Arch body hold SL/PE1 breathing trouble & questions

Hi all!

Arch body hold is definitely the exercise that I found the most difficult of all level 1 preparatory elements. So I would like to ask some questions:

1. if I want to keep my max range of arching I found that this is much easier to keep that if I stop to breath (apnea). As I resume to breath I noticed that my body descend a bit, especially if I use diaphragmatic breathing! This way I do not perform this exercise at my max range of arching!

I wonder if this is a common problem!

In this case, which would be the best way to perform this exercise? I'm still far to get the range as it is shown in the video demonstation, so I thought that I have to keep my body in tension as much as possibile in order to improve my range of arching!

2. I'm trying to follow the week schedule, currently I'm practicing three times a week 5*36! But I realized that in the last sets my body starts to flicker and my arching decreases a bit. Before adding holding time would it be more correct to keep my body in tension with strict form and no flickering at all during all time?

Thank you!

1. Your breathing muscles (core) is overly tight. The muscles need to be more supple so you can breath in the stretched position. One exercise that can make a huge difference is taking a cheap small basketball from dollar (kid size) or a small medicine ball and laying your stomach on it right on your belly and too the sides of it. You can break up the tension there. If you've never done it before this can be VERY intense, because you're trying to relax enough for the ball to sink in closer to your spine. I never even noticed my abs were tight until I did this myofascial release. But it will immediately improve your breathing. Here's a video that covers it more thoroughly with a couple more stretches.

skip to 6:20 to get started on the stretch info, but the whole video is quiet enlightening.

2. As far as shaking is concerned. If you're holding form for the proper time, then don't worry about shaking until you've reached mastery time. Because there should be no shaking to successfully show mastery and you won't be able to reach that time frame anyways if you're shaking early on. So just go through it if you can maintain goodform

Once you fully relax the breathing muscles it's shocking how good it feels. I swear we all carry tension somewhere in our bodies and don't even realize it because we've held it for so long.

1. While holding just your abs tight, breath steady shallow breaths. You should feel your diaphragm moving. 

2. Generally speaking, with static holds there should be no shaking/flickering.

There's no danger in your shaking for this hold -- it just means your muscles are fatigued and struggling to stay coordinated with each other.  You can safely move on, but you probably won't make much progress with the 4x48.  You might find it more psychologically beneficial to hang out at 5x36 until you're able to hold the ROM the full time.

 

For ABH, I found it beneficial to break it into 2 elements.  I did PE1a as a shallow arch hold with legs slightly apart, and PE1b as full ROM legs together.  This let me continue to feel progress, and restricted me to not increasing ROM and duration simultaneously.  (It's also because I thought I had it mastered but couldn't do a single rep of PE2 and learned feet together was important after doing it wrong for a few months.)

Jeremy Huston said:

There's no danger in your shaking for this hold -- it just means your muscles are fatigued and struggling to stay coordinated with each other. You can safely move on, but you probably won't make much progress with the 4x48. You might find it more psychologically beneficial to hang out at 5x36 until you're able to hold the ROM the full time.

For ABH, I found it beneficial to break it into 2 elements. I did PE1a as a shallow arch hold with legs slightly apart, and PE1b as full ROM legs together. This let me continue to feel progress, and restricted me to not increasing ROM and duration simultaneously. (It's also because I thought I had it mastered but couldn't do a single rep of PE2 and learned feet together was important after doing it wrong for a few months.)

I like this idea to break into 2 elements! Just to understand better:

1. if I can do 5*36 with Full ROM, then I could perform PE1a with more time but slightly arching and legs apart?

2. Do you suggest to perform PE1a and PE1b in separate days or both elements at the same day? I guess in the second way I shouldn't be able to complete 5*36 for PE1a and then the other 4/5 sets for PE1b. On the other hand, if I perform them on separate days I could not have enough time to recover properly my muscle. Currently I'm practicing ABH 3 times a week. Splitting Pe1a and PE1b implies 6 days a week!... So what do you suggest?

I would appreciate your opinion! Thank you!!

Don't do them simultaneously.  PE1a and PE1b are subsequent exercises.  Achieve "mastery' of PE1a, then go back to week 1 of the template and do PE1b.  Then progress to PE2, etc.

 

(If it's easier to understand, call PE1a as "PE0 -- Partial ABH")

Jeremy Huston said:

Don't do them simultaneously. PE1a and PE1b are subsequent exercises. Achieve "mastery' of PE1a, then go back to week 1 of the template and do PE1b. Then progress to PE2, etc.

(If it's easier to understand, call PE1a as "PE0 -- Partial ABH")

Thank you very much Jeremy!! [emoji2] I will do as you said!!