Why I regressed in Arch Body

A month or so ago, I was up to SL/PE2 trying to get to 4x48r.  However, I asked someone to checked my form in ABH, and he believed I should go back to SL/PE1, because my legs were not enough.  When I did go to a much higher leg height, my glutes cramped quite a bit.
 

In my opinion, one of the reasons that make ABH tough is that you have to fight against 2 common dysfunctions at the same time: a lack of thoracic mobility and inactive glutes.  Even though I am able to get my thoracic spine and shoulder to the correct height, it was personally very challenging for me, then on top of that trying to get the legs to correct height, which was why I regressed back to SL/PE1 in the first place.  My thoracic spine works very hard and sometimes I would even get DOMS for several days there.

So a week or two ago, I was reading this book, Anatomy of Hatha Yoga:

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Hatha-Yoga-David-Coulter-ebook/dp/B005HJ5JYG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405753240&sr=8-1&keywords=Anatomy+of+Hatha+Yoga

There was an section that talked about arch body holds, and it talked about 3 ABH progressions.  The easiest is arms by side, the second is arms perpendicular, and the hardest is arms overhead.  I've been trying out the arms by side version, and I find it much much easier.  It allows me to focus on one thing at a time, which is getting my legs to the correct height yet my upper body doesn't have to work so hard to get into the correct thoracic position.  In fact, I was able to maintain proper thoracic position without even feeling it on my thoracic spine!

I'm planning to work:

1. ABH  arms by side

2. ABH arms perpendicular

3. then back to SL/PE1

This regression allows me to focus first on proper gluteal tension while at the same time gradually increase the difficulty of ABH on the thoracic spine.

Why not use your warm up sets as a chance to improve form.

PE:3 is an excellent posterior chain exercise and works, glutes, lower back and hamstring. There are loads of PE/SE on the way to learning the side lever, if you have passed mastery I'd resist going backwards.

Murray Truelove said:

Why not use your warm up sets as a chance to improve form.

PE:3 is an excellent posterior chain exercise and works, glutes, lower back and hamstring. There are loads of PE/SE on the way to learning the side lever, if you have passed mastery I'd resist going backwards.

I thought I mastered it, but I got form checked by a coach, conclusion was that I need to go back to SL/PE1

If you can hold the basic superman position, even if the angle / arch doesn't meet mastery I would continue to work the superman position and just work on increasing the angle / arch towards mastery.  Personally I wouldn't break form from the superman position unless I couldn't do the bare minimum.  In addition to the supermans I do as part of my gb training I've been practicing them with short holds a few times / day on most days and it seems to be helping.

Remember you could also go back to an easier template (i.e. 30s or even 15s template). If you can hold the arch body with arms overhead, even for 5s, I think it would be better to try and master the easier template first. Then if that is a no go, to do the same process with the arms to the side and/or back.

I would still agree that doing it with the arms to the side/back would be good for you, but I would do it in addition to doing the regular hold on an easier template (again, this is assuming you can hold a decent position for a very short time).

I'm actually going to do something like this myself in the next cycle if things don't turn around.

I've been struggling for a really long time with ABH myself and had the same thing happen (thought I progressed but it wasn't right). I may try OPs suggestion. Sounds about right. I've made good progress and covered up deficiencies in everything besides ABHs.