Warrior Wellness first go

[kai]

Hello,

Just some little feedback on first impressions doing the beginners WW. After going through the program, I was feeling really energized, my joints were kind of bubling with energy. Instead of enjoying the sensation I went onto my general BW conditioning program and it all went real fine.

I confess having a problem with the sideways neck sliding motion, I could not budge it at all, a real ackward feeling. I have a lot of work to do on that movement.

Looking forward to the next 3 months.

[rbibbs]

Sounds great Kai!

The sideways neck motion will come to you. Almost everyone has 'trouble' with it at first. It's frustrating because for one thing, 'trying harder' makes it more 'impossible'. It's a motion that must be achieved through relaxation rather than tension, which is what makes it hard to capture, and also what makes it so valuable.

[kai]

Thanks for the encouragement, I did try hard and it didn't help as you said. I'm confident though :o .

[kai]

Hello Rick,

I'm three weeks in the Warrior Wellness beginner's tape now, so I thought I might report in and ask a question.

The side way neck motion is improving, trying in front of a mirror was very tensing and did not work, instead, I sat in front of my screen and from time to time I attempted to look at my collegue who sits in front of me behind my screen without involving torso movement. It clicked. It's far from perfect but it's moving now. My overall flexibility has improved and my confidence and mobility has increased several fold, I was very tense indeed, I see that now!

The other point I'm having a little trouble in is with my right shoulder. This shoulder had traditionally been problematic when I did side shoulder raises to high up past horiontal, which led to a accromion conflict that had been reported by an IRM. Military presses were also problematic, but not the so called Arnold Press, which starts with the weight on chest, palm facing you and goes up while naturally turning your palms away from you.

I dropped weight conditioning and went to BW conditioning and put too much emphasis on pushups and chins which led to shoulder strength imbalance. These flaws are being surfaced with the Warrior Wellness program and I have this annoying pop when I do the front to back shoulder circles, not the other way round though.

I'm afraid this shoulder pop gets irritated sometimes. Do you have any specific idea or suggestion regarding this matter. Should I do some rotator cuff exercise to bring my shoulder back into proper alignment.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome and sorry for this rather long post. I've stopped BW conditioning for a time in an attempt to clean my slate!

[rbibbs]

Great progress Kai. The rest of this, take with a grain of your favorite granular substance, because at best I'm a kinesiologist-in-training, not 'certified' (in anything except being over 50yo :wink: ).

Yes you can overtrain/imbalance with linear BW exercises (i.e., pushups). I think you're right to moderate those.

The shoulder is our only major 'open' joint. That is, there's no 'socket' or ligament-fixed relationship to a single adjacent structure. If your shoulder were separated ("out of alignment"), you probably wouldn't be sitting here calmly writing about it. But if it's "troublesome" when your elbow is above shoulder height, it probably is imbalanced, meaning that in some planes there is more tonus and neurological resolution in one muscle of an adversarial pair than in its counterpart. "A lot of pushups" could be expected to produce such an imbalance, lacking a complementary exercise.

Stopping pushups would tend to restore balance, by reducing the difference in tonus and neurological resolution between the trained and untrained muscle. The downside of that is, within a few months you lose whatever gains the pushups netted you. But as you've found, imbalanced gains are 'troublesome'. An alternative would be switching to Clubbells with a restorative protocol such as Coach Chomycia's "Mobilized Strength". This would tend toward keeping your gains and developing balance by working on the weaker muscle sets. I'm speaking from the edge of what I know about strength-training balance, so I'll leave space for more authoritative advice.

Meanwhile, with regard to your 'shoulder pops': If there's no pain associated with the sound, there's little to 'worry about'. Healthy teenagers can get 'pops' at certain shoulder ROMs. The 'pop' is most likely a tendon jumping over an intervening structure under tension. It causes a disruption of smooth motion because it produces a "step" in proprioceptive feedback as the tension changes rapidly right after the jump. Slow down and relax your arm circles. The more familiar you become with the motion, the better your neurology will be able to balance those tensions (that's actually what you're training). When the "jumping tendon's" muscle is relaxing to permit the motion, the jump will subside or disappear altogether. I get "the jump" when I'm 'trying too hard'. Similar to the L/R neck motion, trying harder makes it less likely to work right.

Hope that helps.

[kai]

Hello Rick,

I don't mind loosing gains if it is for good reason, All the "Clean the Slate" talk has really got into my thick skull and I'm kind of in a process of "resetting" my body. From thereon I want to take it easy and do things properly now.

I will give Mobilized Strength a try, I have the book but was under the impression I had to go further in WW before giving it a try. I'll try it very gently with lighter weights that is advocated to see how it feels.

Thanks a lot for your kind help.

[rbibbs]

Good reasoning and good course you've chosen Kai.

If the text or a CST coach suggests going further in WW before embarking upon 'Mobilized Strength', their understanding of the process is much greater than mine and you're correct to stick with that.

I think we all agree that attempting to build strength upon an imbalanced foundation... one that has mobility restrictions... can only exacerbate the imbalances and restrictions.

Best fortune, and keep us updated.

[Dan Chomycia]

Kai,

Generally you need 2 weeks Weightless Slow & Smooth Protocol before moving into Mobilized Strength's Weighted Slow & Smooth Protocol. This is to make sure you have the movements down so that you don't cause injury and to detect any injuries that might inhibit your development.

Since you have noticed that you have some issues surfacing, I suggest that you work on WW until these issues are resolved.

Mobilized Strength is great for decreasing SMA, improving joint speed, moving through DOMS. However if you have any possible structural problems with your joints then resistance will only make those problems worse.

Thanks for getting the book,
you'll be ready for it soon!

[kai]

Hello Rick and Coach Chomycia,

It's really great the way that you are complementing your advice, it is rarelly found in this industry.

So, I'll do at least 2 more weeks of regular Warrior Wellness, this being during my vacation, and then upon return, I'll give a try with the weightless protocol of Mobilized Strength and pay close attention to my feelings.

I'll post back my impression herein.

In the mean time, I'm leaving on vacation friday morning so if I don't speak to you until then, I wish you all good vacation.

[rbibbs]

CST folks generally have complementary perspectives; we have strong common roots. Even stronger in this case, since Coach Chomycia taught me everything I know (but not everything HE knows :twisted: .)

Enjoy your vacation Kai.