I wanted to share this from Emil as it describes the persistence, commitment to progress, and consistency to achieve real strength.
I meant to reply to your fantastic email covering our communication on that Murder workout I once did
I believe it would be about 1.5 years sincd then if not mistaken and it made me reflect on the whole situation with the benefit of retrospective analysis 🙂
Following that injury I soon realised I had taken things too quickly too far with my shoulders, where I was trying to build muscle strength and some joint strength with larger weights at the most vulnerable fully extended lateraly and anteriorly , and that may have well led to compromising parts of my shoulder joints.
So I had to scale back on the weights and replace with your shoulder mobility drills and also emphasisze more on utilising Yielding Isometric (overhead carry of kettlebells and HS holds) and overcoming isometrics – pushing against door frame and also chains.
So fats forward to summer 2021 – I finally realised in order to make real progress I need to dilligently apply old-school methods (being 45) I had to take things slow and work smart. So I did what Nick Nilsson advocates in his Building a “weak-link” method- using the GTG method- 1-2 times a day 1 set till failure of the chosen compound move- in my case it was HSPU
Using 3x hard foam squares of 2″ thickness each, I started with wall-assisted HSPUs down to 6″ off the floor (3x pads). I was doing 6-7 reps at first and once I hit over 10, I took off a pad. Within 2.5 months I was down to 1 pad, and that took the longest to conquer- another 2.5 months until I finally managed my first 2 full ROM wall-assisted HSPU last Christmas day at 208lb bodyweight : so almost 6 months of DAILY 1 set of HSPU (rarely 1 in the morning, 1 in the evening)
Of course along with this I carried on my Kb presses and OH carries which undoubtedly helped too.
Just thought you might find it useful to know about the follow-up journey 🙂
Im currently recovering from some left shoulder ligament strain (a nasty fall I had late December) and once fully recovered, I’ll be back to building to 10-20 HSPUs, and then will start attempting elevated HSPUs to increase ROM 🙂
I’m glad if others can see it CAN be done at 46 years of age and at my weight .
You know what? When I first went after an HSPU, it took me about six months of consistent training too.
Sure, I was jealous of friends that could do this almost effortlessly with basically no practice or training.
But many of those talented folk weren’t dedicated to training.
I kept being consistent.
Now, I’m no master hand balancer. Far from it. But I have pulled off some things I’m proud of (like a tiger bend, multiple press handstands, over a minute freestanding, etc.).
And that’s just one area of physical culture.
CONSISTENCY is one of the most important elements of strength and fitness. And it is the place that most people fall short.
Do you have it?
Our culture is largely of the “overnight success” and “pop a pill for instant results” mentality.
And just take a look around to see where that has gotten humanity!
If you want to stand out from the pack, if you want to have better than average results (where average is sadly unfit and unhealthy) then commit to becoming consistent.
Want to learn more about handstand pushups? Then be sure to check out The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups.