Arch Body Hold form check and help. (& how do I upload vid)

Hi everyone, I've been working on Arch Body Holds for quite a while and finally filmed it to self check my form. Needless to say when comparing it to the gb athlete its nowhere near where it needs to be.

 

My arms do not seem high enough, but I feel like they are currently at their max ROM. Not sure any amount of anything will change this. Any ideas or reassurances are most welcome.

 

 

I'm now back on short holds to increase the contraction of the movement after working up to 45s but not feeling like I was in the right position. 

 

Cheers, Baz

 

(Apologies people, my video won't upload "not permitted to upload this kind of file'. Its a MP4 from a Android Phone. Any ideas how to fix this? My original post still stands as far as my arms....)

Try the following, which has really helped me: lie on a physio ball.  Place your back on the ball, spread your arms and feet as far as possible and try to relax.  You are now, essentially, in a gravity assisted inverted arch body hold  Notice what it feels like, how much better your passive arch is compared to your active one.  And again, really relax.

 

From here you can move your body up and down the ball, trying to find the most comfortable (or the most tight!) position.  Then try, slowly, to actively raise your arms or legs.  You can try both, but you'll likely roll off the ball unless you are near a support like a wall.  Anyway, by actively raising or lowering, you're basically teaching your body to work in this larger range of motion.  It almost seems like once the body realizes it's safe to do this, improvements happen overnight.  In a week my legs went from barely off the ground to several inches off the ground.

 

If you don't have access to a physio ball you could try to find an alternative, like a bean-bag chair or a roundish pile of pillows, but the ball works best.  Try it, see how it goes.