HS/PE5 aka prone handstand extension and mobility work

Hello GB,

I've been following F1 for about 3 months, reading the forums as a guest, crushing the workouts and gaining super powers I have never thought possible. But now, a questions arises. I was testing mastery of all the F1 and H1 level 5 moves (if there is a better way to describe this, I would appreciate it), and rocked everything except for the prone handstand extension and mobility.

My question is did I make it too hard to for myself? For the 1st set I used a 25lbs bar for 30 seconds. I did it. but holy !@#$!, when I tried to push myself up off the floor, the anterior aspect of my shoulders were completely shot. The other four sets, I dropped down to 10lbs instead. I was still out of my comfort zone with this, but happy beyond belief that I accomplished this. What is an ideal standard to compare this too? If 10lbs is considered weak, than I want to spend more time improving this before going to Lvl 6.

The mobility drill, over-grip shoulder dislocates with a weighted bar, should I be aiming for a shoulder width grip as the end goal? At first try, it felt like my scapulas were literally pushing on each other to perform the movement, and it was 'clunky'. I would argue that my strength is present with this exercise as I was able to do it with a 20lb barbell. Greater than shoulder width is not a problem. I don't know what standard to compare my ability to.

The day after both, there is no hurt. Just DOMS. Thank goodness for the rest day!

Any insights in regards to the weight I should use, as well as the distance of the grips for the mobility drill would be much appreciated.

You only need 5 lbs to pass mastery on this, however after you pass mastery you can still work on building up the weight on this while working on next progressions.  If you're feeling this on your shoulders I'm not really sure if that's right, but I personally feel it all on my upper traps.

As for the shoulder dislocates, it's shoulder grip + 1 hand width.   Are you doing the exercise with shoulder grip + 1 hand width?  If not then you should significantly decrease the weight on this, and first focus on ROM before adding weight back on

I would like to see the 25 lbs, seriously. it is impressive.

ChristheKin said:

Hello GB,

The mobility drill, over-grip shoulder dislocates with a weighted bar, should I be aiming for a shoulder width grip as the end goal? At first try, it felt like my scapulas were literally pushing on each other to perform the movement, and it was 'clunky'. I would argue that my strength is present with this exercise as I was able to do it with a 20lb barbell. Greater than shoulder width is not a problem. I don't know what standard to compare my ability to.

The day after both, there is no hurt. Just DOMS. Thank goodness for the rest day!

Any insights in regards to the weight I should use, as well as the distance of the grips for the mobility drill would be much appreciated.

Before determining what weight is sufficient, you should first ask what the purpose of the exercise is.

Done correctly, it's a horizontal version of a handstand, with greater emphasis on strengthening the trapezius muscles. (Perhaps some of the more advanced students can clarify this for us.)

So the goal isn't to try and mimic hercules, but rather to ensure that you can come as close as possible to having a good "handstand line" while prone. If that means using 5 lbs then so be it.

I've been doing this PE for quite a while using 13 lbs. I chose this weight because I felt my traps were relatively weak and wanted to build them up a bit. But the real reason was my attempt to try and bring my dislocates to about shoulder width before proceeding to later variations.

You don't need to have your dislocates at shoulder width. 1½ x shoulder width is what constitutes mastery.

Well said, Atticus.

Only one correction to make, master is shoulder width + 1 hand width on each side. So while wider than shoulder width, also much narrower than 1.5 shoulder width.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer