Ring straddle planche hand width.

I'm training ring straddle planche now and can hold it for a few seconds with a pretty decent body line. I am currently pressing to it from straddle lsit. I make sure to protract hard and lean on my locked arms.

Here is my question. When I lean into the final position and lift the legs to level I tend to widen the rings. I've been told I should keep them relatively close (around shoulder width). I also notice my regular l on rings is quite a bit wider than shoulder width. Is this really a problem? My guess is that it limits protraction and would keep me from progressing to full planche.

Does anyone have any knowledge on this subject. I'd rather hear real advice, not theoretical advice. Hoping coach or josh slocum might have some insight.

HI Daniel, my practical knowledge for this is low but i can give to you a little support from medical anatomical POV.

When you are doing planche you are trying to push the rings down and maintain them relatively closed as on the pbars (ideally). The movement of "maintain closed" is an horizontal flexion. It involved for the biggest part: delts int the acromion fibers, infraspinatus, traps in the superior fibers and lower fibers, the last is serratus anterior. By the way the leverage position influenced more the possibility to generate strength for the serratus anterior, this because during skills where the arms are widened there is a co activator of serratus anterior that is the chest. as your leverage increase as the serratus anterior needs more strength to be coactivated. Normally chest activation for flexion helps the serratus but, during a maltese, the arms is moved counter-flexion, this lets to scapula to close a bit. To that you need to oppose serratus anterior in order to open the scapula against bigger leverage.

For that reason as you try to open the arms you will find it harder. i've talked about the developing of maltese with Matteo about one year ago. He said that the Italian school of coach got a substantial changes from chechi (somearched version) school to morandi school (hollow and straight version). In the past maltese was approached by assisting the skill, only years after they moved to learn it increasing little by little the portion of arms that is pushing down. I don't know how much theory they followed, but for sure this confirm that as you increase the leverage (in maltese or widen the arms in planche) you need to approach gradually to avoid low level of protraction.

I can give you only my own experience. Both my straddle and full planche on rings are at shoulder width plus one or two hand widths. I find keeping my hands at shoulder width makes the hold position more difficult for me. I can press out of a straddle planche with this arm position, too. So having wider arms is certainly not a crippling handicap. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you whether one width or the other is desirable, since I have only my own experience from which to draw.  

Here's a video. It's not the best angle to see hand position, but they're pretty clearly wider than my shoulders: 

Yours looks similar to mine. My picture is also pretty bad for seeing width.

Try to ignore the fact that the picture was taken as I was loosing good protraction the hand width is about normal.

I like the look of determination

Unless someone with a ton of experience tells you otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.

Joshua Slocum said:

I like the look of determination

 

 

Haha thanks.  My friend took a little while to snap the picture.

I have discussed this with a coach at my gym and an elite gymnast.  Both say that I should keep my hands closer together.  This has been helping me to keep better protraction but I have found it more difficult to balance and get straight.  I am still able to press into it from L-sit but with much greater difficulty.  When I get back from my injury ~6months I plan to work protraction drills by going through the planche progressions on pears again and see if this rebuild up helps.