Keeping track of your planche lean.

Do you have any trick to share how to keep track of the lean of your planche lean? 

I'm thinking keeping feet against a wall and put markings on the floor for the hands. Then move the markings every completed "mastery" for that lean angle and do a new minicycle until full lean is achived. 

Any other ideas?

Why don't you just record yourself?

I'm talking about day to day training. It's hard to always place hands in same position and therefore hard to track real progress. I do record myself from time to time.

Tomas Johansson said:

I'm thinking keeping feet against a wall and put markings on the floor for the hands. Then move the markings every completed "mastery" for that lean angle and do a new minicycle until full lean is achived. 

Yes, that's a great idea; put your feet against the wall, and mark the floor for your hand position with a bit of electric tape.

Genius

Ahhh I see.

The tape seems like a great suggestion.

However: it seems to me that the idea of the planche leans is to start with a full lean from day 1, and increase nothing but your hold time through the microcycles. Am I wrong? I understand that you could add the 'lean angle' variable as well but maybe you shouldn't be working planche leans if you can't hold a full lean for the amount of seconds required in week 1?

I'm not doing planche leans yet so it's very possible I'm wrong. But that's how I interpreted the course material.

Yes and no.  

It depends on whether or not you are initially strong enough to achieve a full ROM planche lean for the first cycle.

If not, you do want to maintain the same degree of lean until the cycle is finished.  However at the end of the cycle you also need to increase the degree of lean to begin the cycle again.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

(...) If not, you do want to maintain the same degree of lean until the cycle is finished.  However at the end of the cycle you also need to increase the degree of lean to begin the cycle again.

Likely this would apply to PPPs too, am I correct?

Absolutely.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I just hate to get into lean with feet to the wall. I get much better lean if I slide my feet into it. Any other suggestions?

spyro7800 said:

I just hate to get into lean with feet to the wall. I get much better lean if I slide my feet into it. Any other suggestions?

In that case you could put markings for where your hands should be and another marking for the place you want to slide your feet to?

Thanks for your answers!

The next question, what is a full ROM planche lean. I read hands should end up under your hips. Is that true for all bodytypes or does it depend like in a real planche?

Is there a feeling you get when you are at your full ROM, like feet starting to rise or something, but that seems tough, then are you almost doing a real planche aren't you?

Tomas Johansson said:

Thanks for your answers!

 

The next question, what is a full ROM planche lean. I read hands should end up under your hips. Is that true for all bodytypes or does it depend like in a real planche?

 

Is there a feeling you get when you are at your full ROM, like feet starting to rise or something, but that seems tough, then are you almost doing a real planche aren't you?

Essentially, yes for all.

Everyone's center of mass is different, but you  will reach a point at which any further lean will make you fall on your face. This is where Mastery will occur. This also is the point where you will start to shift more pressure to your hands, and away from your feet.

At some point, probably after several cycles as Coach has suggested, you will be strong enough for your toes to leave the ground. This takes a long time to achieve, and I do not believe this level of strength is necessary to move on, but it is something that will eventually happen if you are smart enough to keep 1-2 sets of planche leans in your warm up even after you master the final hand position in the normal planche lean.

Does that make sense? These are one of the exercises that should stay in your routine pretty permanently as a part of warm up.

Short version: You don't need to practice leans until your feet leave the ground before moving on, you just need to master the final hand position. However, if you keep the leans in your warm ups even after you move to the next exercise, they will continue to pay dividends for a long time.

Of course, the next exercise is the elevated lean, which will be quite a bit harder, making the ground leans a very appropriate warm up.

Joshua Naterman said:

... At some point, probably after several cycles as Coach has suggested, you will be strong enough for your toes to leave the ground. This takes a long time to achieve, and I do not believe this level of strength is necessary to move on, but it is something that will eventually happen if you are smart enough to keep 1-2 sets of planche leans in your warm up even after you master the final hand position in the normal planche lean ...

 

Correct.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

spyro7800 said:

I just hate to get into lean with feet to the wall. I get much better lean if I slide my feet into it. Any other suggestions?

I have a mark where my hands go and a mark I try to reach forward to. 

Joshua Naterman said:

Essentially, yes for all.

 

Everyone's center of mass is different, but you  will reach a point at which any further lean will make you fall on your face. This is where Mastery will occur. This also is the point where you will start to shift more pressure to your hands, and away from your feet.

 

At some point, probably after several cycles as Coach has suggested, you will be strong enough for your toes to leave the ground. This takes a long time to achieve, and I do not believe this level of strength is necessary to move on, but it is something that will eventually happen if you are smart enough to keep 1-2 sets of planche leans in your warm up even after you master the final hand position in the normal planche lean.

 

Does that make sense? These are one of the exercises that should stay in your routine pretty permanently as a part of warm up.

 

 

Short version: You don't need to practice leans until your feet leave the ground before moving on, you just need to master the final hand position. However, if you keep the leans in your warm ups even after you move to the next exercise, they will continue to pay dividends for a long time.

 

Of course, the next exercise is the elevated lean, which will be quite a bit harder, making the ground leans a very appropriate warm up.

It bears further emphasis: you don't need to 'float' your feet off the floor to achieve mastery. The correct planche lean occurs just before this point. 

Also, planche leans will very likely never leave your warmup entirely. I always do them before real planche work because they're a great way to prime the neurological system for the hold position. So make sure you take the time to really get them solid!

Tomas Johansson said:

In that case you could put markings for where your hands should be and another marking for the place you want to slide your feet to?

The thing is that you will not be able to see if your feet are on the marking and won't feel it through shoes. And keep in mind that you can make changes to the floor in the gym

Hari_Seldon said:

It bears further emphasis: you don't need to 'float' your feet off the floor to achieve mastery. The correct planche lean occurs just before this point. 

 

Also, planche leans will very likely never leave your warmup entirely. I always do them before real planche work because they're a great way to prime the neurological system for the hold position. So make sure you take the time to really get them solid!

Did you find them to prime the neurological system for planche better than warming up with say tuck or straddle planches?

B1214N said:

Did you find them to prime the neurological system for planche better than warming up with say tuck or straddle planches?

Tuck planche is so different that I don't find it useful. It works protraction, but there's no "pushing" feeling in the arms/chest.

Straddle planche is a bit too difficult to use as a warmup, but I do generally do a 1-2 short (2-3s) straddle planches before working full planche, as a way to ease up the intensity. Since I can only hold the full planche for a few seconds, and since I don't want to overwork my elbows, I do some 6-10s straddle planches afterwards to increase the overall volume. 

Ah I see, thanks! I warm up with a tuck planche(s), but I only warm up for my biceps tendons and elbows as I know my shoulders won't get hurt from a cold max effort straddle or full lay hold.

This is probably a dumb question, but wouldn't a max effort hold/set without prior warm up work just as well or better for priming the system or would that be bad for your workout in some way like frying the CNS or muscles prematurely perhaps? That is without taking the potential for injury into account. I remember back then my first two heavy sets would sort of be considered my "warm up" while the third or middle sets would be considered my strongest sets due to being able to lift the most weight or do the most reps for a particular exercise during a workout.

B1214N said:

Ah I see, thanks! I warm up with a tuck planche(s), but I only warm up for my biceps tendons and elbows as I know my shoulders won't get hurt from a cold max effort straddle or full lay hold.

 

This is probably a dumb question, but wouldn't a max effort hold/set without prior warm up work just as well or better for priming the system or would that be bad for your workout in some way like frying the CNS or muscles prematurely perhaps? That is without taking the potential for injury into account. I remember back then my first two heavy sets would sort of be considered my "warm up" while the third or middle sets would be considered my strongest sets due to being able to lift the most weight or do the most reps for a particular exercise during a workout.

A max effort hold is not priming, it's tiring. The purpose of priming with the planche lean is to help your body "remember" what holding a planche feels like without tiring you out. 

Got it! Thanks! I used to think that warming up would tire me a little and not let me perform 100% on the working sets.

Your warmup exercise selection was probably too difficult, then. You should feel invigorated rather than drained.