Tips on breaking plateau--> RC/PE1 & HBP/PE2 for a year

Hi all!

It's been just shy of a year now that I've been training with GB.  I've had a few injury setbacks entailing several weeks of not training certain exercises, but for the most part I've seen steady progression with the exception of the RC/PE1 (I'm in weeks 5-9) and the HBP/PE2 (I'm in week 9).  The rest of my exercise levels can be seen below in my signature.

Admittedly, leg/glute mass and strength comes much easier for me as compared to the upper body.  In my previous weighlifting pursuits this was always the case.   I came into weightlifting (20 years ago) already with hypermobile shoulders that were at first quite prone to injury.  

Since then things have gotten better as I added muscle mass, but then things plateaued.  I'm only training the GB right now and have been doing 4x/week.  I've considering adding in a day of crossfit and reducing GB to 3/week.  Any thoughts on how I might break the plateau for these exercises?  Could it be that my weekly volume is too high or that I should incorporate weightlifting again?

Hi Geoguy,

it took me long time to master HBP/PE2 and RC/PE1 as well.

Just few ideas:

- Reduce the # of days of training so the you perform these exercises only once per week. This will help with the recovery.

- Make smaller increments. For instance instead of jumping from 8 to 10 reps go from 8 to 9 first.

- Do HBP and RC in separate days. I started to do this for time reason and noticed that I started to progress on RC/PE2 faster.

Of course it depend case by case but if your form is good and you have no juries often the culprit is too much exercise.

We tent to think that we always need to do more, I use to have this mentality but I started to see the progress I wanted in body composition and performance only when I slowed down.

For my money if you want to add Crossfit because you like it the do it if it's to speed up you mastery not sure if it's the way to go.

Ale

it's curious that you have been stucking on both hinge rows and pushups, where people tend to not push themselves as hard as they can do.

Anyway have you ever made your form checked?

Work on stretching, this could help with hinge rows. My son was struggling with hinge rows, he worked on the thoracic spine and shoulder flexibility, this helped his hinge rows tremendously. Before this, he had decent pulling strength, but that does not directly transfer to RC/PE1 all the time.

With regards to pushups, have your form checked, you could be making a little mistake that makes the exercise tremendously harder, my son did this for a while and it was very hard, then he realized he was messing up his support position. The skill became easier for him from there.

Good luck.

Grip strength helped me with Hinge Rows. I bought some grip strengtheners and practice bar hangs...I found that I had much more endurance with RC/PE1 as a result. Stretching helps, too.

Thanks for all the great info guys.  Here is a (blurry) video of me today on the HBP/PE2.  After seeing that I am reminded how pliable my joints are!  It makes me wonder if I'm cut out for gymnastics as much as my elbows can hyperextend, but maybe that isn't a limitation.

Let me know what I can do better here!

https://youtu.be/cEQRIid5xl4

Try flaring your elbows out less and protracting more at the top.

As GenericGymnast says, your elbows are flaring, in part this is due to your hand spacing being a bit narrow. Set your hands a little further apart and bring your elbows more in to your sides. Yoga mats are generally are a little too narrow and it's ok if some of your fingers come off the edge.

I have found a strong band around the arms (or a strap i suppose, but i like the tension of a band) helps with the elbow flaring and ups my pushup endurance dramatically

Thanks guys. What would "protracting less" at the top mean?

You need to protract your scapula more at the top, not less. This is basically the top position of sPL/PE1.

geoguy said:

Thanks guys. What would "protracting less" at the top mean?

This means pushing the ground further away from you. Once your arms are fully extended, you can push the ground away even further by pushing your shoulders towards the ground: this is called protracting. 

Joshua Slocum said:

This means pushing the ground further away from you. Once your arms are fully extended, you can push the ground away even further by pushing your shoulders towards the ground: this is called protracting. 

 

"Push the ground away" is right...Push it so that your shoulder blades come apart as much as they can. It's the top of SPL/PE1.

Hope that description helps.

Got it Forgive me for asking why the protracting is helpful for this. It would seem like more work to extend the ROM, but I'd like to learn, as often times knowing the reasoning behind things really helps me in my execution. Thanks!

- Elevation : scapula toward the ears
- Depression : scapula away from the ears
- Retraction : scapula toward the spine
- Protraction : scapula away from the spine

 Your scapula must be protracted and depressed at the top because this is the scapular position which maximize your strength. Nevertheless, holding the top position is not the purpose of HBP/PE2, it is the purpose of sPL/PE3.

geoguy said:

Got it Forgive me for asking why the protracting is helpful for this. It would seem like more work to extend the ROM, but I'd like to learn, as often times knowing the reasoning behind things really helps me in my execution. Thanks!

This will make it harder, but if you protract and focus on keeping scapular depression, you will strengthen your back muscles via depression and your serratus anterior via protraction. At least that's my understanding.

Thanks for all the HCP comments--more are welcome!

Yesterday I tried them again and the form changes did make it harder, but in the long run maybe that will prove to be easier.  I probably should have someone at least snap a shot to see if my elbows are flaring less.  And I am also going to try to only do the exercise once a week to see if the lowered volume helps.

Here now is the video link for my hinge rows that I also have problems with.  Let me know what you think.  I know for me it is easier if I were to back up my feet so that my waist is further back, as then I pull up less weight, but maybe that defeats the purpose.

https://youtu.be/RH4zyViWJwU

you want the angle between your forearm and biceps to be 90 degrees, you must adjust the height of the rings for that.

Also think about hinging AT your hips

For the ring hinges I didn't change the ring height but rather made sure I hinged so that my rear was closer to the ground.  That definitely makes things a bit more different but I think I like it  

I've been sick the past 3 weeks wtih a cold and maybe haven't been able to give it my all, but I've been training (albiet much less) and the push-ups are still very difficult, but if my form is part of the reason, it will likely take a while for me to strengthen the other muscles there to start making gains.

Here is another more recent video of my pushups.  Let me know if there are still things to change.  I'm trying to focus on the protraction and depression.

Looks good but a top view would be suitable to see if you're actually protracting

Try to keep elbows over wrists as much as possible. 

Hi guys, here is a view from the top to see about my protraction and general form: