Only after that start using your arms.

How many times a week do you do this exercise? If it's 3 or more try it twice a week.

How many rest days do you have a week?

I've been working on RC/PE1 for 15 weeks now and the last 10 weeks have been spent trying to move from 4x6 to 4x9. Although I have made a bit of progress, I'll be on this step all year at the rate I'm going and it's getting frustrating.

As has been discussed on multiple threads, stalling at an element could mean either your musculature, your connective tissue, your nerves, singly or collectively, need to adjust to a new load, etc., or your set up in the element could be a little bit off.

For what it's worth, I'm still at RC/PE1, been there for about 17 weeks running, but my brachioradialis muscles, lats, traps, and my back generally are all thanking me now for persisting with it, because of the impressive gains in strength and mobility that I've had in the aforementioned muscles.

Keep at it. It will come, but also check to ensure that your alignment is correct, that you are using the correct intensity (what Coach likes to say going beyond 'discomfort'), and things will work out in time.

Numerous testimonials on several threads showing people like you and me attaining mastery over challenging elements.

Thanks for the replies.

The lack of progress is definately not from a lack of trying hard enough. I tried too hard to try hard enough and ended up training to failure for 2-3 sets every workout. Soon I was dreading the next workout. Now I just do as many reps as I can complete.

I started on the 4 day schedule and then switched to the 3 day schedule. I've been making progress on every other exercise, it's just this one. The first set of 9 is even really easy but when the muscles reach fatigue it happens fast.

Would it be worth trying a gtg type thing for a while or changing the volume? I've thought about doing more sets per workout to increase the volume but wasn't sure how that would affect recovery. On the 3 day schedule maybe it will be ok.

Well, I'm at 24 weeks with only microscopic progress on this one.    I think I'm going to step back completely and just try this that was posted in the other RC thread. 
 

 

Start with a hinged chin hold (build to 5x60s), then progress onto negative hinge row and then move on to to regular hinge rows.

Continue working RC/PE1>iM at a minimum during this process.

Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer

 

I've also struggled with these and in time have realised that my retraction is inadequate on my right. This could also be a factor and it may be worth looking at any left/right differences in mobility. Regular focus on shoulder T & Y stretches  along with repeating the first microcycle over and over has helped me. I also do a static hold at the top of the last rep of each set. If you're unsure about those shoulder stretches you can find them in Josh Naterman's 'Fix your shoulder pain' video.

Things worth doing take time.

Washienko said:

Things worth doing take time.

Things that aren't worth doing take time too...sometimes more.

Did any of you go back to PE1 after the video was updated? I mastered the older version, but never tried this one.

Some of the elements will take a lot of patience.  I've been on RC/PE1 for 13 months, that's right one year + one month to approach near Mastery.  Recently I started squeezing the rings and my glutes relatively hard right before hinging up and this seems to help.  Practicing the exercise in between workouts as you mentioned can also help so long as you don't over do it and stay fresh.  I could do 12 non-kipping pullups before starting F1 so I was surprised this one was so tough because it's less than bodyweight.  

One thing I've noticed staying with RC / PE1 is that I feel myself engaging my lats much more on anything involving pulling, even the simplest things like opening the big glass doors at work.  On some exercise the lats should be used to protect the shoulders by pulling them down into their sockets so they are an important muscle to be able to activate and activate strongly.

My feeling is that Coach will ferret out your weaknesses and cutting corners will only take you longer in the end.

Still, ditto to above, namely post vids, maybe change up your schedule / intensity to fine tune it to your own body rhythm and lifestyle.

I mastered old version, too, Nash. Never tried the new version. I suspect it's very similar, just emphasizes what was stated about keeping glutes off the ground. But i don't know. be curious to hear from anyone who did go back and try the new version.

I went back and mastered the new version in the summer after having started RC/PE3. The newer version with the glutes off the ground was definitely harder than the older version. Whereas I could show mastery of the old version as soon as I got my hands on F1, I think I had to repeat weeks 9-12 at least three times to achieve mastery with the glutes off the ground. RC/PE2 was definitely easier than the newer version of RC/PE1.

That being said, RC/PE3 took me just as long. 

MT Nordic said:

I mastered old version, too, Nash. Never tried the new version. I suspect it's very similar, just emphasizes what was stated about keeping glutes off the ground. But i don't know. be curious to hear from anyone who did go back and try the new version.

I will next week, this thread has me worried.

I think it's tempting to make some progressions harder than they actually are.

My take on RC:PE1 is that it's building up to PE3, you're bending at the waist to make the movement easier. I get the impression some people are making it harder than PE2/3 by trying to apply a load of cues outside of what's actually in the course material.

ABH are another example of this; just lift your feet and hands off the ground and it's been turned into a 20+ page dissection. With the above I got to a point where it looked like the video and moved on (this took a lot longer than the 12 weeks but only because it's an area I'm weak in) I still keep it as part of my warmup and my ROM continues to improve, did I move on too early?

Hopefully not.

yes I also went back to the new version. The previous one I mastered very quickly, this one is harder - definitely harder - at least for me.

I don't think there is a new version and an old version of this exercise. It wasn't clear in the video before but the description was always to keep the glutes off the ground.

The Hansenator said:

I don't think there is a new version and an old version of this exercise. It wasn't clear in the video before but the description was always to keep the glutes off the ground.

When F1 was originally released it had a different video. Originally it "looked" like the athlete was sat on the ground or just hovering above it. This caused some confusion.

The newer version also emphasizes the retraction/external rotation element more dramatically. But I agree that the difficulty isn't that much different if you had your glutes off the floor in the original version.

If it helps, your progress will probably skyrocket after you master this one. I just mastered it this week and played around with PE2 and PE3 and easily cranked out 15 reps on both. It was only one set of both but still. I don't see myself struggling too much with these next two PE's.

For me RC/PE1 seems to be also extremely hard to master. What I will try next time in the training program is to start the day with RC/PE1. Normally it is always the forth and the last movement and by that time I'm already running on pretty low energy. Doing it first before any other excersice might help.

My other issue here is that from 4 to 8 reps all is fine but after that suddently I'm getting huge explotion of lactic acid in my mucles. I really don't konw how to get more stamina and to keep up much longer.

agreed.  RC/PE1 is surprisingly difficult.  i've been doing it for almost 4 months and have usually been on weeks 9 or 10.  the only problem with putting RC/PE1 first is that then HBP is going to have the same issue (doing the exercise when you're already fatigued).