Shoulder blades in planche and shoulders in the flag

Hello there,

I came across an article on dragondoor recently ( http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/505/ ) concerning planche training, the author said that the shoulder blades should be connected, however Coach Sommer's atheltes and gymnasts in general perform the planche in hollow position which pretty much eliminates the possibility of the connection of the shoulder blades, the interesting thing is that when I squeezed the shoulder blades together the planche was quite a bit easier, it was lower though, what are your thoughts and experiences with this folks ?

another question that came to my mind was whether the shoulders during the flag should be shrugged (like during a wallrun or handstands) or unshrugged, I always thought that they should be shrugged, however looking at Dominic Lacasse during his Guiness attempt (the picture is in the side lever pull topic, posted by George) the shoulders seem unschrugged, or is it just my imagination?

anyhow, hopin' for some informative feedback lads :>

Cheers,

Chris

The author of the article in question is quite simply incorrect.

He has attempted to find a short cut to curtail the necessary strengthening of the shoulder girdle; without understanding the long term ramifications of his proposed solution. Which is why his planche position in the article photo is so out of alignment (and this is not even taking the bent elbows into consideration). A planche trained in this manner will provide substantially less strength gains and will be also fail to prepare the athlete to progress onward to more difficult static strength variations.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Whoa Coach, I didn't that you'll look into this yourself of course thanks for your reply.

What about the flag folks? Don't be shy, share your thoughts.

Cheers,

Chris

I've had most success with the flag when I had the upper arm "sucked in" and the lower arm fully extended. Don't know if this is correct or not.

JoeS said:

I've had most success with the flag when I had the upper arm "sucked in" and the lower arm fully extended. Don't know if this is correct or not.

This is correct, I believe.

You want to be pulling with your top arm and pushing out as hard as possible with the bottom one.

The shoulder is simple. It needs to be active. If your pushing it should be extended, if pulling it should be extended.

I'm sure as with everything else there are exceptions to the rule.

When I'm training the flag then my shoulders align in the same fashion JoeS described, I think that it's the most natural due to the fact, as braindx and ed x pointed out that one is pushing and the second one is pulling.

Thanks for your opinions :>

Cheers,

Chris

ed x said:

The shoulder is simple. It needs to be active. If your pushing it should be extended, if pulling it should be extended.

I'm sure as with everything else there are exceptions to the rule.

Engaging the shoulder in pulling means it needs to be pulled into the socket.

For example, hang in the start of a pullup position and relax the shoulders. That's "extended" then to start to the pulling you "activate" the shoulder by pulling it into the socket

Braindx,

You are right. Simple mistake in writing it, meant to say pulled in.