ROW Prior to the MAX row, not the MIN - mysql

Question

I have the below query to find the row prior to MAX row. i feel like i am missing something, can somebody please help with it. I ammlooking forward to get the b.usercode_1 as row prior to a.usercode_1 not the min or any other random row but the ROW prior to the MAX.
Please suggest.
Select distinct
c.ssn
, c.controlled_group_Status CG_status
, c.last_name || ' , '|| c.first_name FULL_NAME
, a.usercode_1 Current_REG
, a.eff_date effective_since1
, b.usercode_1 PRIOR_REG
, b.eff_date effective_since2
, d.term_eff_date
from employee_eff_date c
, emp_cg_data a
, emp_cg_data b
, emp_ben_elects d
where c.control_id = 'XYZ'
and c.controlled_group_Status <> 'D'
and c.eff_date = (select max( c1.eff_date)
from emp_cg_data c1
where c.control_id = c1.control_id
and c.ssn = c1.ssn)
and a.control_id = c.control_id
and a.ssn = c.ssn
and a.eff_date = (select max(a1.eff_date )
from emp_cg_data a1
where a.control_id = a1.control_id
and a.ssn = a1.ssn)
and a.usercode_1 = 'REG26'
and b.control_id = c.control_id
and b.ssn = c.ssn
and b.eff_date = (select max( b1.eff_date)
from emp_cg_data b1
where b.control_id = b1.control_id
and b.ssn = b1.ssn
and b1.eff_date < a.eff_date)
and b.usercode_1 like 'REG%'
and d.control_id = c.control_id
and d.ssn = c.ssn
and d.life_event_date = (select max( d1.life_event_date)
from emp_ben_elects d1
where d.control_id = d1.control_id
and d.ssn = d1.ssn)
and d.le_seq_no= (select max( d1.le_seq_no)
from emp_ben_elects d1
where d.control_id = d1.control_id
and d.ssn = d1.ssn
and d.life_event_date = d1.life_event_date)
and d.term_eff_date is null
;

Answer 1

NOTE: this is not a complete answer... its a helpful suggestion of what you should start with.
you are doing a Cartesian Product of the four tables, filtered by a WHERE... so something like this
Implicit Join -- generally not a good practice as it can be very difficult to keep the where filters apart from the join conditions.
SELECT *
FROM tableA a, TableB b
WHERE b.id = a.id
another way to write a JOIN (the more generally accepted way)
SELECT *
FROM tableA a
JOIN tableB b ON b.id = a.id
Use the ON clause to join two tables together.
You should change your joins to this format so that others can read your query and understand it better.
suggestion to solve your problem
a fairly simple way to get the second to last row is to use a row counter.
so something like
SELECT *, #row_count := #row_count + 1
FROM tableA a
JOIN tableB b on b.id = a.id AND -- any other conditions for the join.
CROSS JOIN (SELECT #row_count := 0) t
then from here you can get the MAX row, whether thats the ID or something else. and then get the #row_num -1. aka the previous row.