Should You Kip?: Recap| Ep. 26

I’m calling myself out. After watching the previous two days episodes I wasn’t happy.  The message I portrayed was kind of cloudy.  Today is about smoothing out the rough spots and getting everyone on the same page again.

Direct and to the Point:

Static Hang 2x Body Weight (10 sec hold): Replicates the stresses applied to the arm in the bottom portion of the kipping pull-up. Testing mostly passive structures for shoulder integrity.  If you fail this test there is a high risk of injury with kipping.  The test is telling you that your shoulder can not handle the forces applied during a kipping pull-up.

10 Rep Pull-up Challenge with 4 Step Scapular Pull-ups: Tests the strength of the active structures of the shoulder.  The severity at which you fail this gives a barometer to your risk for injury.  The closer to zero, the higher the risk.

Regardless of the above results. Strict pull-ups are a great way to strengthen both the passive and active structures of the shoulder.  We are going to implement the Recon Ron pull-up program for this.

Recon Ron Strength Program: This is a capacity program. When doing this program we want to hit fatigue but never failure. For best results we want to be able to perform working sets of around 6 reps. Thus, we want our max strict pull-ups to be at least 8-9.

Today’s Prescription:

1. Find the the proper “big band” that allows you to perform at least 8-9 reps.  If you’re doing 20 pull-ups, the band is too strong.  If you can’t do 8-9 the band is too light.

2. If your max strict pull-ups are above 10 (unbanded), find your max strict pull-ups with good form (be honest)

3. Record this for tomorrow.