🪐 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗠𝗦 ➜ www.saturnomovement.com
About this post…👇
🚨Disclaimer: NOTHING wrong with flexing the spine during pull ups. Especially if you do it intentionally (hollow pull ups). This is mainly for beginners who cant keep a natural spine extension and with that their shoulders move forward. I am not advocading full retraction either.
❌ The “mistake” is simply to round the spine as we approach the top of the pull up.
While rounding the spine is not inherently a bad technique (we have hollow pull ups for a reason), this is usually combined with shoulders going forward (protraction)
In short: flexing the spine is not the issue, but the shoulder position is, and the more we round we more the shoulders will want to hunch forward.
On the other hand, the more we extend the spine the easier time we will have doing proper scapula retraction. That said, this usually requires way more strength to perform.
✅ Here are a few solutions…
1. Awareness: many of you could simply correct this with the right feedback. “Open the chest” and allow the spine to arch. Keep a strong depression and send the shoulders back as you pull up. Full retraction IS NOT necessary, but intending to do so can be beneficial for some.
2. Strength: some are simply not strong enough to do this technique so compensations happen. Apply the feedback mentioned and see if you can keep the spine extended and shoulders back. If not, get stronger!
3. Rowing: rows are often skipped by many but it’s one of the greatest exercises to improve scapular retraction. If you round during your 1st rep, you should be eating a ton of rows. If you round after 5-7r, simply add rows as a complementary exercise to your pull up/chin up work.
4. Top Holds: adding isometrics on top position can help you feel what the movement is like and build strength in that range. You can do pause reps and perform your normal sets with 1-2sec stop at the top of each rep, OR add 1-2 sets of 10-30sec hold at the end of your working sets.
That’s pretty much it family! Only you know if it’s a matter of practice (awareness), a matter of regressing the movement (more rows), a matter of adding specific work (top holds), or simply getting stronger.
I hope you found value in this post.
Questions down bellow!
I appreciate you.
With Love,
Gabo
source
