So I had pretty much avoided all chest pushing exercises for the past two weeks to see if it would help alleviate some of the chronic pain I have been experiencing in both shoulders. Well, it didn’t. My shoulders still feel pretty shitty with the right one ranking a little higher on the pain chart. So, I resumed chest work yesterday.
What I suspect is a lot of the pain is due to a muscular imbalance between the front and rear of my shoulders. The front of my shoulders are worked much more often than the rear typically. It isn’t even close.
So in an attempt to correct the problem I am trying to incorporate some rear delt exercises in nearly every gym session. They are mostly the same type of movements you see people doing who are rehabbing a rotator cuff problem.
Last night I messed around some more with an elbow planche, one of the basic hand balancing moves. I have tried this before but didn’t have much luck maintaining balance.
Well yesterday I saw a video done by Paul regarding elbow levers. I realized part of my issue was I was keeping my elbow angle at 90 degrees instead of leaning more forward to open up that angle. Well after a few practice runs I was able to hold a pretty solid balance point.
The main requirement for the elbow planche is a lower back that is strong enough to hold more than half of your body parallel to the floor. Just from the few attempts I made my lower back is a bit sore this morning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0N5MLMB1uA
Yesterday I posted the May Bar-barian challenge, named “Let’s Fly”. The contest is as follows:
Normal Mode – max reps clapping push ups. You need to explode from the bottom push up position and quickly clap your hands before going back into the bottom position. You can not LAY on the ground at the bottom. The goal is maximum reps, once you hit the ground you are done. The best angle to shoot this is directly in front of you followed by directly from the side.
Hard Mode – flying pull ups. Grab the bar with a normal grip and pull upward explosively. At the top of the rep briefly let go of the bar and move your hands close together. At the top of the next rep move your hands back out again mid-air. Your chin needs to reach bar height for a rep to count. Once you drop off the bar the attempt is over. The best angle to shoot this is right in front with you facing the camera.
Bar-baric Mode – flying muscle ups. The same concept as hard mode except this time you have to switch from a normal to a close grip muscle up mid-air. You can not change your grip one arm at a time while stationary on top of the bar. It has to be done quickly and explosively during the movement where both hands briefly leave the bar. The best angle to shoot this is right in front with you facing the camera.
It should be a good month.
A couple times this week I have done unbroken sets of 50 push ups at the gym. It was the first time in awhile I tried to stretch a pure push up set. For several months all of my push ups have been sandwiched into either GUTS or 50/100 sets. It felt good to pull out a high rep push up set.
