Bent Arm Half Straddle Planche Hold

While I'm not there yet, I decided to try how bent arm half straddle planche hold feels like, and noticed that for me, it's is still undoable. Even with bent arms, I'm lacking the required strength to keep my body in the air in so far forward leaning position.

I was just wondering if the straight arm leans will progress me in this aspect as bent arm strength is quite different? My normal not elevated planche lean is getting quite solid, and there are not that many steps between it and BAHSPH, so I started to wonder if I will be facing the same problem then as well?

I guess the hollowback press progression will help with this as pseudo planche push-ups are basically ROM movements that contain a position that is BAHSPH. 

Any ideas progression wise, am I worrying too much?

Your HBP progressions should help to address this bent arm strength aspect of the bent arm straddle planche.

But regardless, they are going to be quite challenging; but very productive.  

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

If you want to dabble in them, you could add a 'plus' to your PPP done in warmup by adding this half at through bottom. Even if at the start its more of a swing than a lift/lean, I've found it helps to get comfortable with the feeling

Speaking from my own experience, the better your psuedo planche pushups are, the easier this will be.

Thank you for the replies! I will put my effort into PPPs (and good idea Charm, have to try that!) as any extra lean will definitely add so much to the strain and also to progression, and I guess before you can hold yourself in the air, it feels like it's impossible even though you would be really really close to the required strength and control. 

I, too, have been struggling with these.  I'm starting to get a little traction by starting up higher like a frog stand and lowering to this position.  I also have to consciously straddle my legs and focus on that posture.  I guess that's why it's a mobility exercise and not a strength one.  Nonetheless, it's going to make subsequent steps much easier.  I can easily hold the frog stand for mastery, but nowhere near on this im exercise.  Good luck to you.

Oh, since this has been bumped, I now do these (and the leg extensions) from a bent arm tuck planche, and open the hips. I felt that the way I did them before occasionally had my triceps resting on my lats-- no chance of cheating this way, and somewhat higher up too.

Bent arm tuck planche, (attempt to) protract like hell, lean and push, and open hips.

Sorry for the bump, but just wanted to drop by and mention that now I'm able to do this at least in a way that I'm able to start practicing it. Only thing I did was continued on the PPPs and just made sure that on each set I was doing the lean so much forward that I was just so and so able to push myself back up. It's funny how single centimeter can make it so much more strainful After a few weeks I had gained enough strength to be able to hold myself in the air in bent arm planche position and now I can actually straighten one leg at the time to straddle without losing control for a couple of repetitions.

You were right coach, this is tricky, but very efficient move!

Nice to hear it. I'm doing better as well. Holding close to 10 seconds. It's just a matter of keeping those hands way back by the hips.

Maugister said:

... You were right coach, this is tricky, but very efficient move! ...

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

This is a good question and i'd like to hear other folks' suggestions. On an element when you can do mastery, but cannot do the iM, should you keep training at mastery reps and just focus on iM? Should you do sets of just iM so as not to tire yourself out? Start over at beginning and not worry about it?!

Up to you, really. Coach has said that his method is to repeat the necessary microcycle as is until full mastery is achieved, I believe. That would mean repeating weeks 9-12 as required until the iM falls in line. You don't have to do it that way, but it provides a little more variety than repeating week 11 only. And you always can add extra iM work on the side to help you along.

MT Nordic said:

This is a good question and i'd like to hear other folks' suggestions. On an element when you can do mastery, but cannot do the iM, should you keep training at mastery reps and just focus on iM? Should you do sets of just iM so as not to tire yourself out? Start over at beginning and not worry about it?!

I asked this question a while ago; Coach's explanation here;

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/11341-when-im-limits-progression/?p=110098

I'm 3 months into sPL/SE1, still no meaningful progress. I can hold the position for 1-2 seconds with bad form. 

I've been working my PPP and I'm able to do 5 sets of 10 with my hands about 1 inch below my belly button. 

I was thinking of supplementing some Tuck pushups on paralletes or trying BAsPL on the paralletes. 

Any other suggestions.

Post some vids, maybe it's something with your execution of the exercises.

bigB said:

I'm 3 months into sPL/SE1, still no meaningful progress. I can hold the position for 1-2 seconds with bad form. 

I've been working my PPP and I'm able to do 5 sets of 10 with my hands about 1 inch below my belly button. 

 

I was thinking of supplementing some Tuck pushups on paralletes or trying BAsPL on the paralletes. 

Any other suggestions.

Can you post a video of your PPP and your BAsPL?

Looking at the video I think I'm piking to much in the PPP. I'm guessing I need to move my hands forward and slowly work my way back.

Any other input is welcome.

bigB said:

 

Looking at the video I think I'm piking to much in the PPP. I'm guessing I need to move my hands forward and slowly work my way back.

 

Any other input is welcome.

You are piking a lot in the PPP: you should definitely go back and re-master that exercise with straight hips. I'd also take a video of your planche lean work to make sure you don't have the same problem there.

The other issue I see is that you're trying to enter the BAHsPL directly from a frog stand. This is much more difficult than simply leaning into it, as the athlete demonstrates in the video. 

Piking and arching in the upper back on the ppp. Make sure you are not doing this arching on any other exercise.

I can't see the video. can you guys view it?

I can see it now. Thanks. Maybe it was my computer... Agree with the other commenters. Straighter body on PPP and hands a little further back. I should probably post a video of mine one of these days. I'm still struggling on this iM here too. I'm better on paralettes than on the ground, but can't seem to straighten out my thighs all the way and don't have straight body. Good luck bigB!

MT Nordic said:

I can see it now. Thanks. Maybe it was my computer... Agree with the other commenters. Straighter body on PPP and hands a little further back. I should probably post a video of mine one of these days. I'm still struggling on this iM here too. I'm better on paralettes than on the ground, but can't seem to straighten out my thighs all the way and don't have straight body. Good luck bigB!

You might try including the prone double leg extensions religiously in your warmup, and being absolutely brutal on yourself with them-- if you see the potential for a cramp anywhere, chase it and train it until it becomes more comfortable. I've put some focus on these since the seminar and seen significant improvements in all hip and hamstring work.

bigB said:

 

Looking at the video I think I'm piking to much in the PPP. I'm guessing I need to move my hands forward and slowly work my way back.

 

Any other input is welcome.

To help with the piking/arching - when I set up to do these, the first thing I look to do is engage my glutes and push my hips down as far as possible in the lean, and consciously maintain that tension in the glutes throughout the pushup. Piking means your hands are currently too far back (too close to your feet) for you to handle. Hands further back doesn't not automatically equate to more lean, you need to have your hips down too - piking leads to the angle of the lean reducing itself to what you can actually handle. So next time you set up - place your hands further forward but keep the hips pressed down.

Do you think learning the Bent Arm Straddle planche would be accelerated by more frequency?

I've been training 3 times a week on the ABA   then BAB schedule.

It just doesn't seem like 1 or twice a week is enough to learn this skill.

My efforts are so short before failure ( > 2s) , it doesn't feel like I'm creating much to recover from.

It also seems that super-setting the BAsPL with the Frog Planche just makes it too difficult.

Has anyone over 200 lbs  progressed beyond sPL/SE1?