Isochain Modified Promethean Mark II - Week 7 Results

The results for this week:

Shoulder Press (high angle) - Finished with a target load of 35 lbs, with max reading of 45.2.

Reverse Drag Curl (medium angle) -  Finished with target load of 25 lbs. with max of 30.4.  I hit a max of 34.8 on the Monday session.  I did 4 reps that session.  For the Thursday session I did 6 reps.  I wouldn't be surprised if my max effort started dropping off after the 4th rep.  That said, I will go ahead and raise the target load to 30lbs. with a rep goal of 4 to start next week.  I have some confidence that I'll be able to hit the target.

Deadift (high angle) - Finished with target load of 160 lbs, with max reading of 195.6.  At this point, the Deadlift is primarily a grip-training exercise for me, so my priority is on how much load I can handle without a setback to my healing from golfer's elbow.

Chest Press - Finished with target load of 25 lbs. with a max of 31lbs.  For the Tuesday session, I hit a max of 38lbs against a target load of 20lbs.  I will start next wee with a target load of 30lbs and just go for 4 reps.  

Bent Row (medium angle) - Finished with target load of 100 lbs, with max reading of 140.2.  I felt li e I was on the edge of aggravating the elbow but since pain was avoided, I'll go ahead and raise the target to 105lbs for next week

Zercher Squat (high angle) - Finished with target load of 205 lbs, with max reading of 243.   The gains are starting to slow, as the drill is starting to feel hard but I still have yet to be forced to back cycle.  I had to move back a little from the chain as it was starting to grind against something between the legs.

Handstand Pushup Tips from Eduardo Orihuela

Looks like only one video but there are actually a bunch of them packed into this one post. Lot of great training tips by GMB Trainer Eduardo Orihuela to complement GMB's HSPU Tutorial.

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A post shared by Eduardo Orihuela (@eorihuela)

Also some great tips for achieving a Tuck Bent Arm Stand

Isochain Modified Promethean Mark II - Week 6 Results

The results for this week:

Shoulder Press (high angle) - Finished with a target load of 30 lbs, with max reading of 39.4.  The chain does not shake as much as it did last week.  I'm getting a more solid connection up to the bar, without thinking about jin.  I think it has something to do with not straightening the legs - probably the height of my center of gravity, even if jin is not being consciously manipulated.

Reverse Drag Curl (medium angle) -  Finished with target load of 20 lbs. with max of 27.2.  My grip is getting better.  It wasn't where I wanted it to be for the last rep, but before the last rep I was feeling stronger than before.

Deadift (high angle) - Finished with target load of 150 lbs, with max reading of 212.4.  I switched to a mixed grip, after making sure my elbow could tolerate effort with a supinated palm.  Pronated grip was actually more of an issue.  I had to flex my wrist a little in pronated grip to protect the elbow from aggravation.  If I'm lucky this won't lead to another unintended consequence but I'll see.  Barring further setback, looks like a mixed grip is the way to for further progress in this drill without aggravating the elbow.

Chest Press - Finished with target load of 30 lbs.  It took a lot of effort to get the bar to beep in Timer mode, even though I can feel my chest working hard.  I continue to struggle to get the technique just right.  The instruction is to apply pressure up and outward, but the bar also has to be in correct position - if it's rotated too much in either direction, the chain will be at the wrong angle in relation to the bar.  I looked at my training log and was surprised to see that I had not yet back-cycled in this drill.  So next week, I'll set the target load to 20lbs. 

Bent Row (medium angle) - Finished with target load of 95 lbs, with max reading of 133.  As with the deadlift, I may have to start flexing the wrist a little more for better protection of the elbow.

Zercher Squat (high angle) - Finished with target load of 190 lbs, with max reading of 248.8.   This is the one drill where I'm experiencing seemingly runaway gains in strength.  The only hitch for the 2nd session was letting the bar pull my forearms down.   This was easily fixed though by resetting.

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Isochain Modified Promethean Mark II - Week 5 Results

The results for this week:

Shoulder Press (high angle) - Finished with 6 reps at a target load of 25 lbs, with max reading of 44.4.  I gave up trying to work in jin and focused on scapula protraction.

Reverse Drag Curl (medium angle) -  Finished with target load of 15 lbs. with max of 30.2.  I have the bar set 2 links lower than where I had it set for the regular Reverse Curl, because I felt my hands were a little too high.  I stayed at the 15lb. load level because I wanted to make sure my grip stays secure during the entire set.

Deadift (high angle) - Finished with target load of 145 lbs, with max reading of 194.2. It was a challenge to maintain a grip tight enough to prevent the elbow from being aggravated.

Chest Press - Finished with target load of 30 lbs, with max reading of 43.  I had a couple of reps where the bar timer was not triggered because it wasn't reading a 30lb force from me, which in turn was because I wasn't using my chest muscles properly.  Thus I generated the target force by what feels like proper technique for 4 out of the 6 reps.  I want to do it for  6 out of 6 reps before I raise the target load.

Bent Row (medium angle) - Finished with target load of 90 lbs, with max reading of 144.  As with the deadlift, the main concern is to be able to exert the target force without aggravating the elbow.

Zercher Squat (high angle) - Finished with target load of 170 lbs, with max reading of 233.   Progress continues to be steady.  I'm not feeling DOMS in my upper back, especially around the scapula, anymore.

Isochain Modified Promethean Mark II - Week 5 Start (needing to back-cycle)

I started today's session with the Shoulder Press, going through the drill-specific warmup. However when I got to the work set, I failed to reach the target load of 35lbs for 2 reps in a row. I dropped the load to 30 lbs and did four more reps of 6-second holds to finish the set. So for the next session, I decided to drop the target load back to 25 lbs. and work my way back up. Sometimes, there's no solid explanation as to why strength fluctuates like this. I felt my general warmup was sufficient to get my shell temperature into training range. This is only the 5th week out of 8 for this routine, so no need to stress. With my elbow still recovering, I really do not want my grip to slip when I attempt a deadlift. I struggled to prevent the bar from starting to slip down my fingers, and thus cause elbow pain, at the target load of 160lbs. So I dropped the load to 145lbs to finish the set. For the remainder of this routine, I will have to treat the Deadlift more as a grip exercise than a leg/core/posterior chain exercise.

Isochain Modified Promethean Mark II - Week 4

The results for this week:

Shoulder Press (high angle) - Finished with 4 reps at a target load of 35 lbs, with max reading of 47. I was surprised to see the 47 lb. reading because on that last rep, I felt I was straining without feeling that I was pushing all that strongly. I might be using "muscle-jin", which is creating a jin path from my feet to the bar to supply most of the force, and then adding localized upper-body muscle to increase the force just a bit. In theory, a pure jin path should generate more force than muscle-jin, but I'm not that good at manifesting jin up to my hands with my arms extended overhead. I've been trying to keep my 6H training separate from my "external" strength training. On the other hand, restoring full, pain-free, range of the shoulder is more important to me than purity of jin right now.

Reverse Curl (medium angle) - Switched to Reverse Drag Curl because progress in the regular Reverse Curl had stalled with my max being around 30 lbs.  I could just keep at the regular Reverse Curl and hope that gains in the Bent Row will eventually carry over, but I figured, who not try the Drag.  The Drag Curl variation is supposed to reduce the load on the shoulders and cause the biceps to contract more strongly. I felt my forearms working harder. I felt the biceps working a tad more but that's about it.  Finished with target load of 15 lbs. with max of 24.6.

Deadift (high angle) - Finished with target load of 160 lbs, with max reading of 195.8. I'll do a couple more sessions at the 160lbs. to give my grip a chance to get stronger, because I can feel that if I increase the load to 165, my grip won't be strong enough to prevent the bar from slipping, and thus aggravating my elbow, even wih the action of my thighs pushing the bar towards my palms to reduce the grip demand.

Chest Press - Finished with target load of 25 lbs, with max reading of 38.2.  The max isn't much improvement over last week, but the technique improved enough to merit an increase for next week.

Bent Row (medium angle) - Finished with target load of 85 lbs, with max reading of 166.4, which is about a 70lb. improvement over last week's max reading.  The reason for the improvement was a change in form.  I was practicing with my torso parallel to the ground, with my body closer to an L shape.  With the torso more diagonal, I am able to row the bar towards my stomach with much more force, and less concern for the shoulders rising or being pulled forward.  This video by a fellow Isochain user helped me a lot. 

Zercher Squat (high angle) - Finished with target load of 150 lbs, with max reading of 221.4.   With the arms a little wider apart, and thus so that the shoulder blades being pulled together as force is applied, I'm feeling more work on the upper back.

I've been addressing my elbow issue using exercise ideas from GMB and E3 Rehab, as described here.  I now do at least 10 reps per side of Side-Lying Thoracic Windmill as part of my daily warmup. I do 3 sets of 10-15 reps of Wrist Flexion and Elbow Rotation, 3 times a week. I do 3 sets of 15-sec. holds of Finger Roll with the Isochain after my regular Isochain session, with the bar behind the back because it's easier to get the chest up and take the slack out of the arms. In the early going, the results are promising

Golfer's Elbow exercises

I may have mentioned before that since sometime in December, I get some pain in the inside of my left elbow when I apply force with my left palm towards my right, like when I wash my hands. I also feel this pain when I lift anything with my left palm supinated. This condition seems to match Mayo Clinic's description of Golfer's Elbow. Fortunately the pain is about 3 when ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being worst pain ever, when I wash my hands, and about 5-7 when lifting in supinated grip, depending on the load. I lifted some boxes that my neighbor had ordered but were mistakenly delivered to my home instead and those were heavy enough to cause more pain than usual. So because the pain has been relatively minor, I haven't consulted a doctor and thus been officially diagonosed with Golfer's Elbow.

To start trying to address this issue, I first tried some exercises from the GMB Elbow Pain article. Some comments:

Open Chain Rotation - Because of the shoulder issue, I can't really do this with the straight arm. With the bent arm, rotating from pronated hand to neutral hand was fine. However, anywhere between neutral to supinated hand was painful. Most of the time, GMB is on point, but there were some missing details that I found later.
Band Elbow Flexion - Seems fine. Is it working the same muscles as the Isochain Reverse Curl? Not sure.
Grip on Towel - Tried it once and felt pain. Haven't tried it again yet.
Ring Pullup - Feels fine with feet on floor to reduce load and strict pronation of hands - no neutral grip. Full bodyweight load was a little questionable.
Elbow Extension - I didn't try because straightening the arm has not been an issue for the elbow.

Later, I found this video by E3 Rehab for Golfer's Elbow, which they state is based on latest research. The GMB article was published in 2017. The below video was uploaded in 2020.

Comments on the exercises, based on when I tried each exercise for the first time:

Wrist Flexion - 6-15 reps dynamic, 10-45 seconds isometric - I started with a bag with one soup can for load. I ended the week with 3 cans. What feels good for me is slowly opening my palm during the eccentric movement until the the load is resting on the phalanges of my fingers, then during the concentric, forming a fist before raising my hand.

Elbow Rotation - 2-3 seconds up and down, 6-15 reps dynamic - This basically half of the Open Chain Rotation movement shown in the GMB article. For Golfer's Elbow, the E3 Rehab doctors did not see any value in rotating the hand all the way to pronated position. At first I choked up a lot on the hammer and only allowed it to pull my hand towards pronated position, to the threshold of pain. After reading the Overcoming Tendonitis article (below), I started letting it pull my hand through the pain zone all the way past pronated position, as far as my hand could rotate.

Side-Lying Thoracic Windmill - Shoulder rotation placing high valgus stress on elbow structure is one possible cause of golfer's elbow.  Recent research found that elite golfers have sport adaptations which give them greater than average range of motion in internal and external shoulder rotation.  Research also found that greater degree of thoracic motion leads to greater degree of external shoulder rotation. Thus, this exercise works on thoracic motion and shoulder rotation together.  This exercise feels fine if I start with a slightly smaller circle of rotation for the first couple of reps, then gradually increase the range of motion, paying attention to when I rotate the hand on the working arm.  I just have to remember to include it in my warmup routine!

Prone Shoulder Extension - 6-15 reps - Researchers found that Golfer's Elbow sufferers showed significant strength deficits in different shoulder motions. This exercise addresses one of those motions. I tried this empty-hand and it was too easy.

Arm Raise Variations - Tried with a soup can in each hand. I managed one rep with no pain, but it's difficult to do this without any shoulder pain, for the same reason I can't do a standard front raise or side raise. Taking into account what the Overcoming Tendonitis article says about painful vs. aggravating exercise, I can't really tell if this movement is aggravating to my shoulder or just painful. Since Isochain Shoulder Press has been delivering results, I see no reason to gamble here.

Overcoming Tendonitis article by Steven Low is yet another useful resource that I found. One point that surprised me is that pushing through pain in a movement is acceptable as long as the movement does not aggravate the issue. The article goes on to describe the differece between painful exercise and aggravating exercise. The article agrees with the E3 Rehab video about the effectiveness of eccentric movement, and the choice of Wrist Flexion and Elbow Rotation for rehab exercises. Where it diverges is the recommended number of reps (a lot more reps!) and the recommended range of motion for Elbow Rotation. Also, it recommends a 3rd exercise for directly rehabbing the issue which is the Heavy Finger Roll. I was thus inspired to try adding a few sets of isometric "finger roll" on the Isochain after my regular Isochain workout.  I changed the exercise by positioning the bar behind my back, which makes it easier to keep the chest up and the arms straight. Based on the Isochain readings at various levels of effort, I settled on a target load of 50 lbs and used the Timer mode in the default setting, thus a 6-sec. hold at 50lbs.

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Viking's Choice: Cubist Dance, Hag Blues, Heavy Shoegaze

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