Is mastery testing enough?

Hej everyone,

I completed rc pe6 not so long ago after spending I think 9+ months on it. After completing pe6 I notice I lost a considerable amount of pulling strength and came to the forums to see what the go was but mostly to vent my frustration at how much weaker I had become.

People were saying the main benefit of this exercise like many others is for joint strength more than anything else which makes me wonder, what if someone does f1 and they test through pe6 on the first go? Does that mean they are missing the benefits of joint strengthening?

I have an example recently where a friend of mine who has been climbing for a year did mastery of pe6 on his first try. He has spent the year mostly doing long endurance climbs.

I have been climbing on an off for many years but have been consistent this past year but my focus is more bouldering and short sport routes.

Now while I was considerably stronger than him am had been training my elbows long it still took me 9 months to build that endurance( I have always been more prone to strength rather than endurance)

Surely I would have stronger joints than him yet he passed it his first go and it took me 9 months.

So can some please tell me if this is the case then what is the point of spending so much time on an exercise that is making you weaker and why someone should simply move on to the next exercise if they prove muscular mastery when their joints might not be up to scratch.

Really just trying to understand the logic

Cheers

I think you sort of answered the question. 

He did long endurance climbs for a whole year (assuming consistently).

You did shorter climbs (not as consistently) for a few years.

He may not be as strong as you in terms of strength but he has higher strength endurance which is needed plenty as you go on with foundation and eventually rings training.

My own example (I was in the same situation as you):

I was able to do planches, levers, etc but I got winded easily and needed a lot of rest between sets (occasionally irritated shoulders, wrists). I just was not strong enough to benefit from that kind of training

Right now after working on the base (foundation):

I did lose some strength initially but once I got back to the level of where I was training initially, I didn't get as winded and pains so far have been almost non existent for more than a year (especially the joints). As for RC PE6, I didn't lose that considerable amount of pulling (my pulling strength was most likely not as high as yours). Right now as I'm further in foundation, my pulling strength has gone up significantly and I think it has a lot to do with RC PE6. It's a real pain but also a real gem later on. 

Trust the program.

That's something I agree with you about in that I've stayed at a few elements a bit longer (even though I could test mastery out of it) to get more benefits out of it

I think in my rambling my point may have been missed. He cleared mastery because of better endurance yes but I'm sure my connective tissue is stronger than his because since he started I have been as consistent as him and even before although not as consistent I sill have 2 more years of training on him. Also rest between climbs isn't really an issue for me as long as they are short (I used to mostly boulder)

So my point is, surely I have stronger connective tissue but just not the same endurance as him yet he can move on with an exercise which is supposedly meant to help mostly with connective tissue simply because he has more endurance.

Our strength difference was considerable.

I would disagree with that. I think if he has capacity to do that exercise easily, he likely has the connective tissue strength already, from his other activities. You are catching up, and don't worry, your strength will return quickly. You're better off for spending that time, but he would likely not be.

Perhaps your connective tissue is stronger than his...but his is strong enough. 

Maybe he is just better at endurance, you are better in terms of strength.

One thing I've come to learn through training is that we have our strengths and weaknesses, as long as we work on our weaknesses it's ok.

An important point is that when you talk of different kinds of strength (endurance, maximal etc.) you talk about muscular strength. Connective tissue strength does not work quite the same way. I am no expert on this subject so if someone could elaborate please do so.

Just because your muscular strength was better doesn't mean your connective tissue strength was stronger. The fact that it took you 9 months to complete and he could do it on his first try, and that he had been doing longer duration climbs vs your shorter duration climbs all point to him likely having stronger connective tissues than you, even if his muscular strength was weaker.

As Coach mentioned in the webinar and on several of the recent podcasts, many adults who engage in strength training allow their muscular strength and connective tissue strength to get out of balance (with the muscular strength always being the one to outpace the other). Yours was likely such a case that your muscular strength had grown significantly, but due to your propensity towards short duration work (which doesn't tend to develop connective tissue strength to the same degree as longer duration work) your connective tissue strength had not kept pace. Hence, you needed 9 months on RC/PE6 to allow for adequate adaptation to allow your connective tissue strength to start to catch up to your muscular strength.

Your friend on the other hand most likely had more balanced tissue strength due to his longer duration work, even if he wasn't as strong in a maximal muscular strength sense.

Like others said, your muscular strength should increase back to and beyond where it previously was as you progress onward through the RC progressions.

Keegan said:

 Yours was likely such a case that your muscular strength had grown significantly, but due to your propensity towards short duration work (which doesn't tend to develop connective tissue strength to the same degree as longer duration work) your connective tissue strength had not kept pace. Hence, you needed 9 months on RC/PE6 to allow for adequate adaptation to allow your connective tissue strength to start to catch up to your muscular strength.

 

I agree with that the rationale for these 60s is most likely to develop the connective tissue, however Coach has also said that short micro-bursts from intense dynamic strength is the best way to develop the connective tissue strength, which is why when we eventually get there, the Movement series is so potent

I'm curious where the idea that this element is for joint prep originated.

Forget about connective tissue. This element preps mental fortitude.

This whole program preps mental fortitude and the idea that this element is for join prep came from another post of mine where people told me not to worry about my loss in strength because this exercises was building connective tissue.

Honestly after 3 years of rock climbing you would think id have more strength in my connective tissue than what pe6 would give you.

I think I am tryin I understand how connective tissue gets stronger because although I don't have endurance compared to my friend it's not like the climbs I'm doing are short in time but try are short in relative time to the walls he climbs. I also over the 3 year period have had significantly more time and more stress placed on my elbows.

For example he does a climb which lasts 15 minutes vs me who does a climb 5minutes long but the overal stress on my elbows would be considerable greater thought the climb. He would rarely place that much stress on his elbow by comparison.

If people can have more strength than connective tissue strength then why can't people have more muscular endurance than connective tissue strength?

In other words he moves on though pe6 because of his muscular endurance but I could have passed basically all of f2 with my strength although he wouldn't stand a chance at f2.

Not sure if I'm making sense.

I think it all comes down to people telling me previously that pe6 was about building connective tissue but honestly it seems like there is a serious lack of understanding about how this program actually works especially by myself.

I'm not religious because I don't like blind faith and I constantly feel like I'm blinding having faith in something right now with a community of people who also feel the same way and instead of try into understand or help others to understand it is just a lot of "believe in the program".

I think I need to go read an anatomy book or something to understand this connective tissue thing.

ausswe said:

In other words he moves on though pe6 because of his muscular endurance but I could have passed basically all of f2 with my strength although he wouldn't stand a chance at f2.

Not sure if I'm making sense.

I get what you're saying.

People's response to exercise can vary quite dramatically from person to person. If you were training directly with an experienced coach, they would be able to work with you to enhance your strengths and overcome your weaknesses. Foundation is generic, it's full of great stuff without question, but there's no way it can fully train every single individual without adaptions and modifications. I've found this to be true, and I've heard the same thing from Foundation students way more advanced than I am.

In reality, you are the coach as well as the student. If you want to excel you need to become better at both.

ausswe said:

I'm not religious because I don't like blind faith and I constantly feel like I'm blinding having faith in something right now with a community of people who also feel the same way and instead of try into understand or help others to understand it is just a lot of "believe in the program".

I think I need to go read an anatomy book or something to understand this connective tissue thing.

Which is why I asked where this idea came from. We all need to be careful about repeating things just because they sound good. Looking over the previous thread you mentioned, there's nothing really concrete, just suggestions.

I think there's always a risk in any human endeavour that people will become passionate to the point of being dogmatic. That can be helpful for some people. Blind faith can be useful in instilling certain qualities in people working towards very specific goals. Like you, I like to understand why I'm doing something.

If your only goal is to become certified, then follow the progressions and master everything as prescribed. If you're training for yourself, become a better teacher for yourself. Be brutally honest and find out what you need to get better in order to get out of your training exactly what you need.

ausswe said:

So can some please tell me if this is the case then what is the point of spending so much time on an exercise that is making you weaker and why someone should simply move on to the next exercise if they prove muscular mastery when their joints might not be up to scratch.

Really just trying to understand the logic

Cheers

The short answer that I can give you is:” Because the Foundation program is a linear program (i.e. step-by-step progressions) that is applied to a world that is non-linear (e.g. consisting of practitioners with vastly different athletic background, and innate ability”. Given that fact, it is inevitable to run into something you describe. 

If you want me to do some educated guessing to explain your particular experience, then this is what I can come up with. Your friend probably has, compared to you, relatively more slow twitch fibers (in his arms, shoulders and back) giving him a lot more muscular endurance than you for RCPE6 (i.e. he may be more of a natural endurance athlete, where you are more of a explosive sprinter type). He may also be lighter and thinner in his arms, allowing him to shorten the lever between his hands and shoulders (the length of that lever determines the load that you are trying to hold for 60 seconds). It may have taken you 9 months to develop the slow twitch fibers (and maybe to reduce the size of your biceps) that you needed for this “endurance” test. Whether your friend now has missed out on some crucial joint development, remains a question. I tend to agree with you that, through his climbing, he, like you yourself, has already developed considerable joint strength, probably exceeding what he would get from mastering RCPE6, if he had started RC from scratch (i.e. without his conditioning from climbing). 

I understand your frustration, because I have had similar experiences with other program steps (not with RCPE6 though, because I had a lot of the required (slow twitch) muscular endurance from rowing and climbing). It took me a while to finally discover what was bothering me. I think collins formulated very well what I concluded myself after some serious thinking. Excellent advise.

PE6 is done for different things for brachioradialis to distal and proximal bicep tendons,  scapulas fibers of triceps ending with subscapularis.

lets say something about these muscles:

-brachioradialis: one of the strongest beginner of elbow flexion and one of the more lack around the world. lack brachioradialis and overuse of pulling movement leads to epicondilithis

-proximal bicep tendon: fix the humerus to the scapulas, is a stronger shoulder abductors. it's not a coincidence that when you try to elevate strongly on rings handstand you can feel biceps cramps

-triceps fibers from scap to arm: fix the arm to the scapulas

-subscapularis: notice that since the exercise must be done with chest not in contact you are activating the subscapularis that is another muscle that fix the arm with scapula.

I think this is enough. is too reductive think that is only a bicep exercise.

Climbing may have benefited your connective tissue, but you most likely never spent much time in the position prescribed by RC/PE6. So by RC/PE6, you develop the tendons as well as the muscles mentioned by Alex in this position. Why and how this is beneficial overall and for GST is another question.

Your friend may have managed it just because he has better endurance and/or slightly better connective tissue. It may or may not be related to the climbing each of you does. Maybe he's just a freak. So yeah, keep Frits' answer in mind (basically, it depends).

I understand it might be frustrating to have lost strength but now it's mastered, keep it in your warmup and focus on where you are now. Do try to understand the effect of this PE if it's important to you, but don't compare yourself to your friend. And I hope your strength will come back in no time!

alex87 said:

I think this is enough. is too reductive think that is only a bicep exercise.

Thanks for the additional info. I think it's safe to say there aren't any single muscle isolation exercises in all of Foundation!

It is a good question you have raised. There is a lot of variables at play with exercise performance. When trying to work out why your friend could master this exercise quicker than you we would have to measure; muscle strength, motor unit firing patterns, muscle fibre type, tendon strength, joint capsule strength, joint mechanics, length of bones, length of tendon insertion to the joint, scapula stability, thoracic spine strength and mobility, abdominal strength, blood vessels, fascial tension and the mystery of what goes on in the brain. When anyone can measure all of this we might have a full answer.

Coach has recommended that in our warm ups to do a previous element for 21, 15 and 9 reps. Did you do this with ring rows? If not that could explain your loss of pulling strength through range. As the bent arm hang is only training the muscle at end of range it is normal to lose some strength at the the other ranges. If you are worried about this happening in the future just use a previous element as a warm up to keep your full ROM strength.

I like that you are thinking about how all this works as it is good to understand the methodology behind any training system.

I'd even add that you could play around with some more advanced elements. I recall a recommendation that if you wanted to keep some skills or strength you could do like 2 sets after the workout just to maintain strength.

Mark Collins said:

Coach has recommended that in our warm ups to do a previous element for 21, 15 and 9 reps.

What do you mean ?

For example if you are training for RC/PE6 - which is a 5x5r - you are supposed to do 1x9r of RC/PE5 as a warm up ?

For a 5x10r the warm up would be 1x15r and for a 5x15r it would be 1x21r ?

Your friend did endurance climbs so naturally he will be better at endurance exercises. He's adapted to that already. It's not about the connective tissue. While this does also strengthen connective tissue, it's about maintaining the exact amount of force necessary to hold you up for time. I've done bouldering myself and I can tell you, 5 minutes is not enough to give you the strength endurance for PE6. You need specific training. You've essentially been preparing for a 5 mile run, by sprinting 1 mile 5 times a day. It's not the same thing.

The coaches have said it before, some exercises you might fly through like it's nothing while others you'll feel like you hit a brick wall. You'll likely burn through RC PE8, strict pullups.

Krel said:

What do you mean ?

For example if you are training for RC/PE6 - which is a 5x5r - you are supposed to do 1x9r of RC/PE5 as a warm up ?

For a 5x10r the warm up would be 1x15r and for a 5x15r it would be 1x21r ?

https://courses1.gymnasticbodies.com/f-warmup/