even more planche questions from the noob

[animalhands]

so now i've got a solid week of planche training....weeeeee!

seriously though after talking to some of my friends, who think i am crazy, i got a little discouraged. a few think its impossible for me to learn to do this at my age, 30 and most think i am 'too tall' for the planche.

regardless i'm sticking with the training because it seems to be a great workout and will help where i need it most.

is there anyone over 6 feet working this? and a side question... i've been trying the handstand wall run... i was doing it with some ten lb dumbells as parallettes, i tried lifting the weight, real hard but it seems it might be real beneficial as well. any ideas?

thanks y'all

[matthew.percussion]

The dumbell HS wall runs sound interesting.

I'm slightly over 6'. I wouldn't discontinue planche training even if I knew it was impossible to do. It's a good exercise and it's fun to do. However, I think it is very realistically possible for me to train the planche and eventually get it.

Good luck to you.

[Blairbob]

My friend was near 6 and around 170's when he had his planche in college. Not on rings though. Most of his mass was in his upper body. Just fyi.

[animalhands]

nice

i think its possible for me but even if its not, like matt said, its totally worth working for. just these damn long legs. and would bucket circles help with planche? they just look fun.

also can someone the term 'hollow' as used in this forum. i have always that a 'hollow' back would mean a deep arch. after reading some articles, i am not sure.

[matthew.percussion]

This is hollow. You should be able to see your toes and there should be no arch in the back.

This on the other hand is arched.

Hope this helps, I know about the long legs, good luck to you though.

[Blairbob]

bucket circles will allow for some support strength and midline strength but it's not like planche really at all.

[griffdrc]

i think bowers, rto weighted dips and erbs helped me... but i'm not quiet there yet

[meep]

When ever I hear of people saying am I too tall, too fat, to small to do something, I like to refer them to Jim Holloway. He was one of the best boulders ( a form of rock climbing) of his time and some of his routes have yet to be repeated! The thing that made him so incredible was that at 6'6" he was able to hold a front lever for 20 seconds and it has said by people who climbed with him that he could hold one minute! He disproved both tall people cannot be good climbers and that it was impossible for someone of his hight to perform a front lever.

So while you are taller then the average gymnast, it may take you a little longer to obtain the planche, but you will be stronger then them for it as you have more leverage to work with. Also you can help them reach things off the top shelfs of supermarkets. :wink: By the way thinking something is impossible is a sure way of being defeated before you have barely started.

Nick

[Richard Duelley]

I am also a member of the 'little over six feet club,' and its defiantly a challenge. But then again there is one guy at my gym who cant even jump up and grab the rings by himself, he has to stack stuff up And I am the one who changes the low rings out all the time because no one else can reach the D-rings, we have a pulley machine and a set of xtreme rings.

Just keep it up it will come, I know I am getting closer and closer to my goals every day I train! Its also going to look sweet when someone of our height gets a cross or planche, I know when I visualize the cross by standing under the rings and holding my arms out my hands are only about a foot and a half from the towers on each side! 8)

[animalhands]

thanks y'all

i climb a lot so thanks for bringing up holloway. that guy was my biggest inspiration to when i started climbing. last night i was training and just kept saying to myself 'planche, planche, planche'. its gonna be a looonnnnnggg road. i don't have a lot press power. the straight arm frogstand is hard for me. i do a bunch of bent arm yoga arm balances so i was real surprised at the difficulty of the straight arms.

thanks

ah

[Romulo Malta]

i don't have a lot press power. the straight arm frogstand is hard for me. i do a bunch of bent arm yoga arm balances so i was real surprised at the difficulty of the straight arms.

thanks

ah

I'd be interested to know if the yoga postures are being helpful in your planche progress. I was thinking these days particularly about mayurasana (peacock pose) . I can't do it as well, so I wonder if a progression of basic steps for mayurasana, like lifting one leg at a time or putting the feet on something elevated like on some pseudo planche push-ups, would be worthy for the planche. The posture seems to involve similar muscle groups as the planche, though the body weight is supported on the elbows as well. What do you think?

[animalhands]

i thought the same thing but i've learned that mayurasana just doesnt cut it. its mainly a balancing pose. i think it does work some of the same muscles in the back but not very much. its a great pose. if you can do lotus, mayurasana is real easy to train. bent legs, one leg a time like you said and wide legs are good ways to work up to it.

ah

[Gregor]

Start with frog stands wide stradlle planche stradlle planche planche. And work int the same time on auxilliary exercises

[Romulo Malta]

Start with frog stands wide stradlle planche stradlle planche planche. And work int the same time on auxilliary exercises

Yes, I know the progression, I was just wondering if that posture was useful. What auxiliary exercises do you recommend? Are there others besides those 3 videos you showed us?(thank you!)

At http://www.drillsandskills.com/skills/cond/upper there is this

Maltese/Planche/Back-Lever conditioning - Lie on a bench with 2 dumbells of equal weight. Hold the dumbells above you with straight arms in a planche position(this will be an upside down planche, it will look like a front lever this palms turned up, but the load will be on the same muscles as a planche), next lower the dumbells down to the position of a Maltese, next lower the dumbells to a Back Lever position. Hold each for 3 seconds. Weight so that 3-7 reps of this cycle can be completed. Be aggressive about increasing the weight. - submitted by Bernd W.B. Eisenkreuz

Do you guys practice this one? I'm not sure if I understand the move exactly, so I'd appreciate if someone could post a figure or video.

[Gregor]

Yes, sometimes. But in my opinion it won't give you a thing for back lever. In lever position it's almost nothing resistance. And for planche you musnt go above 45° from hips...

[Scott Caron]

I am 6' 7" and I want planches bad. I dont know how to get to the straight arm frog tho. It seems impossible to be able to lift my feet off my knees and hold them

As for Jim Holloway...I have seen pics. he is an inch shorter than me...but SKINNY...like very thin lanky frame and bony. I am big, wide muscular, stocky and heavy.

[Blairbob]

Work that frogstand until you can do it 15s. You may have to work a lot of upper body pushing strength to bridge the gap to straight arm frog. Pseudo-planche pushups, dips ( weighted ), etc. Practising straight arm planches off a stool or swiss ball may be beneficial ( this is one of the first exercises we do for introducing the planche with gymnasts, typically they just learn to lean over their hands in the shoulders from a pushup position ).

[Scott Caron]

Cool Blair Bob. Thanks!

I see you live in Sacramento. I am there sometimes visiting family. Would you be into hanging out, maybe giving me an assessment on where I am at and what specifically I could do?

[Blairbob]

Sure, if you are around on a Tuesday or Thursday night you can probably do a free trial gymnastics class and that would be more of your best bet because of safety and equipment and you might be able to see what the other midgets (gymnasts) can do. I might be able to arrange another time during the afternoon/nightime at the gym but it's typically a royal pain in the ass to arrange private lessons at my gym it looks like according to the paperwork since it requires other coaches to be present ( so pretty much nixes the whole weekend PL availability ). Otherwise I'm game and we could arrange somewhere like a park and I can bring my rings or maybe a local CF affiliate.

Spotting would be difficult. I spotted my friend at 6' and 220 into a pit on handsprings and flips and that was damn tough. Even the biggest gymnastics barrel on the market would be small for you. Parallel bars might hold you up if you could fit inside them ( one of my friends was probably around 250 ) but I dunno if I trust our old PB rails. I could barely ever spot my friend around 250+ in a kick up to handstand from the side of him.

[Romulo Malta]

Work that frogstand until you can do it 15s. You may have to work a lot of upper body pushing strength to bridge the gap to straight arm frog. Pseudo-planche pushups, dips ( weighted ), etc. Practising straight arm planches off a stool or swiss ball may be beneficial ( this is one of the first exercises we do for introducing the planche with gymnasts, typically they just learn to lean over their hands in the shoulders from a pushup position ).

Thank you for the tips! I can do the frogstand for 15s and thought that was a poor time, because it seems so distant the gap to the next step with straight arms.

[animalhands]

romulo

i do a lot of those exercises blairbob mentioned. the swiss ball planche is my fave. when i started these progressions, just two weeks ago, the straight arm frogstand seemed impossible. i decided not to do it until march. after working the frogstand and some other presses i was just goofing around and tried the straight arm. i can get 3 solid reps of 10 sec now. i am still doing the regular frogstand for 2 reps at 30 sec. the strength comes, i was totally surprised.

thanks

ah

[Blairbob]

Yeah I like bouncing in the planche on the swiss ball or handstand trainer.

Sounds like it was just a technique issue.

[animalhands]

i think that may have been it, technique and learning to lift my hips. I still lack a lot of tricep strength though, and bicep strength and upper pec strength. I am hoping the planche progressions will help but i think a pull up bar would be real beneficial.

thanks guys

AH

[Blairbob]

Hmm, get two tall chairs and a strong enough dowel and maybe it won't crack while doing tuck lever or horizontal rows. Do the rows with the feet on the swiss ball and it's a good enough sub. Find a tree, hang from whatever you can by your fingers, door pullup bar, etc.

[animalhands]

The dowel/chair trick sounds awesome. I'm buying a pullup bar tomorrow. I can crank out a dozen fingertip pullups ( hanging off the door jamb, used to rock climb a lot). Swiss ball dips... those are gonna be my nemesis.

AH