Windshield wipers space problem - hypothetical question

Hi all,

I'm not there yet, but due to the placement of my stall bars (in a corner) I know I am going to have trouble performing the Windshield Wipers exercises in the future. I will have to come up with a proper solution once I get into F2 territory, but in the meantime I was thinking: suppose I do tuck-legged Windshield Wipers with proper compression, how many reps extra would you say are required to get something close to the same level of neuromuscular activation as one would with straight-legged WWipers? (I know it will never be exactly the same and I hope to find a different solution, but I was just wondering... and there are probably many people who do these on a pullup bar or rings without back support, which isn't the same either).

HI Michael, simply is impossible to say, because too many parameters are linked to body proportion, weight, weight distribution, passive tension of the knees muscles which become a problem when you extend the legs.

To me, the bent leg compression is nowhere close to the straight leg compression. Compare between the hanging bent leg lift to the straight leg lift. Suppose you can lift your knees all the way to your nose with bent legs, as soon as you straighten the legs you lose the compression immediately. Keeping the legs straight also requires you devote resources to engage pretty much all the muscles in the legs, whereas with bent legs, you can direct all your resources to focus on the core and pretty much forget about the legs... Maybe a little exaggerated, but you get my point. Same applies to the side compression in the windshield wipers. 

Yeah that's what I thought as well... I was mostly wondering if anyone had tried this as a substitute (same as people doing them without back support - training at home we are sometimes restricted in our options). I'm not there yet so I still have time to find a way to do them (more or less) properly :-) thanks!

I had a similar discussion in another thread some months ago. I haven't got stall bars at home, but I was trying to see if I could do the 1/2 windshield wipers upside down.  And then @Tanya Hill suggested going to the local park and using a kids' climbing frame! It seems obvious now, but hadn't even occurred to me back then...I'd been trying to find elaborate solutions around the house.

I still plan to get stall bars but now once a week I head to the park to do everything that needs stallbars in one block. In my case that's SL/PE10, MN/PE5 and pHS/PE1. In your case, you'd only need to do MN/PE5, so it wouldn't even take that long.

I should add to @Jin Liu and @Alessandro Mainente's points that--at least for me--there is also pressure on the arms, shoulders and side, as I twist--i.e., it's not just about leg compression. I have terrible shoulder mobility so I'd imagine that this pressure is helping me.  But I would expect that if you were to tuck your legs there would be much less of that force. So I'd pass on Tanya's advice about playgrounds and suggest that it probably is worth finding somewhere that you can do them properly if you can.

I do my workouts in the AM before our three-year old wakes up - that’s basically the only spare time I have in which there’s no chance of distraction or ‘interference’  going outside for a single exercise would probably double the time it takes to complete the workout, which isn’t feasible. But I suppose I will be able to squeeze in some windshield wiper-only sessions during other parts of the day. Thanks!