Bodyweight Curls

on wednesdays workout, I was working my Inverted Rows past horizontal on the next step of the ladder I perform them in. they felt great working them on a constant incline and which leads to my question for today

http://youtu.be/eLfZVpREbU8

Wednesdays Workout = Inverted rows/XR Pushups(RTO)

Fridays Workout= Inverted Chin Ups/Dips

were I to include a bodyweight curl movement in the horizontal plain, would I be obsoleting the Inverted row or would I be just adding in another element of protraction in favor of retraction? would it cause imbalance in my training? 

my current upper body press/pull routine is the following

Monday= HeSPU(FX)/ XR Pull up

Wednesday=XR Inverted Row/ XR Pushup

Friday= XR Inverted Chin up/ XR dip

what I don't want to do is include the bodyweight curl if it's going to imbalance the Retraction work with the Inverted Rows because my goal is to work Manna Progressions. 

any thoughts? if I haven't been clear enough, please tell me(sometimes I get lost in translation)

When you say bodyweight curls in the horizontal plane I believe you are referring to the foot supported pelican. A phenomenal BA strength exercise I've used for a while.

I'm no professional but I personally haven't noticed too much imbalance if any caused by doing pelicans and other bodyweight curl type movements. It's a killer for grip, forearm, biceps, anterior delt and chest.

alec_ar said:

When you say bodyweight curls in the horizontal plane I believe you are referring to the foot supported pelican. A phenomenal BA strength exercise I've used for a while.

I'm no professional but I personally haven't noticed too much imbalance if any caused by doing pelicans and other bodyweight curl type movements. It's a killer for grip, forearm, biceps, anterior delt and chest.

Ooh, I like the idea of a foot-supported pelican. I'll have to give those a try. 

If you're worried about imbalances, just make sure you do some easier retraction work on off days.

In a lot of ways, an imbalance in terms of actual time spend performing movements (say, protraction vs retraction elements) is a much bigger problem than a "strength imbalance" between them.

I hope that makes sense... you want to make sure your body has nearly equal exposure to a very wide variety of movements. That doesn't mean it always needs the time to be spent on super-challenging variations... doing leaning foot-supported rows on off days is a great way to get retraction work in without wearing yourself out and screwing yourself up for the next day's work. You just do a few reps a few times, perhaps when you wake up, leave for work, get home, and before bed.

You can almost thing of it as GTG if you like, because you're literally practicing the movement, not doing specific strength training.

Joshua Naterman said:

If you're worried about imbalances, just make sure you do some easier retraction work on off days.

 

In a lot of ways, an imbalance in terms of actual time spend performing movements (say, protraction vs retraction elements) is a much bigger problem than a "strength imbalance" between them.

 

I hope that makes sense... you want to make sure your body has nearly equal exposure to a very wide variety of movements. That doesn't mean it always needs the time to be spent on super-challenging variations... doing leaning foot-supported rows on off days is a great way to get retraction work in without wearing yourself out and screwing yourself up for the next day's work. You just do a few reps a few times, perhaps when you wake up, leave for work, get home, and before bed.

 

You can almost thing of it as GTG if you like, because you're literally practicing the movement, not doing specific strength training.

that does answer a lot of questions and points me in the direction of making my next follow up question; if i incorporate bodyweight curls(which im already doing inverted on friday) will I be helping myself by also doing it(I'm refering to the curl you explained in one of your youtube videos) horizontally or stick to inverted rows on Wednesdays? because wednesday is my horizontal press/pull. if im working two upper body elements of the same nature, i rather keep inverted bodyweight curls on friday, like i'll be doing today and Inverted rows on Wednesday(which is kind of my rest/deload day). 

Oh okay so you're leaning more towards inverted MU training, not pelican planche.

@jfslocum, you're a stronger guy than me, but just to let you know-on a day I did some heavy pelican training I managed to strain my right shoulder. Was pretty painful and put me out for weeks. I don't know if it was directly from the pelican work, I had already gotten accustomed to the movement. Just letting you know.

Either way, a very useful exercise. I swear the pelican training is what allowed me to do my first inverted MU half.

alec_ar said:

Oh okay so you're leaning more towards inverted MU training, not pelican planche.

@jfslocum, you're a stronger guy than me, but just to let you know-on a day I did some heavy pelican training I managed to strain my right shoulder. Was pretty painful and put me out for weeks. I don't know if it was directly from the pelican work, I had already gotten accustomed to the movement. Just letting you know.

Either way, a very useful exercise. I swear the pelican training is what allowed me to do my first inverted MU half.

inverted muscle up really isn't in my sights right now, since im still in the basics of basics, but if it's a component that would help me to later develop that, it would be gnarly  

I'm more focus on getting some retraction work done to go hand in hand with my manna progressions.

my main pressing focus is to aid my punches in all dimensions(with a primary focus on straight punch) and my retraction work to work on my Lap Sao and pulling techniques. 

Cool. Not really on topic for a bodyweight curl thread, but not digressing from the manna: one of the two exercises that gives me an insane scapular retraction, lower traps, rhomboids, and rear delts workout is inverted planche or perhaps, reverse plank, leans.

I assume you know the technique for this. My personal preference is to focus on super externally roatated humerus, and retracted-depressed scapulae in a reverse plank, and then to lean from the reverse plank into a foot supported inverted planche--hips at shoulder height, locked out elbows, hands more or less in line with the hips. If you haven't tried this yet and care to, I'd go slow with the hands in line with hips part. The forces can get pretty high.

Anyway, hope that helps you. It helps build my retraction strength like nothin else.

What is this pelican you are talking about?

[edit] I've found it, no worries.

alec_ar said:

@jfslocum, you're a stronger guy than me, but just to let you know-on a day I did some heavy pelican training I managed to strain my right shoulder. Was pretty painful and put me out for weeks. I don't know if it was directly from the pelican work, I had already gotten accustomed to the movement. Just letting you know.

 

Actually in this particular area I believe you are stronger; I can not do an inverted muscle up without a momentum assist. Thanks for the warning: I will procede with caution.