HBP/PE2 very difficult

Hey guys,

I have been working on F1 and HS1 for one and a half years now and making great progress overall. I am currently working on FL/PE4, sPL/PE5, MN/PE5, SL/PE1, SLS/SE1, HBP/PE2, RC/PE1. Now as you can see I am progressing really well with the FL, sPL, MN and SLS elements, while progress with SL, HBP and RC is much slower.

In fact (keeping Russian twist aside), I seem to have problems progressing with bent arm strength much more than with straight arm strength, which seems counter intuitive as I used to bench press 90kg and do 10 pull ups before starting F1. 

My form improved a lot on push ups in the last year, so I definitely make improvements. Also, I used to be at RC/PE3 but stagnated and decided to redo Hinge rows after the new video showed me that my technique might have been sloppy.

Right now I do static holds at the bottom position of the push ups at 5x36s, building up to 5x60s.

My question: Is it normal to progress so slowly on gymnastics bent arm strength even with a background in weight lifting? I have no problem staying at lower progressions for as long as necessary and on average spent 3-4months on every progression. I just want to make sure I am not overlooking some crucial component in the push up/Row technique that is holding me back.

Your weak point seems to be work capacity, not strength. this makes sense, as most weightlifting is focused on building the maximum lift, so work capacity takes a back seat. I have a similar issue: I can climb a rope and do a hollow-back, but I'm taking a while to work through the progressions due to the lack of endurance.

My experience has been very similar as well... I've been doing the program for nearly 10 months right now, and I've been on RC/PE1 and HBP/PE2 for ages. No idea why. But I've recently found a way to progress in micro-steps that works well for me and staves off frustration

Rather than doing the rep/set template as designed, I've broken it down into smaller progressions.

So, for example, right now my rep scheme for HBP/PE2 is 12,12,9,9,9... next week I'll try 12,12,12,9,9... then 12,12,12,12,9... you get the idea.

I've found this to be much more encouraging, as I feel like I'm still making progress every week, albeit tiny progress

I would like to know why progress in these areas is slow slow, but either way, I'm happy with the way things are going...

Cam

Has anyone tried working with slow to very slow reps on exercises where work capacity becomes an issue?

I haven't used this approach specifically to overcome work capacity issues, but I do use it often to work on developing perfect reps in complex movement (hinge rows and PPPs, for example).

In my warmups, I find that 15 hinge rows seem much easier after 5 super slow ones than they do going straight in.  It might be worth a try; worst case scenario you get some form refinement work in your warmup. 

the problem could be that the posture we take of WL in order to isolate muscles  or promote some patterns is different from GST. Typical example is the benchpress, in gymnastic we have no exercises with the same type of activation. The reason of course is the goal of the movement. bodyline, alignment etc requires a certain type of activation that can be different from pattern to pattern.

Sven Ravnstag said:

Has anyone tried working with slow to very slow reps on exercises where work capacity becomes an issue?

 

I haven't used this approach specifically to overcome work capacity issues, but I do use it often to work on developing perfect reps in complex movement (hinge rows and PPPs, for example).

 

In my warmups, I find that 15 hinge rows seem much easier after 5 super slow ones than they do going straight in.  It might be worth a try; worst case scenario you get some form refinement work in your warmup. 

Superslow reps requires that the effort, talking about % of 1RM, is about 40-45% if you want to develop strength. I've studied this approach with one my friend who is an university professor. he elaborated some interesting results. Btw, if you have stall point i suiggest super slow negative at the end of the last set. 

Sven Ravnstag said:

Has anyone tried working with slow to very slow reps on exercises where work capacity becomes an issue?

 

Yes, I've done this to break through a pushup plateau and it worked very well for me. I was stuck at around 5 x 12 for 6 - 9 months. I tried several different strategies to break through the plateau (GTG, increased volume, gradually reducing rest time, etc) but this is the only one that worked for me.

What I did was to make sure each rep lasted 4 seconds on average. So I would time a set of 10 to last 40 seconds. I started at 5 x 10 and after 3 cycles I mastered 5 x 15. Although my mastery reps weren't quite as slow as 4s, they were good reps.

My theory is that doing reps at normal speed allows you to power past your weakpoints, whereas slow reps force you to be strong at every point in the movement. I would often get sore in unexpected places - like my upper back - which suggests to me that I was bringing other muscles into play and promoting supercompensation. Also, I found it easier to focus on whole-body tension with slow reps, since at this speed it's easier to notice (and correct yourself) if your body is not moving as a single unit.

Very interesting, Kibbokift.

My personal strength-endurance nemeses are the early RC progressions - currently PE3.

I have lost count of the times my cycle has petered out just a couple of reps short.

How did you programme this slow stuff into your cycles?

Did you mix it between sessions, or keep true to it over the course of one or more blocks?

Michael Taylor said:

Very interesting, Kibbokift.

My personal strength-endurance nemeses are the early RC progressions - currently PE3.

I have lost count of the times my cycle has petered out just a couple of reps short.

How did you programme this slow stuff into your cycles?

Did you mix it between sessions, or keep true to it over the course of one or more blocks?

If I remember rightly it was something like this (week 1 being the first week using this strategy):

Week 1 - 5 x 10

Week 2 - 4 x 12

Week 3 - 5 x 12

Week 4 - 5 x 6

Week 5 - 5 x 12

Week 6 - 4 x 15

Week 7 - 5 x 15 (but failed the last couple of reps on the final set)

Week 8 - 5 x 8

Week 9 - 5 x 12

Week 10 - 4 x 15

Week 11 - 5 x 15 Mastery!

I did nothing but slow reps, but as I said, when I got to 5 x 15 they were closer to normal speed.

Incidentally, I used the same strategy with SPl PE1 and it seemed to really improve my protraction and serratus activation.

Hope this helps you