sPL5 - first attempts

Ahh, the sweet pleasure of stillness, going nowhere and enjoying it. Plus no elbow pain with straight arms, yeah! 

I was leaning forward as much as I could. I noticed that when I got to the edge of my lean “ok, here it is, this is the point I want to train,” puff, it disappeared and I was down on my knees rather fast. It felt like there was a little bit more momentum sneaking behind me and I could only hold that position a few seconds before it was over. Is that something I should fight to stabilize with my wrist?

I edited all my attempts in one seamless clip (except 5), so you get the idea and it’s not so boring to watch. There’s one attempt in the middle that’s a whooping 7 sec. I was at it for 25 min with the >iMs (much longer than usual due to the experimentation). I can tell you I’m sore (next day) in all the right places: big time serratus anterior, lats, upper traps, delts. Not chest.

Should I lean a hair less initially and do longer holds? Or is it better to go to the edge and try to grip more and hold it there progressively with more seconds?

Look forward to your recommendations on how to best approach my training going forward. Thank you.

We'll see if I have what it takes to get to Carnegie Hall. No pressure 

When you feel the edge of the tipping over point, really drive your straight arms, using your hands, forward against the floor to counteract falling. A good supplementary exercise to do is dynamic leans whereby you lean forward then push yourself back to having arms vertical and repeat for a few repetitions.

Right on Kate, will defineyrly try it. Thank you for contributing snd being part of my GB evolution! After my 1st attempts I imagined that sPL5 is like the balancing mechanism of HS but on steroids non-stop and one direction (for the wrists).

Funny, I teach a similar movement on the stability ball, but working both directions: starting with a plank with feet on the ball, then pushing backwards maintaining hollow and lastly pulling forwards against the floor to a conservative lean. Cheers.

I've seen elsewhere that a way of determining whether you have sufficient lean is to tie a string around your hips that dangles down to the floor (well, almost to the floor), and when it crosses the line formed by the parts of your hand that are supporting your weight you're good. I've also read elsewhere that your hand orientation (the direction your fingers point) will change where on your hands you support your load. 

Maybe it's an illusion, (or not an issue), but do you lose protraction as you lean forward?

14 hours ago, William Marler said:

Maybe it's an illusion, (or not an issue), but do you lose protraction as you lean forward?

Don't know about the string tip. i'm going by feel at this stage. Engaging the lines of push and pull that I think need to be on, given what my body can do at this juncture. Regarding the lean, there seems to be a consensus that you have to lean more (and MORE) than you think! I'm guessing that the lean is also very individual and dependent on our COM (short legs, heavy upper body, skinny legs, etc...), while the hand placement is a "slave" our wrist flexibility/strength and ability to balance (possibly an inverse relationship, but don't quote me on this one).

This clip's sole intention was to “immortalize" my baseline and see where I am beginning with my leans (not so much a form check). More than losing protraction, I’d say I don’t have enough a lot of things, lol. For starters, I couldn’t even hold the position I was aiming for! The good news is that the next day I was sore as heck in all the right places. I think because I really was leaning as far as I could (almost max effort) and the intensity was there. Now, I’m going to work on my leans by building seconds at a submax lean first until my wrists adapt. Then, gradually increase my forward lean. Rinse and repeat. 

On 3/8/2016 at 2:33 PM, Eva Pelegrin said:

... while the hand placement is a "slave" our wrist flexibility/strength and ability to balance (possibly an inverse relationship, but don't quote me on this one).

This clip's sole intention was to “immortalize" my baseline and see where I am beginning with my leans (not so much a form check). ...

That's a really interesting point about us being slaves to our wrest flexibility. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes sense.

Acknowledged that this is just a baseline set of videos. You're right, of course. Sorry for the premature critique. 

Kept my first leans around 20-23 sec x 6 sets to make up for my shorter holds, waaah. Clearly not much of a lean yet. Here’s 4-5th set of each day. This is where I am. Thoughts?

You are lifting your hips too high for this element, we're looking for a 'straight' line from shoulders to toes. Your position before you lifted your hips was actually spot on.

The main thing that seems to be missing though is protraction, I can tell you have more by what happens at the end of the video and you reach for your timer. That's how we'd like your shoulders to look in the PLL.

My feeling is it would be smart to roll back to regular plank for a cycle and work on getting more protraction and finding the correct hip position.

Great, will work on that, thank you Cole!

To add to all this. In my opinion this is one of the few exercises where having a mirror will help you, particularly with the hips being too high thing. I found it hard to get the right position by feeling alone, a mirror really helps with feedback.

Thank you Christian for saying this. I was thinking about the same thing and locking my pelvis position right from the start. I have a mirror, but have been doing by feel and clearly I have to reduce my piking WHILE keeping my PPT. I obsess so much about maintaining PPT because I'm structurally the opposite... that I end up piking

I’m changing my form to keep more of a straight line per Coach @Cole Dano See what you think now. 

Regarding hip position, in addition to maintaining ppt, I find I have to press my hips down (towards the floor) in order to make a straight line. Is this feeling correct? 

I need to practice this position so I can show more protraction. As I lean forward and balance my protraction seems to diminish when looking at video, although I thought I was still protracting as much as I could. I think more practice time will get me there.

1) I've been working on creating a diagonal line (from shoulders to heels) and eliminating my hinge angle at hips. After I pre-position my PPT,  I have to intentionally push my pelvis down to get that diagonal line and I feel less core activation this way, in comparison to when I slightly raised my hips like in prior videos, where I felt much more integrated/solid then.

2) I find that when I focus on protraction + depression, I end up not leaning as much as I thought I was. Thank you iPhone. However, when I focus on leaning forward at max, I feel I'm working much harder. I get more shaking, more SA and traps activation and since there's more difficulty going forward, it seems like the direction to go. However, leaning further forward seems to come at a price with an inverse proportion to the amount of protraction I can access. 

I don't want to over-think this, but I certainly don't want to under-work it either! Please advise.

This is a good line. 

The camera angle, coming from low and a bit behind, makes it hard to judge your protraction. But I'm a big believer in one thing at a time, and correcting the line is already a major step forward.

PLLs are an important step in the process, and I'm sure many of us have worked through them more than once improving the lean each time.

Find a comfortable amount of lean where you feel you are working, but can still engage your shoulders and protract. Keep in mind moving the chest up goes hand in hand with protracting.

Sounds good Cole. I will raise camera angle next time. This gives me something to work on tmw, thank you.
In addition to "moving my chest up" while protracting is there any amount of chest horizontal aDDuction that needs to take place as well. I think it's naturally happening with my serratus ant. activation. Just want to confirm, if ok.

With the camera, we just need an angle that clearly shows where your shoulder blades are, more or less straight on from the side and higher than it is now.

I personally never think of adducting, but I can see how that could achieve the result I'm looking for. 

The thing with cues in general is that often it's a matter of finding the one that works for you. Cues are often just a way for us to help you find a way to get the shape we are looking for.

For myself I find if I think of moving my body up rather than worrying about my scaps I get better protraction. Your mileage may vary.

@Cole Dano, I raised my camera angle to a little more than bench-height, let me know if that’s enough.

I’m pleased that within a few weeks, I can do 5 x 30s. I can keep body line still without fidgeting while my arms are, yes, vibrating. Takes some Zen for sure. I always attempt to foam-roll my SA the next day just to test if they're sore. My way of confirming I worked hard enough (at my level).

I usually start by having what seems like more protraction, but I always end up killing it, as I feel it’s a false sense of protraction that comes from flexing my upper spine. Am I off-base in this observation? Or is some/more spine flexion desirable here? 

@Zach Armijo, while I realize this is not Carnegie Hall material (yet)… I’m enjoying the present moment (read suffering) . A little progress goes a long way! I’m sure I need to lean more. This is what I got right now. 

All in all, I'd call this acceptable. Shape wise, ideally the hips would be lower and back flat, but given your history, I think you've found the best compromise.

Shoulders also look good and your are correct about not overdoing rounding from the upper back.

As noted getting more lean is the goal, but I personally am advocate of the multiple pass through method. I.e. find a lean you can reasonably maintain, build to 5x30s, the move to the elevated lean. Then come back to this an lean further starting form step one and so on.

I'm not sure how this fits with the way the software works, but that's the a way a lot of us built our lean.

Thanks Cole for the "acceptable" rating and for understanding my current "limitations."

I'm happy with my awareness and muscle activation pattern, even though it is still in its green stages. That's all I can ask for now.

The multiple pass approach makes total sense to me. Knowing that the leans are simply a stepping stone and not the end-goal keeps my mind in the right place.

I follow the mastery templates, but actually I haven't been using the software. I like pen and paper too much! And the flexibility that comes from knowing your body and following an intuitive approach to how my body responds to the training progressions.

After all these years, if I am too old for ANYTHING is for NOT to apply what I already know to be true. Thank you.

@Cole Dano Check point after one cycle attempting for more lean.
I'm attaching still shot to compare leans, but not much of a difference. I was hoping to gain more lean in this cycle. This is what I got:

Your protraction has improved though. You know there's a saying about Rome and how long it took to build. Though there are some form break issues, the difference I see here is you are much more engaged in the sense you are trying to find how to milk as much out of this as you can, whereas before is was more just sitting there.

Let's see how you respond to the elevated version next cycle. For some, it will make finding how to lean more natural, which is why I like to cycle the two. 

I started this thread 5 months ago when I could barely hold this position for one second. This video concludes my 4-week training cycle, coming from a previous 4-week pass at sPL/PE6, which you can reference below. My assignment was to focus on more protraction. Attached is a ‘before & after’ shot for comparison (I use this thread as my visual progress log). I look forward to your comments! All feedback welcome: coaches, seniors and newbies alike. We may be at different spots on the path but we’re all traveling in the same direction.

Nice progress, Eva!

Hell yea nice progress Eva. Well Done!!