A stronger planche on rings than on bars and floor.

Hello guys,

As most of you know, I have been struggling with the planche for years now and recently I decided to try my straddle planche on rings. To my surprise I actually held it longer than on the floor that same day, and my body was much straighter. Here is the video and a picture:

My form isn't the best, there is definitely some piking and I see that my scapula positioning is not good, but however, it is much better than my attempt on bars! Here is my attempt:

I find this very weird, I also noticed that my planche with hands backwards is also slightly better. The problem however with ring planches and hand backwards planches is that I can't maintain a good hollow body because I find it hard to protract my scapula. However, I tried to do a bad scapula planche with hands forwards, but I'm not even getting close when trying that. I think this is a problem of balance, but I have no idea how to fix this. Any thoughts on this strange matter?

Here is another rings on planche from side and my arms are completely locked:

And I can also do a lot of variations of the planche:

I can hold these two pretty good, the one in my avatar too. The form is better than a regular straddle planche. I'm really doing something wrong haha.

Yep with straddle plache letting protraction fail and resting on your arms is easier.  This is hard to do with hands forward because its harder to lean more as you sink.  At least this is my experience.  However it is worthwhile to work the fully protracted version because straight body planche and maltese can't be cheated as easily, it is also healthier for your shoulder girdle.

Daniel Burnham said:

Yep with straddle plache letting protraction fail and resting on your arms is easier.  This is hard to do with hands forward because its harder to lean more as you sink.  At least this is my experience.  However it is worthwhile to work the fully protracted version because straight body planche and maltese can't be cheated as easily, it is also healthier for your shoulder girdle.

I don't think you can rest your arms on your body in a planche unless maybe it's sagging. I know you can squeeze your triceps into your lats in a back lever and rings maltese, but not planche. You can also clearly see that Yaad's arms aren't resting anywhere on his body. Trying to hold a planche with retracted scapulae is also harder than holding with protracted scapulae so that's why protraction is very important.

Yaad Mohammad said:

Here is another rings on planche from side and my arms are completely locked:

 

 

And I can also do a lot of variations of the planche:

Planchemaybe.png

 

I can hold these two pretty good, the one in my avatar too. The form is better than a regular straddle planche. I'm really doing something wrong haha.

Could it be that maybe your wrists are limiting you in the P-bars and floor planche? Have you tried floor planche with the hands back yet to see if it's better than your PB planche and floor planche with hands sideways/forwards?

Regarding the forearm planche in the right photo, does it hurt your shoulders? I tried that variation before and my shoulders hurt when they are internally rotated too much while pushing down at the same time which is what that planche variation does.

You need to work on your glute strength so you can get your legs up. 

Daniel Burnham said:

Yep with straddle plache letting protraction fail and resting on your arms is easier.  This is hard to do with hands forward because its harder to lean more as you sink.  At least this is my experience.  However it is worthwhile to work the fully protracted version because straight body planche and maltese can't be cheated as easily, it is also healthier for your shoulder girdle.

B1214N said:

I don't think you can rest your arms on your body in a planche unless maybe it's sagging. I know you can squeeze your triceps into your lats in a back lever and rings maltese, but not planche. You can also clearly see that Yaad's arms aren't resting anywhere on his body. Trying to hold a planche with retracted scapulae is also harder than holding with protracted scapulae so that's why protraction is very important.

B1214N said:

Could it be that maybe your wrists are limiting you in the P-bars and floor planche? Have you tried floor planche with the hands back yet to see if it's better than your PB planche and floor planche with hands sideways/forwards?

 

Regarding the forearm planche in the right photo, does it hurt your shoulders? I tried that variation before and my shoulders hurt when they are internally rotated too much while pushing down at the same time which is what that planche variation does.

Joshua Slocum said:

You need to work on your glute strength so you can get your legs up.

I think B1214N is right on this one. Retraction does make it harder to hold, specially because I'm not sagging in with my butt.

Regarding the forearm planche, it only hurts my deltoids and side pecs, but that's just the amount of strength required.

Joshua Slocum, do you think that's the problem? Or is that just an issue you noticed? Because in a straddle back lever I find it easy to hold my legs up and same story with a bent arm planche.

Could be. I noticed I could hold it longer if inlet myself sag down as my arms turned in would allow me to lean more and rely more on the bicep strain. However protraction definitely makes more sense because it forms a bridge for more support.

Either way I find retracted on rings easier than when I push out. Holding protraction takes a good bit of strength. Letting myself sag through is easier but I am falling through it the whole time.

I train it completely protracted either way and stop when form breaks.

B1214N said:

I don't think you can rest your arms on your body in a planche unless maybe it's sagging. I know you can squeeze your triceps into your lats in a back lever and rings maltese, but not planche. You can also clearly see that Yaad's arms aren't resting anywhere on his body. Trying to hold a planche with retracted scapulae is also harder than holding with protracted scapulae so that's why protraction is very important.

- Of course you can.  That is what is demonstrated by his scapula not maintaining protraction.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Daniel Burnham said:

Could be. I noticed I could hold it longer if inlet myself sag down as my arms turned in would allow me to lean more and rely more on the bicep strain. However protraction definitely makes more sense because it forms a bridge for more support.

Either way I find retracted on rings easier than when I push out. Holding protraction takes a good bit of strength. Letting myself sag through is easier but I am falling through it the whole time.

I train it completely protracted either way and stop when form breaks.

Same thing, I always train until I lose protraction. I was wondering, how important is protraction? I always tell my student thay protraction is the most important thing and that it makes the planche much straighter and controllable, but would one lose points if they wouldn't have a protracted planche but everything else is in order?

Also, I never train with my hands backwards and I noticed my planche was pretty good with hands backwards, problem is, I can't protract in it, even in a tuck planche. Here it is:

http://youtu.be/j65abSRPaT8

My question is, I noticed that my lower back arches, but what if my body would've been completely straight and that would be the only form mistake, would I still lose points? Because my body would be straight and parallel to the ground and arms locked, basically everything that's important when judging the form of a planche. I'm a long way from that, I see that my hips are still too high and I'm a bit piked.

Coach Sommer said:

- Of course you can.  That is what is demonstrated by his scapula not maintaining protraction.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I don't quite understand, how is that possible?

Building protraction strength is essential.  In fact, without proper protraction no advanced ring strength is possible later.

The lack of specific knowledge resulting in a failure to address these types of issues is why, despite rings having been popular as a general fitness tool for well over ten years now, almost no fitness enthusiasts have any ring strength of merit to show; despite all their years of hard work.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Perfect planche protraction (and my desktop screen):

Top-Planche-on-Pedestals11.bmp

[sorry it's a link, not sure how to make it appear in this post.]

LateStarter@46 said:

Perfect planche protraction (and my desktop screen):

 

Top-Planche-on-Pedestals11.bmp

 

 

[sorry it's a link, not sure how to make it appear in this post.]

Yes, I always hold my advanced tuck planche like that. It's the form I'm striving for.

So I'm assuming your wrists aren't the limiting factor in your PB/floor planches? Then it is pretty strange that you can hold it better on rings than PB/floor as the former is a lot harder and you never really spent as much time training it on rings compared to on floor or bars. What are other things you have trained on rings prior to this? 

B1214N said:

So I'm assuming your wrists aren't the limiting factor in your PB/floor planches? Then it is pretty strange that you can hold it better on rings than PB/floor as the former is a lot harder and you never really spent as much time training it on rings compared to on floor or bars. What are other things you have trained on rings prior to this? 

I don't really train anything in support position in rings, I always just train muscle-ups and front levers and back levers and pull-ups. Every now and then I do l-sits and bulgarian dips, but not too much that can make me progress.

My wrists have been very weak these 2 weeks, I have been doing wrist planches a lot, so I'm resting now until my wrists are completely recovered. Maybe my planche just got really strong out of the nowhere and I regained my lost strength.

Daniel Burnham said:

Yep with straddle plache letting protraction fail and resting on your arms is easier.  This is hard to do with hands forward because its harder to lean more as you sink.  At least this is my experience.  However it is worthwhile to work the fully protracted version because straight body planche and maltese can't be cheated as easily, it is also healthier for your shoulder girdle.

How did you make your torso rest on your arms in the planche? I've tried retracting a bit, but still can't make contact between the two. Did you also sag and bring the arms close together like less than shoulder width? I feel that a planche with retracted scapula is harder to hold than with protracted scapula.

Coach Sommer said:

- Of course you can.  That is what is demonstrated by his scapula not maintaining protraction.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Is losing protraction the only reason why the torso will rest on the arms or does it require another flaw? I personally tested a planche with the least amount of protraction I can manage and still can't get my body to rest on the arms. 

This link shows Tong Fei's planche with less than full protraction and your comment on it:

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/12001-over-protraction-in-planche/?hl=%2Btong+%2Bfei#entry116068

Maybe it's because of my elbow positioning, just saw this: