Got an Arranger Keyboard

The Yamaha PRS-SX600 is the second arranger keyboard that I've owned.  My first was a 76-key arranger from Yamaha's DGX series which was in production around 2003, but I only used it to practice piano material that I learned from my last piano teacher.  I did not use its arranger features at all, because I didn't understand what an arranger could do for me.   I eventually learned over time about arranger features and started to get more and more interested.  

This post is focused on my first impressions of the PSR-SX600.  Yamaha did not pay me to write it. It is not intended to be a thorough review of all its capabilities.

 

An arranger keyboard is typically set up so that notes that you play with your left hand will influence the bass line and other harmonies being played by the auto-accompaniment.   The typical way to play an arranger is to manage the auto-accompaniment with your left hand and play the melody with your right hand.  Your virtual backing band will play their harmony parts in a given key until you play a different set of notes with your left hand.

 

Thus, the arranger keyboard will typically be split into 2 zones with the left zone designated for style management - the manuals calls this zone the "chord section" - and the right zone - "voice section" -  for melody.  Some arrangers, such as the PSR-SX600 will let you set this split point between the style side of the keyboard, and the melody side.  The PSR-SX600 gives you two split points - the Style Split Point for splitting the chord and voice sections, and the Left Split Point for splitting between left hand zone and right hand zone.  These two points can be different, although I believe they default to identical positions.

 

Many songs are built out of song sections such as intros, verses, choruses, bridges, outros, etc.  Arranger styles typically include song sections that are intended to match the style - thus a bossa nova intro, R&B intro, and rock intro will sound different from one another.  A lot of songs are also played with variations of how instrumental parts such as the drums and bass line are played.  Arranger keyboard styles typically include at least one variation.  PSR-SX600 styles have 4.

 

Arranger keyboards are designed to allow for easy real-time arrangement of a song, so they typically include buttons that trigger these song sections, so that players can decide on the fly when the auto-accompaniment should, say, switch to another variation, insert a fill, or finish the song with an outro.  Easy real-time arrangement of a song is what distinguishes arranger keyboards from other types of keyboards.

 

Arranger keyboards are well suited for people who want to explore unfamiliar musical styles - and thus, would struggle to create song sections in those unfamiliar styles - people who want to play cover tunes with the greater flexibility that an arranger offers over a backing track player or just pressing play on a sequencer in song mode; and people who want to write an original song in a recognizable musical style.  These users would probably appreciate not having to program all the song sections and variations from scratch.

 

Key features of the Yamaha PSR-SX600 which attracted me:

 

3 Intros, 4 Variations, 4 Fills, Break, 3 Endings

Style Creator

Half-bar Fills

Style Section Reset button

Style Unison (eg. the horn section unison riff in “Sir Duke”), assignable to pedal

Style Accent - velocity values from left-hand input can affect Style performance by adding/removing notes

Multi Pads - can trigger audio files as well as MIDI clips

73 Super Articulation Voices (vs. 14 Super Articulation Lite voices)

 

There are more expensive arranger keyboards which have specs and features that can justify the additional cost.  There are less expensive arrangers which do not support as many song sections/variations and do not provide any onboard editing of styles.   I chose the PSR-SX600 because it had the specs and features that looked like the best match for my interests, and appeared to have a good price-performance ratio.  The Style Unison and Style Accent features are not found in the more expensive PSR-SX models, or even the top-of-the-line Genos.

 

Chord Tutor

 

The PSR-SX600 is not designed to recognize every piano chord voicing of G13Alt known to humankind, or any other chord.  It is only designed to recognize certain voicings, and this is where Chord Tutor can be a handy tool to look up what those voicings are.  Pick the key and chord type, and Chord Tutor will show you the chord in standard notation, as well as what it looks like as a shape on the keyboard.  It should be noted some chord shapes shown are for rootless voicings, which may be confusing to beginners.  For example, the Fmin9 shape does not include F (the root).  I think I get why Yamaha implemented Chord Tutor this way - if you aspire to play keyboard with a human bass player, you'll have to learn rootless voicings sooner or later, because bassists will be playing the root and might get annoyed with you competing with them for the root.

 

In any case, beginners will appreciate using Chord Tutor to learn more chord shapes.  Experienced musicians without experience in arranger keyboards could use Chord Tutor to help figure out which chord voicings they can and cannot use effectively with this arranger.

 

Chord Fingering Types

 

For the auto-accompaniment to play in the desired harmony, you play certain notes in the chord/auto-accompaniment zone of the keyboard.  When you want the harmony to change to a different chord, you play another set of notes in that zone.  The Yamaha PSR-SX600 manuals refer to this as “specifying the chord”.

 

The notes that you have to play so specify a chord depends on which Chord Fingering Type (CFT) you select. .  Some CFTs are meant for people who want the auto-accompaniment to play more notes in a chord than they are comfortable playing with the left hand.  Some allow more direct control over the harmony but require a greater vocabulary of chord shapes.  Below is a listing of CFTs that I tried, and corresponding comments:

 

Single Finger

Fingered

AI Fingered

Multi Finger 

Full Keyboard

AI Full Keyboard

Smart Chord  

 

Single Finger lets you play major triads with just 1 finger,  minor triads and unaltered dominant 7th chords with just 2 fingers;  and minor 7th chords with just 3 fingers.  It’s a good CFT for users who want to play 4-note chords but aren’t comfortable playing all 4 notes at once.  It’s really good for users who want to hear major and minor  triads but are not comfortable with those yet.  Yamaha seems to assume whoever uses this CFT doesn’t know what diminished or augmented triads are.

 

Fingered is for specifying the chord by playing 3 or more notes, which you will have to do anyway if you want chords that are more sophisticated than the ones available in the Single Finger CFT..  A chart of chord shapes that the arranger understands is shown in the reference manual.  These shapes are root voicings in the key of C, such as C6, CMaj7, Cm7b5, C7sus, and so on.  A table of chord spellings is provided, for those who want to extrapolate what the shapes should look like in other keys.   The manual also suggests using the onboard Chord Tutor for looking up chords, although beginners may be confused by the Chord Tutor shapes in the key of C being different from the shapes shown in the chart in the manual. So, in exchange for having to learn more chord shapes,  this CFT gives you a lot more control over the harmony compared to Single Finger.  Note that you may have to move the Style split point, because the default auto-accompaniment zone may not have enough room for chord shapes in certain keys, such as A.

 

Fingered On Bass works a lot like Fingered, except the lowest note of the chord played is always the bass note.  The name of this CFT might make you think it will let you play a bass line with your left hand without triggering a change in key for the auto-accompaniment.  If this is indeed the case, you might prefer to just flip the chord and voice sections, so that you can specify chords with your right hand, and play the bass line with your left hand.

 

AI Fingered is basically the same as Fingered, according to the Reference Manual, except you may be able to just use 2 fingers to specify a chord, based on the previously played chord.  Yes, I find this description vague.  You're giving up some control over the harmony because, as implied by the AI, some artificial intelligence is trying to guess a good harmony to play.  This CFT might be worth exploring for happy accidents, as it may be annoying if you have a clear idea of how you want the chord progression to go, and it doesn't make the right guesses.

 

Multi Finger is the default CFT.  The arranger is generally smart enough to  detect whether you are specifying a chord in Single or Fingered CFT as you play.

 

Full Keyboard works like the Fingered CFT, except chords are detected in the entire key range.  It seems to detect most of the two-handed chord voicings that I learned from the Jazz Chords for Beginners course on the Open Studio Jazz website, except the dominant 13th, which has left hand playing  root and 7th, and right hand playing the 3rd, 13th, and 9th.  It also does not detect the altered dominant shape that I know, in which the right hand plays a flatted 9th and 13th.

 

AI Full Keyboard works like Full Keyboard, but like AI Fingered requires less than 3 notes to be played.  9th, 11th and 13th chords cannot be played - according to the manual.  This might also have happy accident potential.

 

Smart Chord CFT  lets you play a chord with your left hand, by only using one finger of your left hand.  You set the key signature and the Smart Chord Type.  For example, if the key signature is C Major, and you want to hear a C Major triad, you just play the C note - you don’t have to play the other 2 notes.  Similarly if you want to play a B diminished triad, you only play the B note.  If you have some music theory knowledge, you might recognize Smart Chord as an implementation of scale harmonization.  This feature would appeal to players who want to play a chord progression in a given key signature, using only one finger at a time, as it is much easier than having to memorize the keyboard patterns for various chords in different keys.  Smart Chord Type settings include Standard, Pop, Jazz,  Dance and Simple.  The Jazz Type setting generates the most sophisticated chords, as expected.   A disadvantage of the Smart Chord feature is that it is not suited to blues, as dominant chords are frequently substituted for major chords in blues styles.  The I chord in a C Major blues, for example, could be a C Major triad, or it could be a C7, which includes a Bb.   Bb is not part of the C Major scale, so if you use only chords from harmonizing C Major, you won’t have C7 available.  For similar reasons, this CFT is ill-suited for chord substitutions and reharmonizations in general.

 

Voices

 

PSR-SX600 sound presets (“Voices”) are built on instrument multi-samples, which is standard for arranger keyboards.  While the sound design capabilities hardly rival those of, say, a Yamaha Montage or Waldorf Quantum, there is some flexibility for tweaking the Voices.  You can edit settings for envelopes, filters, and even LFOs.  

 

Super Articulation (marked as S.Art) Voices produce sonic effects like trumpet fall-off, guitar hammer-ons, etc. depending on how you play.  These effects can also be triggered by a button or a pedal.   Each comes with an Info screen that you can look at for hints on how to play them expressively. For example, most of  the guitar S.Art Voices have Info screens that advise trying piano legato.  I am more used to the so-called “legato” on guitar, not piano legato playing.  I think I’m starting to get the hang of it though, as I can occasionally get that “guitar legato” sound.  Thankfully the PSR-SX600 has 2 pedal inputs, so one could be used for S.Art playing and the other used as a more typical piano damper.

 

The non-S.Art Voices generally sound like I would expect out of a $1000 keyboard rompler in this price range.  This is neither criticism nor praise - just setting expectations for whoever might be reading this.  The specs say that these include 27 MegaVoice, 27 Sweet!, 64 Cool!, and 71 Live! Voices but I don't really know at this time what makes a Voice Sweet!, Cool!, Live!, or MegaVoice.

 

UI/UX

 

I did not have to read the manual to select Styles and Voices or to activate song sections such as Intros and Outros.

 

I did have to dig into the manuals to learn how to change the CFT, Split Points, and other settings that require menu-diving.  I also needed the manual to get some idea of the intended usage of each CFT, although the manuals fell short in their attempts to explain the AI CFTs.  

 

The Info screens for the S.Art Voices are a very nice touch.

 

Next Steps

 

Explore Style Unison and Style Accent

 

Continue exploring unfamiliar styles, like 90% of the ones in the World category, and all the Entertainment ones.  There are also Voice and Style Expansion Packs like  Indonesia 3 that I want to check out as it appears to have gamelan stuff.

 

Sketch out a composition and save it as MIDI (SMF file).  I will probably use the multi-track recording feature.  Real-time recording is also possible, for those who can manage the auto-accompaniment with one hand, play something with the other hand, and also press the auto-accompaniment buttons to change song variations, insert breaks, etc. without missing a beat.

 

Load the SMF file into Ableton Live or hardware groovebox for further development of the piece.

 

Import an SMF file created on other gear (software or hardware) and see what can do with it on the PSR-SX600

Calisthenics: Week 8

Monday session: Assisted Pistol Squats: 5 5 5 Suspension Hamstring Curl: 4 4 4

Wednesday morning, my shoulders felt fine enough for resuming upper body calisthenics. I did not feel as much soreness when reaching out to the side or reaching up and to the side.

I did 3 antagonist pair sets of Pseudo Planche Push Ups and Archer Pull Ups, both with Accommodating Resistance.

I think I did ok in leaning forward into the planche lean to start my Pseudo Planche Push Ups, at a sufficient angle for a 3-5 second isometric hold - not too easy, and not too hard to hold for the minimum 3 seconds. I might be tending to reduce the leans as I go down, which would make the eccentric easier. I did have one rep in which I leaned even more after the isometric hold to force the involuntary eccentric, and that felt more intense than on my other reps. This is probably the correct way to do the exercise.

I call my chosen pulling exercise "Archer Pull Up", but I am really practicing it as a variation of the Mixed Grip Chinup. I practice pullups on Duonamic Eleviia, which are a pair of pullup handles that clamp onto a wide variety of door frames. The handles can rotate, which is great for protecting the elbows. I followed the guidelines for Mixed Grip Chinups with AR as much as I could in my practice of the Archer Pullup. I practice Archer Pullup with my working palm facing the side at the top position, and pronated in the bottom position. In the Mixed Grip Chinup, the working palm is supinated at the top position and may turn out at the bottom position. The reason I went with Archer Pullup instead of Mixed Grip Chinup is it seems less likely to cause reinjury to my shoulder or elbow. My shoulder does not feel good when the arms are extended overhead with supinated palms, although it does feel better when the palms are rotated more to the side. Any position from the bicep curl movement, with the palm supinated, can trigger Golfer's Elbow unless I am being very mindful of using the spiraling action from the back to reduce load on the elbow.

The Mixed Grip Chinup guidelines stipulate full range of motion - from elevated scapula at the bottom position to working elbow pulled back as if you are trying to hit someone at the top position. Both shoulders still feel uncomfortable when the arms and scapula are pulled p past a certain point. So, I worked within the ROM that was comfortable for me. I may not get the same gains as I would have gotten with full ROM, but any gains will be better than nothing.

One point where I need to improve though is initiating the eccentric. The guideline is to shift so much weight to your working arm, that the added weight forces you to start sinking. What I did instead was voluntarily start sinkng, then shift weight to the working arm as I was sinking. I was afraid I'd shift too much weight and thus cause an accident. Oh well that's part of the learning experience.

Mindful Mover feels the One-Arm Chin Up is the best calisthenic (bodyweight only) exercise for pulling strength, because of the intense load on pulling muscles of the arm, back, etc. It makes sense to being the journey towards the One-Arm Chin Up by first achieving the pull up, then progressing beyond that by redistributing the load, so that one arm takes more load than the other. I feel like I was able to split the load maybe 53-47 - 53% on the working arm, 47% on the assisting arm - on the concentric and maybe a 60-40 split on the eccentric.

I finished the workout with drop sets of incline pushups and rows on NOSSK suspension trainer.

Friday session: Assisted Pistol Squats: 5 5 6 Suspension Hamstring Curl: 4 4 4

For a finisher, I did assisted shrimp squats, then cossack squats for some lateral mobility.

Strandberg Salen Jazz NX review

I had been fascinated by the Salen Jazz model since Strandberg first announced them, as it was their first semi-hollowbody model with an F-fole. It may have also been the first to feature a mahogany body and neck. Recently, Strandberg introduced the Salen Jazz NX. When I saw they had a Salen Jazz NX on sale in the Refubs section, in the burgundy color, I bought it.

Improvements with NX Concept

The Salen Jazz NX incorporates design improvements that Strandberg describe on their NX Concept page. I have a Boden OS7, which is an older Strandberg model. One design improvement in the Jazz NX that I really appreciate is the EndurNeck is more rounded, which feels much nicer to my hand than the sharper edges of the Boden OS7 EndurNeck. The quality of the setup is better, although that might be because it was refurbished and set up by the Strandberg USA team in California. The tuning knobs on the EGS Rev7 hardware require noticeably less effort to turn than on the older guitar.

Pickups and Sound

There is a 5-position pickup selector switch. The sounds by position:

1. Neck Humbucker
2. Neck  single-coil (inner coil of humbucker)
3. Both Humbuckers
4. Neck inner coil and Bridge outer coil 
5. Bridge Humbucker

Position 4 has quickly become a favorite for rhythm guitar. The sound is similar to that of my Tele with its pickup selector in the middle. Pickup designer Michael Frank worked in his magic to make it hum-free too, despite it being a single-coil sound. The humbucker tones are comparable to those of the Seymour Duncan 59s on my D'Angelico guitars, which is not surprising as all these pickups were designed to sound like PAF humbuckers. The neck humbucker sounds a little brighter with the tone control high, compared to the Seymour Duncan counterpart at a similar setting, but that might be because of the Salen Jazz NX's small body. The bridge humbucker has the expected bite, but with a pleasant roundness.

With a clean guitar amp, I have found that notes can be made to pop out more on semi-hollow body guitars and tend to have rounder tone, compared to solid body guitars. The responsiveness of semi-hollows to variations in playing technique with clean guitar amps attracts me to this type of guitar. The Salen Jazz NX has those semi-hollow characteristics, although they are more subtle compared to my D'Angelico Deluxe SS and Excel Mini DC. I think the smaller body of the Salen Jazz NX reduces the unplugged string volume and makes it sound a little less airy, and more focused than the D'Angelicos. Some have compared its tonal personality to that of a Telecaster Thinline, but I've never played one so I can't compare the supposed similarity myself.

Some Strandberg owners/fans feel they can get the same tones on any dual-humbucker Boden model that has a chambered body. It would be fun to do a side by side comparison with one of those people. The Salen Jazz NX has a mahogany body and neck, with rosewood fingerboard and maple body top. The majority of Strandberg models do not have this wood combination, so there should be some tonal differences, somewhere.

Playability

Most electric guitar bodies have a curve at the bottom for resting on the player's thigh. The Salen Jazz NX, like other Strandbergs, have two bottom curves instead of one, so you could rest it on your thigh in the more common playing position, or raise the angle of the neck, and let the other curve sit on your thigh.

The combination of the 20" radius fingerboard, rounded EndurNeck, balance of the guitar for standing, and the extra sitting position make the guitar very comfortable to play - if your playing style is a good match. I generally prefer a light touch and don't dig hard into the strings, except for an occasional accent. The string spacing is comfortable for fingerstyle and hybrid picking. The neck is very comfortable for hammer-ons and pull-offs - very little force is required. Some song arrangements for solo fingerstyle Even notes and chords on the first fret are easy and comfortable to play.

The combination of the 20" radius and 25"-25.5" multi-scale design on this neck allows me to play the double-stop bend that starts the "Peg" solo, which I cannot play on any of my other guitars that have .010 gauge strings.

The sustain is excellent. It might have the best sustain of all my semi-hollowbody guitars.

Verdict: It's a keeper. It has taken over as my #1 guitar to practice on because it's so comfortable and is the least likely to cause the return of my Golfer's Elbow. The selection of tones and responsiveness to playing techniques are also excellent.

Calisthenics: Week 7

Assisted Pistol Squats have gotten easy to do, so it was time to progress by lowering the assistance of the suspension trainer. This was done by standing a few inches closer to the anchor points of the straps.

Monday: Assisted Pistol Squats: 5 5 5 Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 8 8 8

Tuesday: GMB Shoulder Prehab (elbow rotations, Twisting Bear with emphasis on shoulder rotation, Crab Walk); then Weighted Cossack Squat and unweighted Jefferson Curl.

On Wednesday morning, my shoulders still felt sore, especially when extending the arms to the side. So for Wednesday morning trainng, I decided to do another Leg session:
Assisted Pistol Squats: 5 5 5 Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 8 8 10

Friday: Assisted Pistol Squats: 5 5 5 Suspension Hamstring Curl: 4 4 4

The one-leg hip hinge was getting easy to do, so I progressed to suspension hamstring curl, which is quite a bit harder.

Calisthenics: Week 6

I have to admit my calisthenics training is is neither totally freeform nor tightly structured. So I'm just going to log my calisthenics training as "calisthenics". My rough plan for this year is 12-16 weeks of calisthenics, alternating with 6 weeks of Isochain 6x6 training.

Monday: Assisted Pistol Squats: 7 7 7 Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 7 7 7

Tuesday: GMB Shoulder Prehab (elbow rotations, Twisting Bear with emphasis on shoulder rotation, Crab Walk); then Weighted Cossack Squat and unweighted Jefferson Curl.

Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, my shoulders were still feeling a bit too sore for Pike Pushups. So for Wednesday morning trainng, I decided to do Pike Pushups with Accommodating Resistance instead. Pull Ups: 7 7 8.

Wednesday: Pseudo-Planche Push Up with Accommodating Resistance and Pull Up antagonist sets. Did 3, with Pull Up results: 7 7 8.

Friday: Assisted Pistol Squats: 8 8 9 Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 7 7 7

Lower body loosening flow
Adding Pauses to Front Lever Rows
Exploring your ranges during dynamic stretching

Hybrid GSCARVE: Week 5

For the Monday Leg session, the results were:

Assisted Pistol Squats: 6 6 6
Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 5 5 5

The pistol reps were higher than last week because of the greater assistance from the NOSSK suspension trainer. In the afternoon, I did a few sets of 3-5 reps of weighted Jefferson Curl with a bag of canned food serving as weight. The low back felt a little sore. It might be because of the one-leg hip hinges. While I don't feel the low back working during the exercise, the spinal erectors and multifidus are thought to be working isometrically, and thus may get sore later. Because of my past history with low back injury, I will restrict the practice of weighted Jefferson Curl to the "chest up" variation to minimize forward spinal flexion for the time being, focusing more on hamstring mobility. Eduardo Orihuela showed this and other Jefferson Curl variation in his Instagram post.

For the Wednesday Upper Body session, I did the Pike Push Ups starting the eccentric with the feet on step 4 of the stairs. The greater height might create a greater load on the eccentric, but the load may have been reduced as well by the feet being also further back. Hard to tell if shifting more weight back, by the feet being further bac, canceled out the load increase by the feet also being higher than last week. Next week, I'll try moving the parallettes closer to the stairs, to try to let the hips get closer to forming that ideal vertical line from the hands, through the shoulders, to the tailbone. I did not feel stronger in the concentric, but it almost doesn't matter if I progress in the eccentric. For the Finisher, I did a drop set of incline push ups on the NOSSK suspension trainer. Next week, I will try starting the drop set at a higher incline, to allow for higher overall reps before burning out the muscles.
My pull up performance was: 7 7 8. It was a bit of a drop from last week. For the Finisher, I did a drop set of table rows, followed by incline rows. Next week, I will skip the table rows and try starting at a higher incline to increase higher overall reps.

For the Friday Leg session, the results were:

Assisted Pistol Squats: 6 6 8
Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 6 6 8

Mobility Routine post that includes weighted cossack squat

M8 Tracker: Initial collection of notes

Red Means Recording put up a video in which he announced his new album Rituals, then did a walkthrough of the song"Deep Throat", in which he explains how he programmed the song on the M8 Tracker in fair amount detail. He also shares the thought processes that went into composing the song.

The tracks on the M8 Tracker are not polyphonic, so you can only program one note at a time on one track. However, there are workarounds for playing chords on on track. One way is to use the Sampler instrument, and have it play samples of chords. Another way is to use the Macrosynth instrument's Wave Paraphonic engine. Using that engine type you can move between a selection of 4 note chord voicings, while also scanning through a wavetable to get different timbres etc.

Another way to play a chord on a Track is to use Tables. The M8 Discord Meetup #10 video shows this approach, first with the Macrosynth Triple Saw, then the FMSynth instrument. The video has other tips related to using Tables as well as tons of other info

Selecting within a phrase or chain to loop has been a struggle for me. One tip I got from a fellow user:

If I’ve understood you correctly, you can make a selection within a phrase or chain using shift + option and then hit shift + play so it’ll loop that portion in all tracks. That means you can edit one phrase within a track while being able to hear how it fits with the others without it advancing the song. Very handy!

Another struggle has been getting the hang of cloning a Phrase or Chain. The documentation tries to explain how to press the buttons, but I still found the procedure hard to understand. Basically, you have to hold the SHIFT button by itself, then press the OPTION button, then release the OPTION button, then press and release the EDIT button.

Another question that comes to mind is when to use Chains or Phrases. Some thoughts from fellow users:

IMO the best way to think of it is that phrases are the equivalent of pages in Elektron sequencers, and chains are the equivalent of patterns, but for individual tracks. My chains are usually 8 phrases long, but the optimal length really depends on how your song is structured. If you’re doing long chord progressions, it makes sense to have them all self-contained in one chain each, so you can just repeat the same chain over and over, rather than alternating between 2+ different chains, if that makes sense?

I’m trying to keep my chains to 4 phrases (64 steps). Multiple chains per track to add variation to melody / notation. 64 steps for phrases seems to calculate better in my head, considering I’ve used Digitone as a sequencer for years. If all chains use 4 phrases, across all tracks, everything will stay lined up as the song plays. However I have had a few smaller chains and everything then starts moving at a different rate, can be confusing for me.

A tip about the chance command:

One of my favorite things about the M8 is being able to use the chance command with one percentage to the left and another to the right. Similar effect to programming drums on the Octatrack, but instead of using an LFO to bring fx in and out, I use the chance command

Tip for using Groove for slides at very slow tempi:

I was working on a song at very slow (~40) BPM and wanted some really subtle slides. I was getting frustrated because doing a PSL even over just a single tick still took so long at this BPM that it felt overly dramatic.

“Nothing for it,” I thought. “I’ll have to double the BPM and go back and manually expand all my phrases over twice the steps to maintain the tempo.” I was half way through this laborious process when it hit me: if I could just increase the number of ticks each step in my phrase consumed, I would get more resolution out of each tick without rearranging my phrases.

And this, of course, is exactly what Groove let us do! I just doubled the ticks-per-step in the Groove page, doubled my BPM, and ended up exactly where I would have been, timing wise, if I had spaced out all my phrases.

All of which is to say: Groove isn’t just about getting swing in your patterns. It can also act as a “zoom” (or “page scale” in elektron-speak) that lets you, for example, lay out those chunky whole-note drones without breaking them up single-note-per-phrase over, like, 20 phrases or whatever.

Hybrid GSCARVE: Week 4

Monday leg session results were similar to the previous Friday's:

Assisted Pistol Squat: 3 3 3
Suspension One-Leg Hip Hinge: 4 4 4

For the Wednesday session, I did the Accommodating Resistance Pike Pushups on the stairs. The stairs under my feet are much more stable than the old dining chairs I'd previously used. Without the distraction of a moving platform under my feet, I could focus more fully on the pike push up itself. With the P-Barz at the bottom of the stairs, the first stairstep is just a couple of inches lower than the P-Barz handles. All the other stairsteps are higher than the P-Barz. I set my feet on step 3 for the eccentric phase, and kept them there at the start of the concentric, until I got stuck due to strength limitation. I then moved my feet down to step 2, which reduced the load enough to resume the concentric. My feet did not rise in the lower half of the eccentric like they did last week, because my hamstrings were not put into a tightened enough position. Next week, I will move the P-Barz closer to the stairs to make it easier to form a vertical line that goes from the hands, through the shoulders, all the way to the hips, per Mindful Mover's video. At least, if I can't form that ideal vertical line, it should be because of my own strength/mobility limitations, not because the P-Barz were just too far from the stairs. We aim for this ideal vertical line to maximize the load on the eccentric.

The Wednesday pull up results were: 8 8 8. Quality of movement was fine, but level of effort was moderately high.

The Friday Leg session was kind of like the Monday session, except after the first set, I decided to set up further from the NOSSK trainer anchor points, in order to use more assistance and thus get more reps per set. I figured that at this stage I would benefit from the greater number of reps as it would mean more practice of the movement.

A finisher for Leg sessions which I didn't get around to this week but may try next week: Bear Squat as taught by Mark Wildman, which looks like a more accessible way to improve hamstring mobility.

I asked Eduardo Oriheula about Jefferson Curl reps and sets upon seeing his great post. His reply was:

I have one lower body day where I do Jefferson curls right after for 3 to 4 sets of 3 to 5 reps with about 10 second holds at the very bottom for each one. On other days I play it by feel and don’t use any weight

His post on the Helicoptero move from Capoeira shows some of his considerable movement skills.
Rest-Pause post by Mindful Mover. They also suggest trying it between the eccentric and concentric phases of a movement.
Warmup Ideas
GMB Shoulder Prehab Article
Bear-based Flow for strong shoulders, flexible hamstrings, and body control
Ankle mobility
Tips for Wall Handstand Pushup with Accommodating Resistance

Using Baking Soda and Vinegar for Laundry and the Washing Machine

For some reason I now get Reader's Digest articles emailed to me, though I did not ask for them. Reading these articles, however, may have nostalgic appeal for those who used to read the print Reader's Digest. A lot of home care/cleaning articles recommend baking soda and vinegar but this is one of the few that actually mentions when to not use them both at the same time.

How To Use Baking Soda and Vinegar for Laundry and the Washing Machine

Hybrid GSCARVE: Week 3

The Monday leg session went smoothly. The pistol squat performance was almost the same as Friday, except I used a little less assistance from the NOSSK suspension trainer. I sank a little too quickly into the bottom position, however, so next session I will make myself do a 4-count eccentric. I progressed on the suspension hip hinge to cross-ankle, then to fully single-leg hip hinge after finding the cross-ankle variation almost as easy as the two-leg version.

For some reason, I woke up earlier than expected on Wednesday morning, thus getting less sleep than desirable. I felt a little weaker in my Pike Pushup practice. There were a couple of times in which I stalled on the concentric, failed to shift enough weight away from my hands, and had to restart the con centric. I decided to try rest-pause, inserting at least 15-second rest between reps. I think part of the problem is that I had my feet on a chair that was sliding too much because of the sliders on its feet, despite the chair being up against the wall. I originally started using the chairs because I thought I would be practicing Pike Pushup with my knees on the chairs. But I don't really need the chairs anymore. So next week, I'll practice this move with my feet on the stairs, and the P-Barz against the wall - as they were sliding a bit too and thus distracting me from the weight-shift.

I did these reps for the pull up sets: 7 7 9. The Backfill strategy from GSC appears to be working better than my previous strategy of doing reps to failure, or close to it, on every set, which resulted in rep numbers like: 9 7 5. By doing only 7 reps per set for the first two sets, even though I could have done more, I had enough energy on reserve to do 9 reps for the last set. Thus the Backfill strategy promotes greater overall training volume.

For the finisher set, I did archer rows on the NOSSK, alternating working arms and using the assistance arm as little as possible. I tried to focus on keeping the shoulders down.

I wanted to make up for my disappointing Pike Push Up performance, so I did a finisher set by setting a timer to 90 seconds, then doing Bent-Arm Bear for as long as I could, then regular Bear. I didn't make it to the full 90 sec. so I stopped the timer, and did hands-on-floor push ups to finish burning out the pushing muscles.

For the Friday session, I did 4 antagonist pair (assisted Pistol Squat and one-leg suspension hip hinge). The results in reps:
Pistol Squat: 3 3 3 3
Hip Hinge: 4 4 4 4

These are the 3 mobility drills that Mindful Mover recommends the most for people who are training for general-purpose strength (not for specialized purposes): Split Squat (aka "ATG Split Squat"), Jefferson Curl, Brachial Hang. I finished the Friday session with some ATG split squatting with the front foot elevated on a thick book, then some Jefferson curls with a couple of soup cans in a bag for load.

Roland MC-707

In the half-year that passed, I ended up getting my own MC-707, even though I already owned the MC-101 which has the same Zen-Core sound engine and quite a bit of same sequencing functionality.   The money spent on the 707 could, after all, have gone instead to any of the newer, shinier synths out there.   Buying the 707 has proven to be the right call for me. Comments on various aspects:

Pads - I had to adjust the sensitivity because the pads seemed to require a little more velocity than I would like to trigger sounds. Even after adjustment, the synth still seems more responsive to MIDI velocity from my Arturia Keystep 37 than to velocity on the built-in pads. I find the pads most useful for sequence editing and auditioning drum sounds.

Synth Editing - Most commonly used settings such as Oscillator Type, Filter Cutoff, Amp stages, etc. are easy to find in the Easy Edit screen. However, some settings are less obvious like pages that require pressing the Func button to access. Unfortunately, none of the tutorial videos I could find on Youtube address how to map MIDI aftertouch and MIDI velocity to synth parameters, which to me seem like basic functions that any user who wants to use a keyboard controller would really want to know. After some trial and error, I figured out that SYS-CTRL2 defaults to MIDI aftertouch as a source - then I was able to map aftertouch to filter cutoff. Someday, hopefully in the near future, I will discover exactly where the information on what SYS-CTRL2 and other SYS-CTRL sources represent... is buried in the Reference Manual. What really gave me a devil of a time is figuring out where the MIDI Velocity setting are in the synth engine, because I wanted to add velocity-sensitivity to a particular preset, which had a sound I really liked but it was programmed to be full blast. I spent hours in the Matrix pages searching for them, testing different SYS-CTRL numbers in the belief that one of them would be velocity. I finally found the Velocity assignments, but they were not in the Matrix pages! They were actually in the Amp->Other section of the Partial Edit screens. This is the section where you set Velocity Curve and Velocity Sens for each of the 4 Partials. I made my changes there but the sound was still full-blast, unresponsive to velocity. I then figured out that I had to go to the Amp->Level section, where I saw that all 4 Partials had be maxed out to 127. I lowered these 4 values and, magically, the preset was suddenly velocity-sensitive.

Clip Grid - When I only had the MC-101, I had a lot of difficulty understanding how Clips are organized into Scenes and why others kept insisting that Scene Chaining was needed for a real song mode.  The MC-707's bigger display over the MC-101's stingy 2-line display proved to be the difference maker. In the MC-707, I have a much easier time seeing what Clips are under which Track, and what Clips have been selected when I save them to a Scene. As noted in the original review, in the MC-707's clip grid display, colunms represent Tracks, and rows represent the Clips for each Track and the default order in which they may be played. Also as noted in the original review, you can select any combination of Clips, as long as they're from different Tracks, and save them into a Scene - and the Clips do not have to be on the same row. I found all of this difficult to see on the MC-101's stingy little 2-line display. Thanks to the MC-707's bigger display, I was finally able to see and understand why Scene Chaining is so critical for "song mode", and Clip Chaining, while a nice update, was not adequate. I believe at the time of the original review, there were only 8 Scenes allowed, which would have limited "song mode" on this machine. Thanks to latest round of OS updates, you have multiple banks of Scenes for a total of 128 Scenes.

Preset Sounds - As previously noted, MC-707 comes with a generous selection - 3000+ Tones, 80+ Drum Kits - of sound presets, organized by category. My MC-101 purchase coincided with a Roland promo that gave me 1 year of Roland Cloud and Zenology Pro subscription for free. I never got around to messing with Zenology Pro for sound design as I'm not really a sound design freak, but I did grab about all the MC-101/707 Zen-Core Sound Packs that were available during this subscription period. After the subscription expired, Roland has continued to pump out new Sound Packs at a steady rate, so I bought some for 99 cents each, which is a steal because even if I use only 1 preset per pack in actual music, I still get a lot of educational value from studying the presets in the synth editor. Anyway, if you like Roland rompler tones, you'll probably like the PCM-based tones on this machine. If you prefer certain sample-based tones Yamaha or Korg romplers, then I'm not sure these tones will sway you. The VA tones sound excellent to me, although as noted previously, this too is subjective. Among the offical Sound Packs, my favorites are Ambient Pads, Ancient Discovery, Cinematic Beds, Modular Grooves, and The Drones. One caveat is that you can only save your user-edited sounds as part of the Project. So I will have to figure out a way to share my user sounds between Projects.

Sequencing - So far I have only created simple patterns as part of the learning process, not having gone as deep as the original reviewer. There are some interesting tricks for introducing pattern variation in real-time without using Scatter, such as manipulating First Step and Last Step parameters, and Step Jumps. Recent updates introduced Count-In, which is very welcome! When the metronome is turned on, however, it is freaking loud, and there is no obvious way to turn it down. I'm sure the setting is just one button combo away - Shift plus another button or something like that.

Effects - There is one Effect slot per Track, with a choice of about 90 different effects. The rest of the effects live at the Project level, affecting all Tracks, and referred to as "Total Effects" in the manual. These are Reverb, Chorus/Delay, MultiFX, Compressor, and EQ. You can really only select one effect at a time for MultiFX - I guess the "multi" refers to the choice of multiple effect types not covered under the other 4 Total Effects, such as Multi-Mode Filter and distortion. At the Track level, you have Delay Send and Reverb Send settings.

Various extra comments:

Project Naming - I like how this is implemented. C1 moves the cursor left-right. C2 switches capitalization. C3 moves the character wheel.

I did not find a 4-note polyphony limitation for Tone Tracks. I was able to enter 5-note chords just fine for a Tone Track. I also tried playing a 10-note chord - all 10 notes were played just fine. I have read there are voice-stealing settings, which are needed when polyphony-eating synth settings are used, as noted in the original review.

Easy vs. Partial Edit may be confusing, but having both modes made it possible for me to assign aftertouch to Level in Easy Mode, then switch to Partial Edit for Partial 2, and assign aftertouch to LFO1 Rate, so that aftertouch raises LFO1 Rate only for Partial 2 and also boosts the volume for swells. At first, I had aftertouch modulating LFO1 Rate for all 4 partials. In this preset, LFO1 modulates Amp. Amp being modulated for all 4 partials sounded a bit too intense for me. Having it modulate Amp only for one of the 4 Partials was more to my liking.

Hybrid GSCARVE: Week 2

Monday was a holiday. If it was a normal workday, I would have done the Leg session. However, I slept in a little late, and decided to skip training so I could shop at the grocery, eat lunch, and spend the majority of the day practicing on guitar, in preparation for a guitar-focused virtual teaching summit that I'm thinking of attending this weekend. Most of the practice time was devoted to Sean McGowan's arrangement of Have You Met Miss Jones, for solo fingerstyle guitar, which is a mix of single-note lines and chordal passages. I also practiced some riffs from Chapter 5 Grooves, from the Neo-Soul Guitar Book, because rhythm guitar is part of guitar playing and I don't want to neglect that aspect. I was able to get in a fair amount of practice until the Golfer's Elbow area started to feel sore - once that happened, I put the guitar away, because I don't want a full-blown flare up again.

For Tuesday, I warmed up with closed-chain elbow rotations, then played with Twisting Bear, Crab, and Twisting Bear to Crab transitions as shown in GMB's Shoulder Prehab article. My shoulder recovery progressed well in 2021, thanks to high-effort Shoulder Press on the Isochain, but I believe the GMB Elements practice that I did on my recovery days also helped. A lot of the Elements sessions featured Twisting Bear and Crab. I also practiced those two movements, among other Elements moves, as part of the shell warmup for Isochain training. What was new to me in the GMB article was the focus on internal-external shoulder rotation in Twisting Bear, as well as incorporating shoulder movement into closed-chain elbow rotation.

In the Wednesday session, I struggled again with the concentric phase of the Pike Pushup, in particular, shifting my weight away from my hands when I get stuck on the way back up. I set the P-Barz a little too far from the chairs for my first set. I moved the P-Barz closer for subsequent sets but I still could not figure out how to shift my weight back. On the bright side, even with the sloppy performance of the concentric, I still got a good workout on the eccentric, even having some fun letting the feet float a bit. The ideal form is for the hips to be above the shoulders and I got pretty close.

The reps I did for my pull up sets were: 8, 7, 6, 6. Thus I did 4 antagonist pair (pike pushup and pull up) sets, with 3 min. rest between each exercise.

Later in the afternoon, I got into pike pushup position and lowered myself to try to figure out how to shift my weight away from my hands when I get stuck on the concentric. I figured out that I need to pull my hips back. Hopefully on the next session, I won't forget to to shift the weight back to my hands as leverage makes the load feel light again, on the last quarter of the concentric movement.

I did a GMB Recovery session on Thursday. Apparently, GMB updated the Recovery program with more total sessions. When I logged onto the GMB site and selected the Recovery program, I was taken to the very first session in the program, which introduced the Iquana Walk and hand-assisted backward walk to Squat. I don't mind restarting Recovery. My only issue with Recovery is I keep forgetting to look for the lacross ball that I bought for the self-massage drill in the program.

For Leg session on Friday, I did 4 antagonist pair sets of assisted pistol squats and suspension hip hinges - which are also called "hip extensions" on the Red Delta Project Youtube channel. The rep numbers:

Assisted pistol squat: 3 3 3 4
Suspension hip hinge: 8 8 8 10

I applied the Backfill strategy taught by Red Delta Project, to spread out the reps more evenly from set to set. This looks like an improvement over how I did calisthenic exercise two years ago, which would be to push the reps for the first set, then do the rest of the workout with a significant reduction in reps for subsequent sets because I had expended too much for that first set.

Some Instagram finds:
J-Curl variations
Using Monkey to work on tuck planche, bent-arm stand, and other skills
Example preparatory movements for single-leg squats

Hybrid GSCARVE: Week 1

This was the first week of my new exercise program, which I call Hybrid GSCARVE (Grind Style Calisthenics-Accommodating Resistance Vertical Emphasis). It combines ideas from the Grind Style Calisthenics method taught on the Red Delta Project Youtube channel and Mindful Mover's adaptation of Accommodating Resistance to calisthenics. I'll use GSC's Tension, Stability, Strength, and Finisher phases for my leg training. The Mindful Mover influence will be in the application of Accommodating Resistance to pike pushups and the exercise selection. Almost all execises are from the Mindful Mover Big 5, which have been found to deliver free gains in many other exercises.

The schedule will be:

• Monday - Leg (Pistol Squat and Hip Extension)
• Tuesday - GMB Elements
• Wednesday - Vertical Upper Body (Pike Pushup and Pull Ups)
• Thursday - GMB Elements
• Friday - Leg

The Leg sessions will be GSC-style, using the NOSSK suspension trainer. Since I am not strong enough to do Pistol Squat with additional weight, I won't be doing the Leg sessions with Accommodating Resistance. I'll see how I progress with 2 Leg sessions a week. For ths program, I want to emphasize vertical push-pull for my upper body, so I selected Pike Pushup and Pull Up for my push-pull pair, with 3 minute rest per Mindful Mover's recommendation for antagonistic movements. I will be applying Accommodating Resistance to the Pike Pushup, so one Upper Body session per week should be enough. I will play it safe by doing only 3 sets per strength exercise for the first 2 weeks, and then add sets depending on feel.

I rewatched this video, in which Matt of Red Delta Project shared his updates to Grind Style Calisthenics. One thing I missed from earlier viewings of the video, is the recommendation to not use the same exercise for both the Strength and Finisher phases of GSC. For example, if you were doing pull ups for your Strength phase, doing an easier pull up variation for the Finisher phase is not recommended. What he recommends instead is to choose a different exercise, for your Finisher phase, that works the same tension chain as your Strength phase exercise. So if you did pull ups for Strength, do a row variation instead of pull ups for Finisher. The idea is change enough variables - bilateral vs. unilateral work, angle, cadence - to flood your system with new information. I'm not really keen on adding yet more muscle mass to my already large - for my size - thighs, so I will skip Finisher for my leg sessions. In my Upper Body sessions, I will do drop sets of push ups on the NOSSK, as the Finisher for the Pike Pushup; and drop sets of rows on the NOSSK as the finsher for Pull Ups. I believe I saw a post from Mindful Mover somewhere recommending being able to do a set of 10 pull ups before beginning training with Mixed Grip Chin Ups, which is the next exercise in the progression towards One-Arm Chin Up. If I do progress to Mixed-Grip Chin Up training, I probably won't do a pull-chain Finisher, because I don't want to risk a flareup of Golfer's Elbow but I'll see how it goes.

I also rewatched the RDP video on why Matt prefers close grip for pull ups. The reasons sound pretty good to me, and I am all for anything that is easier on the joints.

The Monday session went fine for a first Legs session. The first set of pistols required a lot of effort and were a bit sloppy, which was not a total surprise as I hadn't done pistols in almost 2 years. The 2nd and 3rd sets were better, because I increased the amount of assistance from the NOSSK, while trying to be mindful of not taking too much load away from the working leg.  The hip extensions were about 6 reps per set. For finisher, I did a set of walking prisoner lunges, then a set of close squats, then a set of regular bodyweight squats. The legs, especially the quads were hit by DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) lasting several days.

The GMB Elements session for Tuesday focused on Baby Frogger and Bear to Crab transition. I did not try too hard to achieve Baby Frogger stalls, which are practically a Tuck Planche, as I had the heavy upper body session scheduled the very next day.
The Wednesday session was also fun and interesting. I set up the P-Barz parallettes in front of two armless chairs facing each other for the Pike Pushups, with the idea of putting my knees on the chairs, as that is the easiest variation shown in Mindful Mover's pike pushup video. My main fear that I had to overcome, was that I might drop too fast into the bottom of the pike pushup, and somehow hit my head on the floor. This fear went away with I did my first rep, and felt like I was in good control of the movement. In fact, the movement felt too easy. Also, the chairs started sliding because the legs have sliders on them to prevent scratching the hardwood floor. So I paused to move the chairs next to the wall to stop them from sliding, and finished the set trying to keep the feet instead of the knees on the chairs. The pike pushup felt too easy with my knees on the chairs, so I tried to shift my weight to my feet, when I needed to shift weight away from my hands. I was surprised to see my feet floating in the air, even for just a second or two, when I was in the bottom of the pike pushups. From the bottom position, when I started grinding the concentric, I kind of got stuck when I tried to shift my weight to my feet, to reduce the load from my hand just enough to continue the concentric. The problem was my hamstrings were not flexible enough to let my legs extend the feet to the chairs with enough leverage to take the load. Thus I ended up falling to my knees for a bit, before I got high enough in the pike pushup to shift more of the load back to the hands and get the knees off the chairs. So next time, I'll try setting up the P-Barz further away from the chairs, so that the angle of my legs to my torso will be greater, and thus tight hamstrings should be less likely to stop my legs from extending and applying pressure to the feet when I need to shift weight there.

It was a fun first pike push-up session AR, despite the hiccups. It's always more fun when you discover you're stronger than you thought you would be, after more than a year passing since the last time you did full-range pike push-ups, with the shoulders going down to the height of your hands. I finished my latest Isochain session with my 1-rep max in the Shoulder Press just under half bodyweight, so I did not think I would be this far up the pike pushup to handstand pushup progression. However, I did not account for my overhead pressing strength being greater at the lowest position of the Shoulder Press, which is also the lowest position of the pike pushup.

The pull-up session also went better than expected, despite not practicing pull-ups in a year. I got nowhere close to 8 pull-ups in one set last year, partly because the Golfer's Elbow bothered me more and my shoulder was not feeling that great. I felt the Golfer's Elbow a little this time around, but for most part, I was able to do the pull-ups without any pain as long as I focused on initiating the pull from between the shoulder blades and allowing the palms to turn with the movement.

By Thursday, I had upper body DOMS from the Wednesday session, as well as some lingering leg/glute DOMS from the Monday session. So, I decided to do a GMB Recovery session, instead of GMB Elements.

For the Friday leg session, I went lighter, by using more NOSSK assistance for the pistol squats and setting the foot slings lower for the hip extensions. I did 3 antagonist pair sets, and 4 pistol squat reps and 8 hip extension reps per set. For the Finisher phase, I tried a few reps of the plie and grand plie squats, from this ballet dancer exercises article. I tried them out of curiosity about how it feels to do those movements. My fitness goals are to achieve a handstand pushup, one-arm chin up, full planche push up, front lever row, and pistol squat with a 32kg kettlebell. I've had those goals since I saw B-Boy Junior flow into planche push ups with ease, saw Jackie Chan do handstand push ups, and learned about front lever and one-arm chin ups in the Dragondoor forum. Thus I bought into Mindful Mover's fitness methods when I realized their Big 5 matched my 5 goals. So, I don't know if those ballet dancer exercises are relevant to my goals. I might even get free gains from those exercises from Big 5 training and weighted mobility drills advocated by Mindful Mover, Tom Merrick and others. win a movie despite not being convinced I need to do them to reach my fitness goals.

In the afternoon, I tested myself a little to see if I would be comfortable with practicing pike pushups with the parallettes about 2 feet or more further away from the chair. I found I could indeed put enough of my weight onto my hands to move the feet back and forth on the chair. 2 years ago, I would have been shaking because working with this much weight on my hands was more difficult. I still have some DOMS from the Wednesday session but that's fine.

Isochain 6x6: Week 6

I got off to a late start for my Monday session so my warmup was just 14 bodyweight basic squats and about 30 or so wall pushups. The Ultimate Isometrics Manual recommends a 5-minute warmup to raise the body's shell temperature - the "shell" includes the skin and limbs - then drill-specific warmups. So far I've found that drill-specific warmups only seem to be necessary for 1-rep max test sessions and the Promethean program, so I have not been doing those for 6x6. I have however found that skimping on the shell warmup seems to compromise performance on the Isochain, and Monday was no exception. While the Jefferson Lift numbers were same as always, there was a drop in last-rep max numbers for Shoulder Press and Drag Curl.

In the afternoon, I tried some pull-ups to test my shoulder and elbow. The shoulder felt fine as long as I kept the scapulae depressed. The elbow did not feel good with supinated palms, as expected for Golfer's Elbow. Pull ups with pronated palms all the way felt somewhat ok with extra focus and effort on the back-driven torque technique taught on the Red Delta Project channel. Pull ups with pronated palms in the bottom position, and rotating the palms to face each other at the top, felt the best - I still need to use the torgue technique to keep pressure off of the elbow, but I don't have to pour as much effort into that technique - which seems counterintuitive because on the surface, the palms appear to rotate inward instead of outward. Yet, pronated palms with arms extended to neutral or supinated palms at the top of the pull up feels best to me, so I have go with what feels best, and least painful. The reason I tried the pull-ups was to test my readiness for switching next week to a calisthenics program that includes pull ups. I feel more confident about practicing pull-ups again.

I finished the week with stronger performances in all 3 drills. I decided to end the 6x6 program instead of going for 8 weeks, as the rate of progress seemed to be settling rather than accelerating.

My biggest gain was in the Drag Curl, which was replacement for the Bent-Over Row after I felt the pop in my spine in Week 1. My last-rep max force reading for my first Drag Curl set that week was 37.2 lbs. Based on my last-rep max reading for the last Drag Curl session of 48.8 lbs, my strength gain was about 31%. Part of this gain was achieved by experimenting with lowering the Isochain bar. It turns out that the force output in the Drag Curl is actually greater with the elbows at closer to 45 degrees than at smaller degrees, where I thought the bicep contraction would be at their greatest.

My Shoulder Press gain was a more modest 15%. Most of the gain was from realizing that I can generate more force by locking out my knees and hips. When my shoulder was feeling less healthy, I was not even able to train with the elbows at 90 degrees and the arms greater than about 30 degrees from the sagittal plane. What I did to train pain-free was to set the bar slightly higher so that the elbows were closer to 120 degrees, and closer together, and slightly squatting so that the legs could assist a little. But now with the ability to train with the elbows at 90 degrees and a little wider apart, I can generate more force from the shoulders and make my torso and legs straight to give them a solid platform to work from. The most important shoulder press gain for me was the dramatic reduction in pain when reaching overhead, which is key to being able to do pull ups again.

The Jefferson Lift was just a drill I wanted to try out of curiosity. I have not heard of any carryover from Jefferson Lift to any of the Big 5 family skills as identified by Mindful Mover - Handstand Pushup, One-Arm Chin Up, Planche Push Up, Front Lever Row, Single-Leg Squat. Still, my curiosity was satisfied. I felt one leg working a little harder than the other, and I felt my core working as well, because of the anti-rotation aspect. However, I didn't feel the core working as hard as when I tried Pseudo Planche Push Up or Front Lever Row with Accommodating Resistance. My low back and hips felt better - not dramatically so, but noticeably better.

The plan next week is to start a calisthenics cycle emphasizing vertical push-pull and leg strength. The push-pull pair will be Pike Pushups with Accommodating Resistance, and Pull Ups, with potential transition to Mixed-Grip Chin Ups, depending on the Pull Up progress. The leg exercise pair will utilize the suspension trainer - assisted Pistol Squats and Hip Extensions. This cycle will last 8 weeks.

Isochain 6x6: Week 5

Monday was 1-Rep Max testing day. Results in lbs:

Jefferson Lift: 237.3
Shoulder Press: 63.4
Drag Curl: 42.7

This was the first Isochain session with the new spring. Without the spring added to the chain, the nervous system limits the force of muscular contractions, because the chain will feel like an immovable load. This limit is referred to as "cortical inhibition". With the spring added, the nervous system will sense the chain being stretched when enough force is applied, and thus allow the muscles to exert more force. One fellow Isochain user reported that it takes about 110 lbs of force to stretch the spring, which led to discussion among other fellow users. If you cannot stretch the spring while exerting as much force as you can for a particular drill, it is as if the spring is not there at all. You can still train productively on the Isochain, but because of cortical inhibition, your progress won't be as fast as it will be on drills where you are strong enough to exert the minimum 110 lbs. of force. So naturally, this led to discussion about trying replacement springs that will stretch at lower force levels. The spring that comes with Isochain is said to have a 1000 lb. force capacity. Thus, I ordered a spring with 700 lb. force capacity. It cost $17, which I felt was a reasonable price for experimentation. The experiment of course is to see if progress in drills, where my 1-rep Max is less than 110 lbs., will be sped up by training with the lighter-capacity spring.

The 1-Rep Max results the two upper body drills reflect progress that is satisfactory to me. I used the lighter spring for testing these drills but did not feel the spring stretch. So the minimum force to stretch the spring, and thus reduce cortical inhibition more dramatically, must be greater than 64.4 lbs., which is the highest measurement I got for a single attempt - out of the 3 attempts recommended for testing.

I felt my Golfer's Elbow flare up when I first started testing my Drag Curl. I then realized I had set the bar a little too high. The lighter spring is longer than the heavier one that came with the Isochain. Lowering the bar made it easier to engage the shoulder rotators, upper back, etc. muscles to take the load off the elbows.

I'm still figuring out how to position my body in the Jefferson Lift so that I can productively stimulate gains, while minimizing risk of injury. It will be a while before I feel comfortable enough to put out more force. I don't feel any pain while practicing the drill but I'm still a little afraid that I might injure something if I pull too hard, even though I've read the Jefferson Lift articles assuring how good this lift is for people with back pain. I guess one could say a different type of neurological inhibition is in play here.

Wednesday session went well, with the new target loads for the 3 drills as set by Monday's testing - 70% of 1-rep max for each drill.

Friday session went even better. My last rep max in the Shoulder Press was 62.8 lbs. I did not expect to progress this close to my 1-rep max so soon. I had a feeling that I could shift the load a little more from the forearms to the biceps in the Drag Curl if I lowered the bar a bit. So I lowered the bar by 2 chain links. My last rep max was 47.6 lbs - so I already beat my 1-rep max! Just getting the biceps to work a little more, by changing the bar height, resulted in a 7 lb. increase!

My Jefferson Lift max numbers continue to be in the 250lb. range. Still figuring out the body positioning that will maximize safety, especially for my suspect low back and hips. This lift seems much safer than most other deadlift variations, but I'm being cautious nonetheless.

Some finds:

The Bioneer's new leg exercise video. Some exercises are familiar to me like Pistol Squat and Glute Bridge. Weighted Jump Squat is less familiar - interesting that the recommended weight is 30% of bodyweight.

The Cultured Food Life website encouraged me to start making my own kombucha and kefir. Their article on hesperidin is encouraging me to get an orange squeezer and start making fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Today's Music Discoveries

Isochain 6x6: Week 4

The week got off to a strong start, with a 291.2 lb max reading for the right side of Jefferson Lift, a 41 lb. change from Friday, and 59.8 lb max reading in the Shoulder Press, about a 10 lb. change from Friday despite raising the target load to 40lbs. Drag Curl max was 37 lbs., which is 2 lbs. down from Friday - which was more like what I expected with the target load raise to 28 lbs. The Jefferson Lift is an exercise I'm still exploring, searching for the foot and grip positioning that will make the most sense.

One thing I changed for the Shoulder Press was to straighten my legs, locking out my knees and hips. I thought that I could get higher force output by pushing with my legs, glutes, etc. and adding the power of my lower body to the force generated by my upper body muscles such as my shoulders and arms. I had been using this approach since I got the Isochain. Instead, straightening my legs, tucking in my tailbone, and squeezing my butt to make my legs and torso straight and tight as possible resulted in about a 10 lb. increase in force.

Since I'm new to the Jefferson Lift, I searched the Web to see how people are coaching this exercise. I eventually found this article on the USAWA site. USAWA organizes competitions in which you can compete in the Jefferson Lift and other "odd lifts" found in the USAWA rule book. The article mentions two ways the shoulders can be aligned with respect to the bar - perpendicular to the bar and parallel to the bar. Until Wednesday of this week, I had the Isochain bar neither parallel nor perpedicular - more like 45 degrees to the shoulders. I was also setting my feet about 90 degrees from one another with the working foot perpendicular to the bar. I then changed to the parallel foot alignmnent after rereading the Dave Dellanave article and reviewing the video in the article. Thus for the Wednesday session, I trained with the shoulders parallel to bar, parallel feet with the bar about 45 degrees to the feet, narrower grip, and the toes up to the edge of the plate. This combination did not result in a dramatic change of force output, but the likelihood of the knees, shoulders, or anything in the core (back, hips, etc.) being pulled out of aligment into pain felt greatly reduced. Under previous approaches, I always felt like my knees could collapse inwards if I didn't focus intensely on pulling them outwards. I did feel some soreness around the MCL part of the knees after some 6x6 sessions, which led me to pay more attention to keeping those knees flexing outwards.

For the Friday session, I tried raising the Shoulder Press target load to 44lbs. I did the first 6-sec. hold rep or two fine. By the 3rd rep, I lowered the load back to 42lbs. because I was unable to complete the 6-sec. hold. I also raised the target load for the Drag Curl and was able to do the full 6x6 set at a target load of 30lbs.