Your April Horoscope says – Lots of Upper Body Pull/Push + Scapular Strength

As March comes to a close, and we put the CF Open to bed, we’re going to shift focus for the month of April.

Here’s what we have in store:

Priority One, will be Scapular Stability, Mobility, and Strength. Every 4 days we’ll touch on a series of movements that will get your upper back moving like an upper back should.

Priority Two, will be a thorough introduction to the Rope Pull Up. These can incredibly humbling, even for our top tier athletes. But don’t worry, we’ve got 6 or 7 levels of scaling, so we’ll have something for everyone. Every 5 or 6 days we’ll be coupling a series of strict rope pull-ups with an upper-body pushing movement (bench press, shoulder press, ring push up).

Aside from that it will be a typical month of Andy. Lots of barbell work, a bit of interval work, and some pause squats sprinkled here and there.

I hope you enjoy.

Why Rope Climb (legless)?

According to Ido Portal -

Rope Climbing offers us resisted, intense ‘organic’ movement pattern with very obvious (for the serious practitioner) benefits:

1. Superior demands on scapula stabilization (compared to a pull up, for example).

2. Holistic development of upper body pulling musculature – the unique movement of climbing will activate the whole back from rhomboids to lats to traps and more. Arm muscles will also be recruited in a superior fashion – biceps, brachialis, brachrioradialis, elbow stabilizers, forearm and grip: flexor digitorum, flexor radialis and flexor pollicis longus to name a few.

3. Rope climb due to the risk involved, instability and other factors will result in much higher motor unit recruitment than again the various bar pull ups. The rope climb belongs in the Neuromuscular Activation Chart popularized by Dietmar Schmidtbleicher, Nilson and Charles Poliquin next to movements like Power Snatch and Gymnastics Rings Dips. (high rings)

Due to the first two reasons, Rope Climbs are prescribed to gymnasts, both female and male from early age as a corrective exercise to maintain healthy joints and soft tissue. Excessive use of linear strength exercises is understood by gymnastics coaches as problematic, and the necessity of more organic movement patterns, and ‘Joint Prep’ is obvious.

For an interesting read, check out John Gill’s history of competitive rope climbing.

W/U:
8 – 12 Prone Snow Angels
8 – 12 Push Back Push Up
8 – 12 Hand Cuff Press
8 – 12 Ring Rows
10 min

Skill/Str:
Warm Up Shoulder Press
Warm Up Elbows

A1. Lean and Loiter, 45 sec, 4 sets
A2. Alt. Rope Pull Up (L1,2,3,4,5 or 6) 4 reps, 4 sets
A3. No Money (w/4 sec pause) 6 reps, 4 sets
A4. Shoulder Press, 5 reps, 4 (working) sets

Andy