NaterMania

As far as I can tell they are similar, but left hip is more mobile. Any particular tests?

I still have a stiff spot in my right hamstring from a small tear about a year ago now, but it's starting to get a little better. SLDL stuff is similar, same with balancing using the hips.

My right shoulder feels super dead today, like almost numb but not.

Just general strength and mobility. Especially concerning QL. Imbalances found there should be addressed as part of the shoulder rehab. Just checking the outer factors again

Do you own any hand grippers? If yes, than a check for the integrity of your RC musculature on that day is to simply squeeze it shut and now do an overhead press. If you feel a loss of grip (or are pressing with a more closed shoulder) strength on that side than you're getting an inhibition from your body likely due to instability.

You know what? I have noticed that my shoulders move differently on each hand when I grip the #2 CoC gripper. I think the right always buckles forward.

I'll try this with a light gripper but should I be using something heavier? HOLY CRAP. I can feel the difference just squeezing my fist. It feels like there's a void where my infraspinatus is supposed to be. So I have what may not be a bright idea (but I think it is):

I have e-stim machines. I am thinking I will put low-level current into the infraspinatus to help with the initial activation and see if I can teach myself to use them more a-la Functional E-stim. What do you think?

Should help, just make sure to always follow it with trying to activate the pattern naturally. I would also advise a bit of the crawling work we talked about and some bent leg abdominal (bent V up, or hanging knee raise). Just for a couple weeks at least to engage the "X" pattern and see if that helps it. Start basic, then complex, and back to basic

I think you answered your gripper strength question already. Keep in mind now what the shoulder is doing when you mess with any overhead work, and the depending on severity whether you should be.

That's the plan. As always, thanks Nic!

I was just thinking about the crawling while I was coming home on the train, as a matter of fact Am about to warm up with it. Off to train!

Let me know how it works or you have any questions.

Well, training went well!

It's strange to perform voluntary contractions while being stim'd but it really makes it a whole hell of a lot easier to recruit the right muscles.

I am much more interested in Kinesio tape now I own some, just can't find the book I bought that details the clinical application. I'm pretty sure it's just applied with a 1/3 stretch on the desired line of muscle action.

Did 6 sets of 30-40s ring support, elbows are not quite straight on the last 3 setsbecause my right elbow still hurts. Stupid forearm flexors...

5 sets of wall handstands, 30-40s to failure stomach to wall. I am doing these as a sort of hybrid pike press/ wall handstand because this really lets me focus on learning to actually open while keeping the hips over my shoulders. It's a strange feeling, and is hard but it is easier for me to use my muscles properly this way.

I'm not even sure how many pull ups I did, at least 40 I think. That's a lot for me these days, but everything felt fine. Did 4-5 slow negatives with max isometric hold at the top with hard muscle contraction in the external rotators and traps, felt very good.

So after this I went to my room and realized I could probably use the bed as a makeshift gymnastic block for block handstands and I realized that a lot of us are complete idiots for not using this the right way.

What I did is pretty much what Dillon told me to do a few days ago: put legs on bed, try to get upper body into handstand position. This requires pressing the chest forward while pulling the hips backwards, which is extremely foreign to me and despite the much lower resistance (and not feeling tired at the time) I couldn't hold this anywhere near as long as I can hold what I do on the wall. Probably 20s, and I couldn't even get the full motion.

This is where I have been missing a super important training tool but now I've got it!

I definitely think that a proper description of this would have helped immensely in the 1st edition, because I took one look at the block handstands and realized I could totally do that, but damn I was wrong. For me, at least, they are much harder to do because of the combined motion but this is so important (according to what Dillon said as well as what I felt) that it literally must not be skipped.

Ah, revelations.

224.6 lbs at 10% or so.

Everything feels great right now, it is noticeably easier for me to find my lower traps and infraspinatus. Feels like I worked them harder but also that they are not as tired as normal. Interesting.

I will need to use slightly larger electrodes next time, these were 1" or 1.5" squares I believe.

I found that it is very helpful to have current flowing continuously for the entire set. I used 80hz, but I am considering playing around with very low frequenzy like 2-5 (or maybe even 20) hz as well on the hypothesis that it may lead to better unstim'd recruitment by being a larger number of individual stimuli since these frequencies won't allow for temporal summation in any motor groups. I am wondering if this would lead to quicker re-integration of stim'd muscles into movement patterns...

Regardless, this is surprisingly effective. Finally makes the portable stim units I have worthwhile lol Clip them on my waistband and I'm ready to rock! OR pull, or handstand!

I think the brittle feeling I have in my shoulder is pec minor and coraco-clavicular ligaments being stretched back out, but who knows. It's slowly getting better but if it's ligament stretching then I'm probably in for a couple months of no fun

After reading, I know what I need to do and I know what all of our shoulder stretches are stretching. Very, very useful.

I also found that there are a number of different stretching methods that favor different clinical effects. A lot of this is very intuitive, but it's good for us to know, so here goes my last post for a week:

What I have read suggests exactly what I have suspected: my trapezoid and conoid ligaments have shortened, but the trapezoid is the real issue since it resists backwards movement of the scapula. This helps to explain my difficulty with retraction on the right side, which has been improving steadily with application of multiple 60s dead hangs. Having a partner who knows how to gently manipulate the joint would help immensely. The dead hangs, particularly with palms forward, are a good stretch for the trapezoid ligament.

The red letters CCL denote the two ligaments, with the large flat one that looks like practically the whole thing representing the trapezoid ligament. You can see how it attaches on the back of the collarbone to prevent backward movement. Without the collarbone being able to move backwards, OR up, you can't get the scapula into a position that allows open shoulders without impingement!

Because this ligament limits retraction and proper elevation, and because issues with retraction and elevation will interfere with scapular rhythm and thus the ability to open the shoulder actively, this is an important stretch that everyone should be doing. This is something we know as one of our PE1 exercises. From a clinical view, this has immense value. Especially for someone in my position.

It is very important to do the following during this exercise in order to achieve the goal of remodeling the connective tissues in a way that allows us to perform open handstands:

1) have the thumbs above the AC joint. If you have to, it is ok to start wider than this but you will need to get here eventually.

2) keep the lower abdomen strongly hollow and do not allow your upper back to arch, so that your spine (particularly your thoracic spine) is straight or very slightly flexed (only a few degrees) with the neck somewhat retracted and the chin somewhat tucked. You may want to look up, but this will tend to arch the back and close the shoulder joint, which is not what we want.

3) Exert pressure in the following manner, simultaneously. You may engage one at a time sequentially, just make sure you are doing one, two, and then all three together.

a) Press straight up into the bar, as if you are trying to push yourself AWAY from it.

B) Try to touch your inner elbows or biceps together through your head. Do not focus on the hands, this will cause the elbows to bend.

c) engage the trapezius muscles so that you feel your chest being pushed forward (or a solid retraction, whichever way works for you to visualize).

This is what is required to put the body into a position that will not cause impingement but will still stretch the target structures.

You should expect to have to do this for many months, possibly over a year in my case, to see the full results BUT you will see and feel noticeable improvements very quickly and they will continue to build over time.

Kit's shoulder stretch is stretching the coracohumeral ligament, shown as CHL on the following picture:

This ligament, despite how it may seem, is clinically shown with cadaver studies to limit shoulder flexion (what we need for open shoulders) as well as external rotation, which we need for proper shoulder movement. You can't see it here, but the insertion on the humerus blends with two important tendons: The bicipital tendon and the supraspinatus tendon. HMM! Very interesting... this ligament is capable of transmitting excessive stress into these two tendons, which we know are key players in both gymnastics strength AND shoulder pain!

Now, Kit shows this being done in his book and video with both shoulder extension and shoulder abduction (the arms are angled away from the body) in an externally rotated position. This method will stretch the pectoralis major and minor, as well as anterior deltoids and some subscap and serratus anterior, but will cause far less stretch to the coracohumeral ligament because you can't reach full external rotation with hands on the dowel.

Cadaver studies show the strain (stretch) to be 36.5% less in extension vs plane of the scapula (7.87% vs 5%), both with maximal external rotation. This is interesting, because it actually shows that even compared with extension + max external rotation + adduction, the stretch is greater in the plane of the scapula (considered to be the plane in which the scapula lies when viewed from the medial border out through the main bony body). This is typically 30 degrees (in front of the frontal plane) with normal scapular positioning. If fully retracted it is most likely somewhere between 0 and 10 degrees.

Source: http://www.smarttjournal.com/content/3/1/2

Picture taken from study:

However, you do get very good results with full adduction, but only with low shoulder elevation.

So, for this particular ligament the best stretch is going to be a single arm variation. Because this ligament has little to no suspensory properties (meaning that it isn't one of the things that keeps your arm from dropping into the floor) you aren't going to get anything extra by pulling super hard in the position I'm about to describe.

Instructions are for the right arm:

Find a railing around hip to crotch height. You want to be able to grab it with a nearly straight arm while standing next to it, or perhaps even needing to crouch slightly.

1) Position yourself so that the railing is in your frontal plane (pointing out to the side) when you stand next to it.

2) Grab the railing in a supinated position (externally rotated with palm facing forward).

3) With your hand on the rail, rotate your torso counterclockwise slowly while you attempt to supinate fully at the elbow and externally rotate fully at the shoulder. Find the beginning of the hard end point, which is something you will feel as "the spot that you belong right now) and hold it for 10 seconds, then explore and see if you can move further in the same manner. When you can no longer move any further, you will want to hold the position for a minimum of 1 minute but preferably 5-20 minutes of total tension.

It is ok to do repetitive sets of 1-5 minutes if you feel like you need the breaks.

Remember, you're looking for the beginning of the hard end point, at which point you will start to want to explore for the true endpoint. Once you find it do NOT try to move farther into it: That is how you will hurt yourself.

This may be done in two positions: Shoulder extension (10-30 degrees) with FULL external rotation OR the plane of the scapula, which is specifically what I described above.

The advantage of what I described is that it specifically addresses the ligament. If you have pretty good muscular movement, as I do (demonstrated by both very good positions in Kit's stretch according to Danial Burnham, who was surprised that I was so flexible there, and by my inlocate) but still have problems with shoulder opening, you are probably dealing with a ligament and this is what you need.

I highly recommend that you do Kit's stretch to keep the muscles used to lengthening. but I will make two suggestions:

1) Use his stretch as described in his books and videos for muscular issues.

2) Modify his stretch with full adduction (arms parallel with each other, if not slightly closer) while in shoulder extension (arms behind you) and external rotation + supination (to promote external rotation) to address a combination of muscle and ligament issues.

If you are proficient in both and still feel something lacking, try what I just described. It is surprising how something that involves zero overhead movement can improve shoulder flexion so much with just a single application.

The major advantage with this stretch I describe for the ligament, in addition to specificity for those like me who know they have ligament shortening due to long-term postural dysfunctions, is the fact that no muscles are being stretched very much.

This allows you to stretch the coracohumeral ligament in warm up without inhibiting your muscles.

That's it for this week!

later.

Joshua Naterman said:

I found that it is very helpful to have current flowing continuously for the entire set. I used 80hz, but I am considering playing around with very low frequenzy like 2-5 (or maybe even 20) hz as well on the hypothesis that it may lead to better unstim'd recruitment by being a larger number of individual stimuli since these frequencies won't allow for temporal summation in any motor groups. I am wondering if this would lead to quicker re-integration of stim'd muscles into movement patterns...

Can you explain your hypothesis more clearly. From what I understand you wont get the frequency coding needed to really contract a muscle at the lower frequencies. Basically only twitches without tetanic contraction. Why is this something you want? Im assuming the lack of tetanic contraction is what you are referring to with the temporal summation of pulses (twitches).

Also, you may be aware, but the frequency should be tuned to the muscle fiber type that you want to recruit. 80hz sits on the threshold between slow and fast type fibers so you would be getting quite a bit of type IIa recruitment.

Why do you think you need greater sizes of electrodes?

Well, I typically use 80 Hz but if I hit something like 20 then I'll be hitting SOME fast motor units but not all. I am thinking that since there's a lot of recruitment that I can still do voluntarily that this might act as a sort of catalyst. 80 Hz will end up fully activating virtually all motor groups that are within the threshold of total charge delivered. I am thinking that avoiding stim'd tetany might help since what I need is to achieve tetany via CNS activation. It's just a thought, no idea how it may end up working out.

Slow sustainable motor groups reach tetany by 10-15 hz, and 20 hz will cause non-summed contractions of all fast-twitch motor groups that fall under the charge threshold for activation.

Larger electrodes will let me fully cover the infraspinatus and rear delts as well as low and mid traps with a single pair. 1.5" x 4" is the size I will experiment with. I may also trim them to fit the area more correctly on the traps but first I'll just use them as is. They are flexible carbon electrodes.

Shoulders and traps have grown visibly and palpably. I have also gotten a bit fat over the course of this month between engagement parties for friends, my birthday, and two thanksgivings (some jerk brought a pecan pie from Costco and I ate about 60% of it. In an evening.)

I figured out how to use my kitchen's island for handstand work, especially learning to use my upper back properly. I basically just do a straight-backed pike stretch with straight knees and my forearms + some upper arm on the surface of the island. This makes it easy to check where my shoulders are with my ears and is letting me move to the correct position easily. I will be doing this a LOT.

I am going to start doing 2 sets of nearly everything 1-2x per day 5-7 days per week and see how that works out. I'll only be going to failure for 1 set, and probably every other day.

Current routine is:

5 rounds:

60s PL lean, fingers all the way forward.

40-60s reverse plank, parallel body & ground.

60s hollow hang

30s XR support

60s hollow hold

I typically go to failure if I don't reach 60s and that is leading to excellent results. Much easier to deal with than timing the rounds, and form is actually improving quite nicely. I sometimes do the XR supports separately as straight sets with 60s rest, and I tend to like that better.

I need to add in arches and daily handstand work, which typically gets done 3x per week.

New routine will be 2 rounds:

60s PL lean, fingers all the way forward.

40-60s reverse plank, parallel body & ground.

60s hollow hang

30s XR support

60s hollow hold

Wall HS to failure

60s arch hold

followed by 2 sets:

A: unilateral rope pulldowns, 10-20 reps. Currently at 70 lbs. Adding 1 tablespoon of sand per day.

B: arch ups or curl ups, alternating each day

C: inclined push ups, 10-20 reps (slowly decreasing the incline periodically, will probably build up to 30-40 reps before decreasing)

D: arched pull ups: 6-10 reps if to failure with great form.

E: Hollow pull ups: Don't know the reps yet, won't be going to failure on these.

F: Bodyweight front squats, perhaps starting with the empty bar soon.

I will probably do B-F as a circuit. Not messing with HSPU right now, they don't feel good in the right shoulder with everything reconfiguring.

I have also constructed the first phase of my own water-filtered IR setup. I have the flexible lampholder, which is incredibly useful! Already using with the naked heat lamp. I molded aluminum foil to act as a ghetto reflector while I figure out exactly what the final reflector will be... it may stay as aluminum foil. It's just there to block the IR from hitting my eyes and head. I may even construct a sort of long tube that mounts on, and that would have to be very lightweight so as to not upset the lamp, so foil is the most likely thing I will use for this purpose but we'll have to see.

I will probably use a clear storage tupperware that is caulked shut and probably reinforced around the edges, though I may just make a wood-framed plexiglass water container. I'm rechecking the research specs but I believe I need 8" of water for the filter. it's 6" or 8, can't remember which.

I have been doing separate workouts for the handstands, which I will probably do 1-2x per week moving forward in addition to the daily work.

Well I've done everything but the rope pulls and front squats with an empty bar so far in 41 minutes, including probably 7 minutes of unnecessary talking with my dad and figuring things out. I have ALSO done the awesome and figured out how to use my set up for true progressive GHR and NLC!!! VERY excited, they feel great even on my injured hamstring. I will be building up slowly with these. Current assistance is ~60 lbs.

65-ish lb assistance on the NLC, doing 5-6 reps for 2 sets. Will build up to 12-15 before taking 2.5 lbs off.

HS strength is getting much better, and I am starting to get an even better feel for the activation. I can start to lift myself with my upper traps with proper alignment and muscle activation, and this is a big improvement. Everything feels good today, even push ups aren't all that bad.

Grip is getting stronger, I halfway crushed an apple in my hand. I will retry monthly until I no longer have to buy applesauce from the store. That has been a longstanding goal of mine, ever since I saw Dan Gable crush an apple in his hand like it was nothing. At 70+ years old.

It turns out that this higher rep single-arm rope work might be the single best hand-strengthening exercise I have ever done. I am starting to get the feel for crushing the rope with my hands and second bone of the fingers as well as my finger tips. Forearms are growing more muscular on a regular basis.

If this keeps up I'll look pretty crazy come May Seminar and more importantly I'll be injury free and well on my way to building proper strength!

I have started doing leaning rows that are a bodyweight version of the dumbbell row to shoulder W exercise I made up a while ago, and both feel very good. External rotators are growing and getting stronger all the time, little by little.

I weigh in at 227 in the morning and 231 at night now. Probably 11-12% bodyfat after all the birthday and holiday excess, but I have a feeling that's going to be quite temporary.

I am also going to be experimenting with making high calorie gluten-free breads and seeing how that helps PWO. I figure that sweetbreads are the way to go, since pop tarts have plenty of gluten and I really want to be gluten free again. I feel like I have lost a bit of mental clarity over the past 2 months from all the gluten. which I noticed went away when i was gluten free for a while. I also think the breads are a much easier solution than making gluten free pop tarts. That just sounds like a giant pain in the butt.

I just made excellent gluten-free pumpkin bread deluxe!

8 oz pumpkin, 1 banana mushed up, 1 apple chopped up, 1.5 cups gluten-free bread mix, 2 eggs, 1/3 cup molasses and 2/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp each of vanilla, cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. Oh, and 1/4 cup olive oil mixed with 1/4 cup melted organic butter.

Baked for 70 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit and BOOM! Awesome bread. Let it cool 1 hour, tried a slice, and it was great.

This bread has virtually no air in it so it is extremely dense, which is exactly what I want for PWO food. You can actually think of it as more of a not-disgusting fruit cake than a bread if you like.

I will repost this in the recipe thread shortly.

Nice progress. The ir idea is pretty good. Are there no film filters to block the frequencies instead of building a water box? 3m makes a lot of films like this. It might be worth looking at.

I have also dropped pop tarts for the time being. It was the last thing I ate before my flu so they are disgusting to me. I've gone back to malto powder. The whole low carb craze is awesome because its on sale and pretty darn cheap. 8 bucks for 3 pounds. I've combined it with coconut milk for more calories when I have late night sessions.

holy shit thats cheap!

I wonder if the malto is cooked... do you remember the link about bad stuff coming from uncooked starches? I forget what they're called.

Thanks! I don't know about the films, never even knew they existed! Glad I have engineering friends

I think that because of the wavelengths involved and the need for a heat sink (primary reason, I think) that a water filter is probably necessary, but who knows? I will be checking with 3M.

I have a pretty nice working IR set up and am ready to duplicate as necessary! I'll post pics here tonight. It's ghetto but highly effective.

So, I'm planning on a water filter test run either tonight or tomorrow After that I'll get cooking on a more permanent solution.

So, E-stim has been great but I found something else that's simpler and appears to have the potential to be much more effective.

Will probably not talk too much about it even here.

Continued progress!

XR supports are getting stronger, and of course they are getting harder as my form gets better and better again. I'm consistently hitting 30-50s on all 3-5 sets, depending on the day, and form is improving at least 2-3x per week.

Same with handstands.

So, the trick for me has been a modified entrance into a stretch similar to what Kit shows, but I have modified both the final position as well as the entry and steps along the way to suit my needs. This is paying off.

The other thing I am doing, and doing immediately after these stretches, is working on a weighted handstand form arm lift. I grab a weighted pipe, 9-12 lbs at the moment (though I used 15 pretty decently today since it's all that was available where I was at) and I assume handstand press upper body form. I then lift the bar from the hang to as close to a proper handstand position as I can get. I press into scapular elevation with some internal rotation, which allows me to be using medial delts and supraspinatus as well as my upper traps. I literally feel the work shift from the front of my shoulder girdle to the back.

I also work very hard on maintaining the elevation while retracting back with the upper traps, AND pressing my arms togetner (as if I were on rings) instead of allowing any outward pressure. This took about 2 weeks to learn, but it has made a whole world of difference!

I had my first pretty decent wall handstand ever today! I now know that what I was doing in the past was wrong, and now I am learning the proper hollow handstand and holy crap is it hard right now! I'm still not fully open but I am about 10 degrees away and I was able to hold this for about 8 seconds before my right shoulder was pooped out!  This is very exciting to me

All this handstand stuff is consistently helping with my shoulder recovery. I am now adding in some internal and external rotation with bands, since I can finally use all the muscles correctly!