planche questions

i am working towards a straddle planche and i am guessing this will take awhle.

so far i have the frogstand at 45 seconds. straightening out my arms is pretty difficult. should i move straight to the ball planche or focus on straighening the arms? my upper arms are weak compared to my forearms. should i add in some triceps and bicep weight lifting?

thanks

ah

Going by personal experience and what I've read elsewhere on this forum, I would advise you to focus on straightening the arms first. Once you are able to do a straight-arm frogstand, you should work on pushing down with your shoulders to lift your hips up.

As for upper arm strength, working on pushup variations helped me a lot so maybe you could give those a try. I recommend 'tiger' pushups: anchor your feet against a door/wall and walk your hands back toward your feet, piking your hips, and perform the pushups in this position. It's has a similar feel to handstand pushups but is easier to do.

Start doing push ups and chin ups, because they are complex exercises and you need more strength not just in biceps, but elswere also. Do alot exercises for your back and work on related exercises like back lever (body position of back is similar).

here is another exercise I personly like (it can be very demanding on biceps if you turn your fingers backward):

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1011

work the straight arm frogstand, if that is too easy, progress to the ball/tuck planche.

work pseudo planche push ups as an alternative exercise for planche training. planche on swiss ball is a fine drill

i never thought the back lever would be beneficial to the planche, it looks fun so i am psyched to try it. also, the elbow lever, i have a decent one, would perfecting this benefit the planche as well? i am really impressed with the knowledge and willingness to share you all have.

thanks a lot

ah

A good elbow lever will have no noticeable carry over to the planche. It works the bicep and tricep purely to balance, the only real strength required is in the abs to press your elbows against and a little in the back to keep your body straight.

alright, straight arm frog and ball planche then. chin ups, pull up and back levers.

thanks a lot... here we go

After Coach Sommer's statement that it is almost impossible to do a steady state cycle with Hamstring Curls I've been thinking about wall planches. I think it would be best to treat it as a high intensity movement, going for 5-10 second sets for 1-3 sets 1-2 times a week, rather than high volume like tuck planches (and frog stands, etc) as the point of a wall planche is to get as close as possible to a planche in the sense of joint-angle, muscles involved, balance so you need to be in a psuedo-planche push up position (hands near hips) and trying to lean off the wall.

i'll try that as well ed, thanks. i am finding that my upperarms and back are fairly weak compared to my core. i am going to concentrate on chin ups, pushups and front and back levers progressions. the wall planche really accentuates my weak back, i am really flexible in my spine and i end up sagging a lot. after i make a bit of progression, i'll post some pics for further advice.

thanks a lot everyone

ah

I'm having the same problem. I can do the frog stand no problem but when I try to do the advanced frog stand I can't do it whatsoever.

This was the case when I started training for the planche. I could do the frogstand easily but the tuck planche seemed impossible if only for a second. Do you use parallettes/pushup bars? Those helped me tremendously and also learning better ways to position the hands. Just keep trying it even if you can't lift your hips high enough. As the strength of your shoulders increases, it will become easier. Be diligent!

Another help for me was to pile up pillows in front of me. I found that part of my problem was the fear of falling on my face. Once I put a lot of pillows in front and allowed myself to fall forward on my face a few times, I eliminated the mental fear telling me I could not do it with out falling. It seemed like a few practices of this and I was able to start making progress. It was also kind of fun to fall forward, then try again.