PL Lean Form

How does my form look on the PL Lean? I never realized how curved my upper back is, am I protracting correctly? Thanks in advance!

Your body form looks good and it looks like everything is pretty tight. I would say you need to increase the lean. You want the hands in line with the hips eventually.

Hi! I am by no means an expert at gymnastics, or the planche, so take what i say with a grain of salt. If it feels right to you it will probably work for you. I am studying biomechanics in school, and a couple of things stick out to me.

It seems like you have excessive shoulder flexion (as if you were raising your arms in front of you) and your back is rounding to compensate. you will build good shoulder strength in this position, but i wonder if it will affect your progress once you reach the level where you pick your feet off of the floor (will your back look like a huge S?). Also, in this position, your chest probably isn't pulling it's own weight. Do you feel like this is a strong position for your chest or does the weight feel mostly centered in the shoulders? Perhaps decreasing the angle between your arms and your torso, which will engage the chest and straighten the back, will help. Make sure the scapula stay protracted, as they are doing a good job of now. What Gavin said about increasing the lean is part of this process.

I am curious as to what experienced planchers think of this advice, and I hope it helps!

You do have a slight pike, which is a sign that you need to lean forward a bit more. Your protraction is good. You could hollow your back a little less (e.g. decrease the curve of the upper back), but that's not a big issue. 

Thanks for the help guys! The large upper back curve was what I was questioning. I have not really seen many people with such a pronounced curve in their back when doing the PL Lean. So when I increase the lean should I aim to flatten out my back or will that work itself out? I will upload a video tonight trying all of the suggestions provided. Thanks again!

I had (or still have) similar back curve - I was thinking it is that strong protraction, but I started adjusting my position to eliminate it (while still protracting scapula) to keep my back much flatter - more like seen in F1 videos.

I think it was important for me, after adjusting I feel lats and scapula actvation different, due to different angle and obviously I would prefer to train a position and activation that actually is more a planche position - and it wouldn't exactly be that with such a curve (moving past tuck planche).

I'm not sure if that large curvature in the back is actually good. I don't think it necessarily means that he is aware of his protraction as you can maximally protract without being that round in the back. I would prefer a more flatter back like the photo of Allan Bower in the cover of F1.

JasonDupree said:

It seems like you have excessive shoulder flexion (as if you were raising your arms in front of you) and your back is rounding to compensate.

Hi Jason,

Are you referring to this?

PS: Eddie - if you're unhappy with me drawing on you, PM me and I'll remove it.

George, yes I am!

Made a video of my 1st two sets of the PL lean trying to work on the things you all discussed above. Thanks for all the tips! How do these attempts look:

1st set:

2nd set:

Very nice, I am not an expert, but your body shape looks good

Maybe you'll need to lean more, and get these hands smack under your hips little by little.

That's the thing with PLeans: you'll always think that you could lean more 

And when you do it, you realise that maybe your protraction it is not good enough, that you're loosing tension on your abs, and the most important thing, that it is so hard maintain that position!