Why no back lever in F1?

I have not purchased F1 yet (plan to when money is available), but I've read that it doesn't include back lever training.

I am curiousas to why? Because from my own research the back lever seems like a prehab exercise for planche, and is probably the easiest lever (besides human flag). I always thought the back lever and L-sit would come before front lever, Plache and manna.

Is the back lever too stressful on the elbows of a beginner? If so, wouldn't proper German hang work prepare the elbows? Or is that not adequate prehab?

Coach recently mentioned that back lever is too hard on the joints for the adult beginning in GST. I suspect this is likely why.

Bill Clarke said:

Is the back lever too stressful on the elbows of a beginner? If so, wouldn't proper German hang work prepare the elbows? Or is that not adequate prehab?

Maybe, but most people don't train german hangs properly and it's a very slow process.  With back levers your muscles can work much harder than your joints can handle, which gives it a natural tendency to injure people.  Remember, it's harder on your elbows than a planche is.

Are we talking about back lever on rings or bar? For me, back lever is much harder on rings. I can easily do it on bar, I can barely hold it on rings with short straps (around 60cm) and I can't hold it on rings with long straps (around 150cm)

 

 

Remember, it's harder on your elbows than a planche is.

Is that mean that if you have back lever, your joints are ready for planche, but your muscles are not (you need more strength). And, again, do you think on back lever on bar or rings  

Bipocni said:

Maybe, but most people don't train german hangs properly and it's a very slow process.  With back levers your muscles can work much harder than your joints can handle, which gives it a natural tendency to injure people.  Remember, it's harder on your elbows than a planche is.

Interesting. I thought the planche was harder on the elbows. Guess I was wrong!

As for the German hang, I am slowly working into them right now: 3 sets at the end of my warm up, each lasting about 6 seconds. I plan to increase my time by 1 second per-week for 2-3 months. I would slow down or take time off if my elbows experienced any pain. Would this prepare the elbows properly for back lever training? Perhaps I should add in high rep bicep curls?

mrpraktic said:

Are we talking about back lever on rings or bar? For me, back lever is much harder on rings. I can easily do it on bar, I can barely hold it on rings with short straps (around 60cm) and I can't hold it on rings with long straps (around 150cm)

Is that mean that if you have back lever, your joints are ready for planche, but your muscles are not (you need more strength). And, again, do you think on back lever on bar or rings

For me personally, I was going to use rings because those felt more natural when going into back lever. Because I don't have a lot of room for my rings, my rings hang about 30cm... and I can only hold an advanced tuck (but my elbows are not ready for it).

Yeah, that's my thought: if you can do a back lever, then you know your elbows can handle the stresses of planche, plus you would have gained some strength that may carry over to your planche.

Bipocni said:

Remember, it's harder on your elbows than a planche is.

Where did you get that? I feel that the planche has a bit more elbow stress than back lever.

B1214N said:

Where did you get that? I feel that the planche has a bit more elbow stress than back lever.

he probably means that because he's probably seen or heard of people using true straight arms in back lever in a "not so safe" kind of way and planches from people who have properly scaled them successfully? stuff like that has confused me all the time from looking at videos on youtube and then being exposed to the kind of stuff you see here.

have you seen Dillon's hands backward full planche on the pommel in the new front page? amazing form! gotta have some mean strong elbows for that

B1214N said:

Where did you get that? I feel that the planche has a bit more elbow stress than back lever.

Which hand position are you using?

 

I'll admit I'm simply regurgitating what I've heard others say.  In my personal experience a straight arm frogstand was a lot harder on my elbows than a tuck back lever.  However, the straight arm frogstand immediately felt dangerous and so I backed off, whereas with a tuck back lever it snuck up on me and before you know it my elbows were killing me.

 

But then, more experienced people are telling me back levers are hard on your elbows, so....  I think it's because the overall load feels easier than with a planche, so you can train them a lot harder than you should be.

I use the hands backward placement and I compare it to the supinated grip BL. I've also compared the pronated grip BL with both hands forward and sideways planche and the stress on the elbows are also a bit harder in planche than BL.

There is a good deal of overlap between back lever and planche in terms of strength. There's little reason to work both at once, and the floor straddle planche with hands facing forwards/sideways is significantly less stressful on the elbows. So Foundation has straddle planche rather than back levers.