Over-protraction in planche?

Well, ever since I heard that you need to protract your scapula in a planche, I've been doing it a lot. But I've noticed that a lot of other people who are capable of doing a full planche don't show nearly as much protraction as that I do in my planche leans.

 

Here is an example of a great gymnast performing the planche:

 

Here is my doing a planche lean:

 

Am I over-protracting?

Tong Fei was a beast who had plenty of power to spare.  For him that straight planche was actually quite easy.  At your level, you need to still focus on full protraction.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach Sommer said:

Tong Fei was a beast who had plenty of power to spare. For him that straight planche was actually quite easy. At your level, you need to still focus on full protraction.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Alright, thanks for the answer. However, I was wondering, he doesn't do much protraction when performing the planche. Why is this? Does it make it easier for him to hold the planche?

Edit:

Really looks like I'm over protracted if you look at my Adv. PL

Yaad Mohammad said:

Alright, thanks for the answer. However, I was wondering, he doesn't do much protraction when performing the planche. Why is this? Does it make it easier for him to hold the planche?

Edit:

Really looks like I'm over protracted if you look at my Adv. PL

image.jpg

I want to say it looks good but the perspective is not good. Your camera needs to be at shoulder height for any really meaningful input.

That's because he is strong enough to do a good planche without full protraction. It is much harder to hold a planche with retracted scapulae. I've seen some gymnasts like Jovtchev who can hold a maltese without full protraction too.

 

You should still focus on full protraction to make the planche easier, so there is no such thing as being over protracted when doing planche.

B1214N said:

That's because he is strong enough to do a good planche without full protraction. It is much harder to hold a planche with retracted scapulae. I've seen some gymnasts like Jovtchev who can hold a maltese without full protraction too.

 

You should still focus on full protraction to make the planche easier, so there is no such thing as being over protracted when doing planche.

I always thought protraction made things harder!

I believe you lose a little bit of protration the farther down the progressions because it becomes insanely hard to hold a full protration at a full planche, but very at a planche lean. I may be wrong but that is what ive found frompesonal experience. I still have great protractiom though.

Joshua Naterman said:

I want to say it looks good but the perspective is not good. Your camera needs to be at shoulder height for any really meaningful input.

Here ya go sir!

Tavis G said:

I believe you lose a little bit of protration the farther down the progressions because it becomes insanely hard to hold a full protration at a full planche, but very at a planche lean. I may be wrong but that is what ive found frompesonal experience. I still have great protractiom though.

I find that full protraction is one of the easiest things to do in a planche. I never had to do any specific serratus anterior strengthening exercises like scapula push-ups to build my protraction strength. There's also not much difference in protraction strength intensity between a tuck planche and full planche.

 

I found it kind of strange that many people here have difficulty protracting in a planche. I think it may not all be weakness in the serratus anterior, but rather being new to protracting in a planche.

My protraction is great, it just feels like i sink a Tiny bit on harder progressiond.

I may be wrong, so take me at 1 cent. However, it looks like you need to get your butt up. If you are unable to, you might need to strengthen your lower back.

 

If you are  attempting to keep the hips in line with the shoulders without having a planche off-parallel, then are you trying to straighten out your whole back? If you cannot do the advanced tuck with a straight back parallel to the ground, then you will need to stregthen both your shoulders and lower back. If you can't handle the stress you may need to redo some of your training to make up for weaknesses. 

 

I had a problem originally with my planche too far from parallel, so started over. My planching improved significantly and I was so happy I began over.

I simply find protraction + depression very hard. I feel quite strong with either alone but together...

Yaad Mohammad said:

Here ya go sir!

image.jpg

That's pretty decent, but definitely a far cry from "too much," if there were even such a thing.

 

I think that you need to spend more time in that position, most of us will spend a long time building advanced tuck and getting to a decent straddle. How long are your current work sets in this position?

Prometheus said:

I may be wrong, so take me at 1 cent. However, it looks like you need to get your butt up. If you are unable to, you might need to strengthen your lower back.

If you are attempting to keep the hips in line with the shoulders without having a planche off-parallel, then are you trying to straighten out your whole back? If you cannot do the advanced tuck with a straight back parallel to the ground, then you will need to stregthen both your shoulders and lower back. If you can't handle the stress you may need to redo some of your training to make up for weaknesses.

I had a problem originally with my planche too far from parallel, so started over. My planching improved significantly and I was so happy I began over.

I can easily hold an advanced tuck planche with a complete flat back. However, this variation of an advanced tuck planche requires a lot of protraction strength to maintain. It looks weird which is why I started this thread in the first place. I thought that I might be over-protracted in my advanced tuck planche.

I had an flat tuck hold of 7-10 seconds. Re-started training completely, because I couldn't even hold round tuck for a few seconds with full protraction. A really nice suggestion would be to start all the way back from planche leans with full protractions, then going into frogstands/cranestands with full protraction and only when THAT is mastered, start going into tuck positions (arms straight)

 

Then again, someone more experienced may prove me wrong.

fafaedras said:

I had an flat tuck hold of 7-10 seconds. Re-started training completely, because I couldn't even hold round tuck for a few seconds with full protraction. A really nice suggestion would be to start all the way back from planche leans with full protractions, then going into frogstands/cranestands with full protraction and only when THAT is mastered, start going into tuck positions (arms straight)

 

Then again, someone more experienced may prove me wrong.

Your case does seem like you are lacking sufficient serratus anterior strength. The planche hold itself is actually harder with retraction than protraction. 

Joshua Naterman said:

That's pretty decent, but definitely a far cry from "too much," if there were even such a thing.

I think that you need to spend more time in that position, most of us will spend a long time building advanced tuck and getting to a decent straddle. How long are your current work sets in this position?

Well, at the moment I'm only working on tuck planches, planche leans and now and then I do straddle planches which I've noticed have improved a lot. A lot more protraction in my straddle planches and I can hold it 4-5 seconds at almost all times. I also do now and then advanced tuck planches to handstand, but I don't really do advanced tuck planches holdes.

Also, I find this advanced tuck planche hold much easier. Now it feels like I'm not even trying to protract

 

My back is so flat there, you could serve dinner on it

Yaad Mohammad said:

(...) My back is so flat there, you could serve dinner on it

 

No thank you... 

FredInChina said:

No thank you... 

A darn shame!

 

Also guys, just a question. Which advanced tuck planche is better? The heavily protracted one? Or the one with complete flat back where people can serve dinner?

The protracted one because it is more stable and protects your shoulders. The retracted one is just harder and bad for your shoulders in the long term.

B1214N said:

The protracted one because it is more stable and protects your shoulders. The retracted one is just harder and bad for your shoulders in the long term.

Why would it be bad for your shoulders? Just curious. Also, I find the retracted one easier to hold to be honest.

Yaad Mohammad said:

Why would it be bad for your shoulders? Just curious. Also, I find the retracted one easier to hold to be honest.

You do know that when something is easy it isn't doing a good job of making you stronger, right?