Recommended Height on Ground Rows

Obviously ground rows get easier or harder based on where you place your body and the rings.  Is there a recommended angle and height for the first round of ground rows?  Thanks!

Zach

Hey Zach,

Ideally, your shoulders and arms will be directly under the support beam (vertical line from ring straps to shoulders). Your back should be just off the floor; get it as close as possible. 

Thanks for the response!  Correct me if I am wrong but on the follow along videos they seems to be at a steeper angle and off the floor a bit.  Maybe 12 inches off the floor and a 60 degree angle?  Are they just doing it in a way that is not ideal?  

Hey Zach, 

I was just trying to make your life harder (and your RC stronger) by suggesting the most difficult variation!  

The technique tip video's form is for sure the hardest variation shown in the course videos and I've found it to yield the greatest strength gains. 

Hi Zach, that has been a point of confusion for me as well. The instructional videos Wesley does show very strict form but the actual exercise follow-along videos show noticeably less strict form.

The ground row distance from the ground and the angle don't match the instruction.

The same is true for pushups. The depth is not as great at the bottom, and shoulder protraction is almost nonexistent at the top of the exercise videos, even though the instructional videos emphasize these points.

I don't understand why there is a discrepancy. It is not possible to follow along with the exercise videos at their cadence with strict form when the video demonstrators themselves are doing abbreviated movements that wouldn't pass form check review here on the forum. These follow-along videos are supposed to be the gold standard of the movements, with thousands of people copying them, so I would expect them to be very strict, but they are not.

Can Coach Sommer or anyone from GB explain what the best way forward is for following along with videos like that.

Thanks,

Matt

Yeah I noticed this as well in the planche push ups and planche lean.  My form check coach said that I should be way farther out but the follow along videos seems to demonstrate some differences and not to be as strict. 

Maybe this is what happened to me... I never used the technique videos until just recently. Thought I was on the right track, but it turns out my form is lacking in a few areas. C'est la vie...

@Matthias Schwartz I've been frustrated by the follow-along videos for this very reason.  We need many more Wesley videos (i.e. in the Handstand courses, F2 and up) in place of the follow along videos.

My strategy in general has been to do whatever Wesley says and ignore the follow-alongs.  My PEs take whatever time it takes to execute a good rep, and I try to keep my transitions to IMs and back to 3-5 breaths.

22 hours ago, Matthias Schwartz said:

Can Coach Sommer or anyone from GB explain what the best way forward is for following along with videos like that.

Hey guys, 

Here's my take on the current system and available resources:

-Our follow along videos are primarily there for keeping proper tempo. It's tough not to milk that water break, especially at first, so their primary role is to keep us working and keep us honest.  

-The other videos like Wes's technique tip/scaling clips and the exercise videos demonstrate accepted form. These demo textbook execution and I consider them, combined with Coach Sommer's written cues, to be the gold standard.

-The form check and video review services help us continuously improve upon our execution and check for mastery.

My point is, each part of the online training system used together is how you get the best results.  

I don't remember if this was something he said at a seminar or on the forum, but a simple comment from Coach sticks in my mind here. He said, "when in doubt, assume the worst" when asked if reps were per side or total. I took this to mean that if you're unsure, lean further, dip deeper, protract stronger, perform more reps...just to be sure; it can't hurt to exceed minimum standards anyway. 

@Everett Carroll  This is really helpful!  Thanks!  

Thanks for the reply Everett. That is all useful advice. However, any system needs adhere to standards, otherwise no measurements of progress have any value.

If the follow-along videos are there for tempo management, they cannot be used as such if the tempo in them is based on a shorter range of motion. While very good, some of the videos do not seem to demonstrate mastery. The reps in some of the videos (pushups and ground rows for example) are through a shorter range of motion than the strict version. The follow-along videos have been held up as the standard as how to know when to progress, and are used by thousands as the model of a correctly performed set. It is difficult to impossible to match the tempo of the videos while using strict form. This essentially means that to perform strict reps we no longer can follow along with the follow-along videos.

I know Coach Sommer is a perfectionist so I have a hard time understanding why he would allow a large amount of less than perfect reps in some of the demonstration videos. It essentially makes the follow-along videos useless for tempo management, as those of us who want to adhere to strict form need to turn them off and just do our own workout at a tempo that we "think" matches what the videos would have us do with strict form. These videos are our main yardstick to know how we are progressing so it's unfortunate they can not be used for that.

Obviously, any motivated trainee can work around this by just turning off the follow-along videos and doing the workout with strict form with what one thinks is the proper cadence, with minimal rest, which is what I am going to do. However, that removes objectivity and measurement from the equation. A mastery set is now subjective since the tempo of that set is in the trainee's mind rather than matching a video yardstick. This undermines the whole online GST system of assessment and progressive advancement.

I'm just going to keep working and doing my best, videos or not. I think GST is a great strength training system so my above criticisms are not meant as a knock on anyone. However, I bring up this point because I think I am not the only trainee who has been confused by trying to keep pace with the videos without compromising form. We are being told 2 conflicting stories. Use strict form but go as fast as these demo videos which don't use strict form. 

Again, thank you and the GST team for all your work. You all have built a tremendous system and the above criticisms are given with respect and in the spirit of continuous improvement.

23 hours ago, Nicholas Kuhl said:

@Matthias Schwartz I've been frustrated by the follow-along videos for this very reason.  We need many more Wesley videos (i.e. in the Handstand courses, F2 and up) in place of the follow along videos.

My strategy in general has been to do whatever Wesley says and ignore the follow-alongs.  My PEs take whatever time it takes to execute a good rep, and I try to keep my transitions to IMs and back to 3-5 breaths.

@Nicholas Kuhl I agree with what you're doing and will start that myself (use the Wesley form at my own tempo). I was having similar issues with the follow-along videos (as noted in my posts) so I'll just turn them off and do like what you'd doing. The demo videos are good to see as a model of how fast to go (summed up as, do your thing, keep moving, and rest very little), but after a few workouts following them I think we need to go at our own rep cadence based on the form and range of motion we're using. I don't think we're the only ones. Thanks for the suggestion!

It would be interesting to see what Coach Sommers thoughts are on this. I've had the same issues. It's not possible to do strict form reps and keep up with the videos. Coach, what do you recommend. Keep pace with the videos, doing reps the way they are doing them, or keep strict form at your own pace as Wesley demonstrates?

If in any doubts follow the technical execution showed by Wesley on range fo motion and tempo.

If i am learning a new movement or exercise, i try to do it intentionally slowly to give my brain and body time to "feel" the sequences, but also to avoid any momentum. Once it is automated, i try to do it more fluently and catch up with the follow along videos. Form first, then tempo!

If you return to easier PE's after some time, you might notice that your body has become faster. This is also neurological phenomenom aswell as stronger muscles.

I assume that out there we find guys who can follow the tempo in the videos with perfect form; you will see in every sport or even in musicians that experts are able to move their limbs (racing cyclists, runners, pianists etc) faster than other humans, it is a matter of practicing over years...

On 6/23/2017 at 9:53 PM, Matthias Schwartz said:

 

If the follow-along videos are there for tempo management, they cannot be used as such if the tempo in them is based on a shorter range of motion. While very good, some of the videos do not seem to demonstrate mastery. The reps in some of the videos (pushups and ground rows for example) are through a shorter range of motion than the strict version. The follow-along videos have been held up as the standard as how to know when to progress, and are used by thousands as the model of a correctly performed set. It is difficult to impossible to match the tempo of the videos while using strict form. This essentially means that to perform strict reps we no longer can follow along with the follow-along videos.

 

@Matthias Schwartz I get your point. Also, it's completely up to you to decide how you train. Like all of us. That said I personally trust @Everett Carroll and the rest of the coaches when it comes to form, tempo and programming.

Difficult yes, but impossible? What do you base this on? Like som many others I'm humbled by how hard the basic excersises often are, but so far I have been able to match both form (made sure by using the review service) and tempo in the mentioned excersises. And I'm definitely not the only one. And yes it is difficult. And yes it takes time. But why hurry by? Try to enjoy the progress of trying to master an excersise. You're getting stronger and more powerful doing that and isn't that the point? The most common advice on this forum is getting the basics down. 

Can I just add something here

ive been stuck on ground rows 4x9 for some time as keeping to the set tempo in the following along was resulting in me not achieving full rom particularly in the last set 

however i persisted and was determined to get it with the follow along tempo AND full rom . Im now just starting to achieve it (I've been gtg on this one to give myself more volume between upper body days as this method has always been good for me in the past ) and it seems to have worked 

now im not saying that this is going to be the same for all exercises but me being determined to achieve what coaches program sets out has made me think outside the box in how to achieve it, always with the end goal of achieving full rom with the speed of the follow along tempo (albeit having to spend a lot of time on one particular step which is hard for the ego  ) 

That said ive  read on another post that ground rows towards the  mastery set is impossible to keep tempo due to its speed  so ill be interested to see how I get on here but I'm going to keep this goal of mine to achieve  both elements so will see where that takes me . 

11 hours ago, Thomas Nordman said:

@Matthias Schwartz I get your point. Also, it's completely up to you to decide how you train. Like all of us. That said I personally trust @Everett Carroll and the rest of the coaches when it comes to form, tempo and programming.

Difficult yes, but impossible? What do you base this on? Like som many others I'm humbled by how hard the basic excersises often are, but so far I have been able to match both form (made sure by using the review service) and tempo in the mentioned excersises. And I'm definitely not the only one. And yes it is difficult. And yes it takes time. But why hurry by? Try to enjoy the progress of trying to master an excersise. You're getting stronger and more powerful doing that and isn't that the point? The most common advice on this forum is getting the basics down. 

Just realised I've just repeated  what you said Thomas - sorry about that but I'm in agreement with you here 

I'd like to cast another vote to suggest that some of these follow along videos be re-recorded with gold standard form. I think that by reading through this thread we realize how to work around it, but coach has higher standards and this would make the GB courses even better than they already are.