Form Check on HS/PE1 and PE1-im

Hey all, 

Here are updated videos of my form on PE1 and PE1-im. I'm using a six pound bar and man do I HATE this im (it also hates me, as I find it 'almost' painful to perform--it's very difficult). I doubt I'm yet up to snuff for mastery for the im, regardless I've moved on to PE2 because tripods are excessively boring. I did 5 sets at 90 seconds to two minutes, just because. Anyways, If there any alternative tips for expediting faster increases in shoulder flexion for PE1-im, please pass them along. 

Get your hands closer together.  You're pulling back plenty far.

Yeah I know. The hard part is doing that without impinging my shoulder joint, which it does, if I put them any closer together--sigh...

i suspect the issue there is because you are doing these as if you are trying to dislocate. As you narrow you want to keep from opening the armpits so much, otherwise it's impingementville.

Daniel,

I'm not an expert but for what I have understood of this exercise reading the forum you have to avoid the external rotation of the arms and shoulders, the thing of movement you do in a dislocate like Cory said.

In essence you have to duplicate the arms position you have when you are in a handstand.

There are good posts from Adriano that explain this and show the differences in a video.

For what I see in your video it seems that you rotate your arms externally, like a dislocate movement and this must be correct.

What I have found useful is to try to rotate the arms internally at first to get the feeling of the right position.

I suggest also to do a video without t-shirt and taken from behind to allow a better view of your execution.

I know that my shoulders are 'dislocating'. The reason for that is that I can't comfortably lift my arms overhead while my shoulders remain inn the normal un-rotated position. I'm wondering if people have any ideas for how to increase range of motion in shoulder flexion so that I can work to alleviate that discomfort and lacking mobility over time. The dislocation comes as a half-measure to try and work my arms overhead, because without dislocation I cannot otherwise get my arms anywhere near overhead (neither with arms wide apart nor close together). This is my main issue. 

Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

I know that my shoulders are 'dislocating'. The reason for that is that I can't comfortably lift my arms overhead while my shoulders remain inn the normal un-rotated position. I'm wondering if people have any ideas for how to increase range of motion in shoulder flexion so that I can work to alleviate that discomfort and lacking mobility over time. The dislocation comes as a half-measure to try and work my arms overhead, because without dislocation I cannot otherwise get my arms anywhere near overhead (neither with arms wide apart nor close together). This is my main issue. 

This is the whole point of this element.  Arms wide and dislocating defeat the purpose of the exercise.  Don't beat yourself up, this is a common mistake.  Coach posted in this thread

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/10410-hspe1im-shoulder-joint-rotation/

Proper execution of this exercise is to put your hands at shoulder width or slightly wider.  Then pull back as far as you can.  Progress is measured by gradually increasing how far back you pull.

How to get better?  The GB solution is the Thoracic Bridge stretch series.  Foundation has some good stretches in the HBP progression.  The yoga "Puppy Pose" is one of my favorites.  You can also have a friend (or cable cross machine) gently help you get into position.

Don't expect results overnight -- it's going to take a while.

Lol, I'm not expecting results overnight as I'm been doing the same move with the same weight since July of last year. I also do the TBs failingly so. I see a key in what you said that I missed in that I should ALWAYS have shoulders at shoulder-width or not much wider and then shoulder flexion as much as possible...I'll try that and see how it goes -- only going as far/high as I can of course. Found a video by Kelly Starrett that might help which is similar to Puppy Pose in Yoga. I'll apply that too. It's damned frustrated but slow and steady I go.