Increasing weight at sticking points

I've been stuck at the same level with RC and FL for months with minimal progress. I've been close, but just not quite at the required mastery, and my patience in running low. I was considering wearing a weight vest while working RC in a slightly lower rep range. I could also purchase some ankle weights and strap those on while holding a 5 lb. plate during FL holds. I wondering if anyone has tried this approach to break though sticking points in the higher rep./hold time PE's?

if you can't do it with lower weight, i dont think you should do it with heavier weights

I was stuck with ground rows very close to mastery. It seemed to help to do elevated rows for a while and then go back to ground rows. When I got stuck with elevated rows (very close to mastery as well) I used a little bit of weight for a while and it helped.

If you decide to use weights, use only a light weight so that you can do good clean repetitions. 

If progress has stalled it's worth looking at other external factors as well; are you getting enough sleep, calories, rest and protein.

If the above are good you could try taking longer rests between sets. With HBP:PE2 I first built up the volume (5x15r) taking as long as 3-5 minutes and reduced this over time. I also kept the reps and sets at 5x15r for the whole cycle (except deload).

@ Murray- Those are all important, and I'll probably employ the longer rest scheme at a future sticking points. I figure it can't hurt to add a little more weight and hopefully provide a different stimulus to adapt to. Risk of injury is practically non-existent- especially during FLPE5.

@JukkaL-  exactly what I mean, just the addition of a little weight. Only enough to bring the rep count down to the 4-8 range. Glad it worked for you, but can you be absolutely certain it was the change up that helped?

Generally, progress has been O.K. following the planned structure, and SLS is moving forward very nicely. I think a training block experiment is in order for FL and RC. Then I'll get back to regularly scheduled programming.

curtisfer said:

 

@JukkaL-  exactly what I mean, just the addition of a little weight. Only enough to bring the rep count down to the 4-8 range. Glad it worked for you, but can you be absolutely certain it was the change up that helped?

 

No I can not be certain that it was the change that helped. Probably it did, but not certainly.

I improved my elevated rows from 4x6 to 4x8 in a few weeks. Then started ground rows again from 4x10 and the next week I was able to do 5x10.   

One other strength coach has suggested adding a small amount of weight to pullups to help your unweighted reps. If I remember, the advice was not to add so much weight that your reps drop too much and, if you can't do 10 reps, you shouldn't add weight.

I'm not sure if this would be good advice for F. I'm just parroting, as best as I remember, what someone else said.

Funny you should ask this.  I've struggled mightily w/ MN/PE6.  I thought it was flexibility initially, but i believe it was compression strength as well.  I've been slowly getting my feet closer to the bar over a number of months.  Last week I took the week off the usual MN/PE6 exercise and did MN/PE5 w/ ankle weight of 5 lbs.  i tried to lift a little higher than usual, to about 2/3 leg raises.  I was a little sore the next day.  This week, all of a sudden I've got beautiful not only PE6, but also PE7 and I can do 5 sets of 7-8 reps without feeling sore.  It was like magic, all this time i've been chipping away and all of a sudden a big jump.  It could be that i was just ready for it, but I think it was stressing the compression strength with added weight at the sticking point.

It may help but you should be cautious. I personally don't use weight unless the exercise is very easy and I've mastered many of the next progressions.

Just be careful. Adding weight to a movement you can't do more reps in can add more stress to the joints and cause injury. Just make sure you aren't approaching this danger.

@ MT Nordic- good to hear. Instincts are telling me I'm ready for it and it's going to work. Ankle weights and a weight vest might make a useful addition to my gym. Picking your spots and using some additional resistance infrequently seems like it could be an effective approach. I'd enjoy some additional strength "magic" at this time.

I'm interested in this as well. I've been trying to master pushups (HBP PE2) now for  a year (my best effort is now 4x12). Having tried various approaches to get the reps up to mastery level, I've just started doing some weighted pushups to actually try and get stronger. My bent arm pressing strength has nose dived over the year while chasing these reps, so I figured that if I could hit a moderate rep scheme with a little added weight (say 5x10 with +5-10Kg), then maybe 5x15 at bodyweight would become achievable.

Perhaps this is a terrible idea, but a change of stimulus may be beneficial at this stage and I don't have much to lose! I'll give it a couple of cycles and then I'll try to remember to come back and post the results...