Yes Planche does increase bench! My results.

This for all the new comers that come and learn about GST for the first time. We were all there once. Does PL actually increase bench? My results say yes. A couple weeks ago, 6 i think, I could barely hold a tuck planche for 20 seconds. I Got that up to 15 second advanced tuck perfect form. I couldn't bench 180 once. The other day i benched 215 once. I credit PL with ALMOST all strength gains. I DID get stronger in PL pushups, ring dips, OAC, FL, Pullups. But from my experience PL MOST likely if not does increase bench.

NOTE:Gst members DO know this, but this is for the newcomers to GST.

planche is in th GST a foundamental element to condition the elbow joint. so i think that in 2 weeks jump from 20 seconds of tuck to 15 sec on adv tuck is not safe especially if you are new to that training.

the fact that planche increase the bench press i noticed some good transfert in the past.

That's a very nice increase on the bench. Most people doing bench wouldn't increase their 1RM that quickly in 6 weeks!

Jono said:

That's a very nice increase on the bench. Most people doing bench wouldn't increase their 1RM that quickly in 6 weeks!

Of course depending on hight and bw, but I think many people will go from 180 to 215 (lbs!) in a period of 6 weeks

Tavis G said:

This for all the new comers that come and learn about GST for the first time. We were all there once. Does PL actually increase bench? My results say yes. A couple weeks ago, 6 i think, I could barely hold a tuck planche for 20 seconds. I Got that up to 15 second advanced tuck perfect form. I couldn't bench 180 once. The other day i benched 215 once. I credit PL with ALMOST all strength gains. I DID get stronger in PL pushups, ring dips, OAC, FL, Pullups. But from my experience PL MOST likely if not does increase bench.

NOTE:Gst members DO know this, but this is for the newcomers to GST.

I already know PL can increase benching, but where are you at in the planche push-up progressions? Also, was the bench press done with full ROM with a shoulder width grip (narrow) or wide grip (normal) and what hand placement were you using for your planche training? What is your weight? I'm just trying to get some statistics. Thanks!

alex87 said:

planche is in th GST a foundamental element to condition the elbow joint. so i think that in 2 weeks jump from 20 seconds of tuck to 15 sec on adv tuck is not safe especially if you are new to that training.

the fact that planche increase the bench press i noticed some good transfert in the past.

I remember from a very old post of your's that you had a very strong bench and was at straddle planche push-up stage. Do you remember what your max was and how many reps of planche push-ups you could do at that time and also if the planche push-ups were done on floor, PB, or rings? Thanks!

before the shoulder injury i was able to do 1 str planche push up on bars. and my 1RM in benchpress was 122 kg BUT consider that i was doing the bench press under the powerlifting technique. so retracted scapula, depressed scapula, squeezed butt, a little arch in lower back, neutral neck tension and much more. correct technique gives to you more kg on the bench press...but is different from pl push up where you have protraction and depression all the time.

i've stopped for about 4 months with pl push up. i've lost them but i'm rebuilding them again...slowly!

That's pretty good! I thought I remembered that it was more than that like somewhere over 300 lbs (I guessed that might have be with correct technique?). What was your weight? What was your max weighted dip like also? 

I remember Coach saying that a full planche push-up roughly equates to a 2xBW bench press (not a direct correlation of course), but Gregor said it wasn't anywhere close for him.

i weigth 78-79 kg. i've never test my 1RM in dip movement but usually to do 2-3 reps i have add 54 kg, so adding the 5% for any reps between 3 and 1 probably my 1RM could be around 62-63 kg...no more

I had my one rm dip tested recently. I did a dip with 130 lbs added to me. I can do straddle planche push-ups with my hands backwards so I'm guessing that had a lot of carry over.

Tavis G said:

This for all the new comers that come and learn about GST for the first time. We were all there once. Does PL actually increase bench? My results say yes. A couple weeks ago, 6 i think, I could barely hold a tuck planche for 20 seconds. I Got that up to 15 second advanced tuck perfect form. I couldn't bench 180 once. The other day i benched 215 once. I credit PL with ALMOST all strength gains. I DID get stronger in PL pushups, ring dips, OAC, FL, Pullups. But from my experience PL MOST likely if not does increase bench.

NOTE:Gst members DO know this, but this is for the newcomers to GST.

That is a very impressive jump in 6 weeks on both the bench and the planche. Congrats! Just curious - how many times a week do you train it and at what %max intensities?

Also, would you attribute the progress to F1? (If you're doing F1, that is)

 Yep, the one thing about BW movements is that they will be working your entire shoulder and elbow, especially all of the smaller supporting muscles.

 My friend in college benched 250 for reps at around 130lbs, maybe 135. I was around 150 at the time. He was a former optional class 3 gymnast who could straddle planche. 5'7" or 5'8".

 That was his first time benching ever and lifting with me. In trade, he showed me how to do stuff on rings like muscle up and some floor stuff besides circles on a box jump box.

I need to go bench sometime to see if mine has risen. I can do a straddle planche push-up but haven't touched bench in a while.

I do know my overhead press went up just from handstands when I first started.

As a side note I have a friend who is a pretty strong gymnast and had to bench for a weight lifting class he is in. I can't remember how much he ended up doing but it was around 300. Mind you he only weighs 165.

 There has been over the years a lot of anecdotal quotes from Greg Glassman to others on how strong a gymnast who can planche and how much they can bench press. I've heard 2xBW a lot. A lot of this will really depend as we are talking about different body sizes, etc.

 300@165 is nearly that. Kind of big for a gymnast actually but I've seen some gymnasts way more than that, especially collegiate gymnasts in this country.

Alex Chubb said:

I had my one rm dip tested recently. I did a dip with 130 lbs added to me. I can do straddle planche push-ups with my hands backwards so I'm guessing that had a lot of carry over.

Nice! How much do you weigh and what was the max number of reps you could do for straddle planche push-ups? Thanks!

Blairbob said:

 Yep, the one thing about BW movements is that they will be working your entire shoulder and elbow, especially all of the smaller supporting muscles.

 

 My friend in college benched 250 for reps at around 130lbs, maybe 135. I was around 150 at the time. He was a former optional class 3 gymnast who could straddle planche. 5'7" or 5'8".

 

 That was his first time benching ever and lifting with me. In trade, he showed me how to do stuff on rings like muscle up and some floor stuff besides circles on a box jump box.

Did you know how long he could hold a straddle planche and if he could do any planche push-ups and if they were on rings or not? Thanks! Just trying to get some stats with regards to max length of planche or max reps of planche push-ups to bench press max.

Daniel Burnham said:

I need to go bench sometime to see if mine has risen. I can do a straddle planche push-up but haven't touched bench in a while.

I do know my overhead press went up just from handstands when I first started.

As a side note I have a friend who is a pretty strong gymnast and had to bench for a weight lifting class he is in. I can't remember how much he ended up doing but it was around 300. Mind you he only weighs 165.

Nice Daniel! It seems like you are already capable of a full planche or close to one if you can straddle planche push-up.

I wish I were closer. I have a very wide straddle which makes full planche quite a big leap from straddle. I ca. Hold straddle for about 8 seconds now with good form.

I really want to go test my 1RM bench press now. My best was at 135 lbs for a 1RM with the narrow grip, 3RM weighted dip with 45 lbs, and 3RM military press with 90 lbs at 120 lbs BW and that was before I was able to do an adv tuck or was maybe even tuck planche push-up. I can now do full planche push-ups and have done 8 consecutive reps of straddle planche push-ups.

I think we should also say what grip width we used for the bench press because from my experience a normal (wide) grip is a lot harder than a narrow (shoulder width) grip and uses more chest while planche and planche push-ups use more shoulders than chest unless done with at least 1.7x shoulder width grip.

I bet rings planche and rings planche push-ups would correlate with a much higher bench press max.

I know there isn't a direct correlation, but how much would a 1 second static full planche correlate to a bench press max? I think I heard that a full planche will correlate with a 1.5xBW bench press from somewhere. I know it's not as good as a comparison to bench press than planche push-ups.

I weigh 165. I can do 2-3 straddle planche push-ups on a good day. That was the first time I did dips with weight.

Just in case anyone cares, front lever and rope chins and ect do the same. I did a chin with 100 extra pounds as well. Thanks for this site, Coach Sommer. It's nice to get strong at everything just because of this stuff!

Hey everyone sorry for the late reply.

@Everyone: I never used to eat a whole lot but real healthy. After my workouts recently i started drinking 4 cups of whole milk. Hiit 3 times a week as a finisher. A finisher for 3 workouts 1 off. I recently put on about 5 lbs while cycling off creatine a month ago AND my waist is about 2 inches smaller while on a caloric excess. Puts me at about 8-10% BF. When i am on creatine i am about 163.

@Alex87: I am doing advanced tuck once every two weeks to get used to the lean.

@B1214N: I am about 6'2" and 160ish. I use parrelletes for planche training. I used a little wider than shoulder width for bench because PL strengthens shoulders like crazy. I can do 1 advanced tuck pushup perfect form and about 4 tuck with a 2 second pause. And the bench was full ROM.

@red1392: I did PL work about 2-3x per week. I did about 4X10 PL work. Any longer and it either got to where my elbow hurt or i couldn't hold perfect form anymore. And I'm NOT doing F1.

Hope this helps everyone!

@Alex Chubb: I agree with the FL stuff carrying over to weighted chins and pull-ups. I got my first OAPs and OACs just by training the front lever and did pull-ups with +50% of BW when I was at half lay FL for a few seconds and that was my first time doing weighted pull-ups. Full front lever is said to translate to a pull-up with ~ +80% of BW by many people. OAC and OAP are about +80-90% BW chin/pull-up.

@Tavis G: An ~ 1.35xBW bench press from 1 adv tuck planche push-up is not too shabby at all.

You guys might find this interesting or shocking. I just tested out my bench like two days ago after more than a year after my previous test and 3 years after my last usage of the bench press in a workout (not as a test). I was expecting to be able to bench somewhere near 240 lbs (2xBW for me), but the results were actually disappointing... First, without any warm up, I tried 135 lbs (my previous 1RM) with a slightly wider than shoulder width grip and I didn't have much trouble with it so then I immediately tried 185 lbs and I failed. After that I had to leave because I had to go do something.

So being able to do full planche push-ups did not bring me anywhere close to 2xBW bench press and I could even do straddle or half lay planche push-up with 1.7x shoulder width grip. I haven't tried my max weighted dip yet. Even with the disappointment I still like to do planche push-ups much more than bench press. I also have to mention that I never really did much benching even in the past.

Read Gregor's post below:

Cole Dano said:

The physics of this is very complicated, due to the linear up and down movement while holding the lever. I don't know if you can really express it as an equivalence to bench press. Is not the same thing.

Coach is talking in terms of transferability. Someone who can do a PL Push Up will most likely be able to do a 2x BW BP.

Gregor said:

Not even close in my case :wink:
I think you can not compare it just like inverted bench press, because in bench is the most important part pectoralis and in planche is deltoid. I have very strong frond delts but my pecs lacks behind.

I also read about something like this happening too in this link:

http://www.bodyweightculture.com/forum/showthread.php?19375-for-those-of-you-who-can-do-the-planche&highlight=planche

Here's a video of my first recorded planche push-ups from weeks ago to show you that I can do full planche push-ups. The form is decent and I actually thought I was completely leveled and less piked when I was doing them before getting recorded and seeing what was really going on. I can do them with better form now and a more leveled body after making some corrections.

By the way, what is the correct technique to bench press?

While a nice effort, those are not planche pushups.  

A planche pushup must begin from momentary planche position with locked arms, descend down to a full ninety degree bend and then press back up to a locked arm momentary planche.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

You may not be able to bench 2XBW because of weaknesses. Bench is mostly chest and PL is deltoid. Some people chest gets worked heavily with PL and some it doesn't, that's why some can bench 2x and some not. It all depends on your body structure and hand width. Id most likely guarantee you then if you'd get a stronger chest to complement your shoulders you'd come close to 2x BW. I also believe if you never benched before and if you can do PLPushups that if you'd practice bench and get used to the movement, your strength would transfer very quickly. But all in all B12 you may need a stronger chest or triceps.

B1214N said:

By the way, what is the correct technique to bench press?

For a correct benchpress, you want to heavily arch your back. Your shoulders should be retracted. Your knees should be at a 90 degree angle with your feet flat on the ground. Your arms should be at slightly greater than shoulder width (it's approximately the same width as for holding a planche, perhaps slightly wider). 

Also, in addition to Coach's notes, when doing a planche-pushup, your torso should remain level at all times. The feet rising before the chest (as you do in your video) is a common reaction by the body to make the movement easier. Lifting the feet before the chest provides a bit of momentum for the pushup and slightly decreases the length of the lever arm. It is similar to the difference between doing muscle ups with a lean and a kip, and muscle ups with no lean and no kip. 

Hari_Seldon said:

For a correct benchpress, you want to heavily arch your back. Your shoulders should be retracted. Your knees should be at a 90 degree angle with your feet flat on the ground. Your arms should be at slightly greater than shoulder width (it's approximately the same width as for holding a planche, perhaps slightly wider). 

 

 

Also, in addition to Coach's notes, when doing a planche-pushup, your torso should remain level at all times. The feet rising before the chest (as you do in your video) is a common reaction by the body to make the movement easier. Lifting the feet before the chest provides a bit of momentum for the pushup and slightly decreases the length of the lever arm. It is similar to the difference between doing muscle ups with a lean and a kip, and muscle ups with no lean and no kip. 

in addition to that you have to:

-maintain the butt on the bench (usually the strongest powerlifter do a great bridge to decrease the distance between bar and chest)

-depress the scapula so that the cervical is free and you can freely move your hed on left side up down

-push with the heels on the floor

-try to squeeze the scapula together making the space between them as little as possible

-in the average of the cases the right hands position let to the elbows to be at 90° at about the half of the descent

the judges at the first contest i did, weren't so rigid, but as you progress to elite level....they are so bastard!

the technique by the way has very different approach. actually i'm doing technique since 2 months with low weights, is very difficult erase you motor pattern derived from planche hold and planche push up and work in a complete different way!