Tuck Planche Lower Back Collapsing

Hey everyone,

 

I'm having trouble progressing my tuck planche hold. I think I start off fairly well, but my lower back  and legs collapse as I go along. Is this due to a lack of protraction/straight arm pushing strength or due to a lack of core strength? Should I continue with SE 3 or should I move back a notch or two? 

 

Thanks,

Vikas

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It is due to a lack of trap strength.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Coach,

What is the remedy to this? More time on planche leans? Or is there a supplementary exercise that can help?

Thanks,

Neil

I'm hoping to see coach's response as well. I think you have the strength initially and it will be a matter of continuing to build strength with this exercise.  In my humble opinion, if you have truly mastered the prior progressions and mobilities, then it will be a matter of spending some time in the tuck planche to build up your strength.  In various podcasts, I have heard coach discussing exercises in any given progression taking a person from overworking initially, to working at capacity, and finally to the point that you truly are needing another progression to provide appropriate work stimulus.  You will nail this sooner than you think.  Push hard to hold that initial form when you feel yourself tiring!  Good luck.  

If your traps are collapsing, you failed to correctly master the earlier foundation elements.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Ah, tuck pl. I battled with this one for a while, so I decided to go back and re master se1 and se2, as I was experiencing the same issue of lower back/hips collapsing. Well, after repeating several cycles of the last block of se2 until my 5x60 sec adv frog stand was absolutely solid, I was ready to try tuck pl again..... Very little improvement. Months and months of... Well, becoming extremely proficient at performing a tuck pl with my knees on my elbows. Frustrating.

Kilroy,

 

I have had this same issue: I can hold advanced frog stand all day but keep collapsing on tuck planche. As such, I have re-visited the planche lean progressions. It has been noted in a few places that one should in theory be able to build their planche lean up to the point where their feet peel off the ground into a piked full planche. What I have discovered is that the surface I was using for my feet previously when I "mastered" planche leans had too much friction. I am now performing the leans on a  piece of laminated wood with socks on my feet and it is so much harder: I can feel my upper back working a lot harder with less lean than I was using previously. I hope that taking a step back and properly building my strength in this way will eventually result in a tuck planche. Perhaps the advanced frog stand's value is more as a balance-builder than as a primary strength builder?

 

Cheers,

N

Zach,

Based on your comment, without showing you my planche bounces, I can already say I was probably doing them wrong first time round as they felt too easy. If 95% of people do them wrong, is there any chance of improving the cues in the course material to help mitigate this issue?

Thanks,

N

Neil and Zach, good replies. I revisited the leans this morning and not surprisingly they were weaker than when I had previously worked them. I was not surprised because after I "mastered" them I pushed through the frog stands and then floundered on tuck pl for months on end and I believe lost some strength in the process. Advanced frog stand obviously has some strength elements to it but clearly doesn't act to directly build the strength necessary for a properly executed tuck pl, which I now gather should have been accomplished in the leans. I'm going to cycle through some lean progressions on the most slippery surface I can find for my feet!

Ok, thanks for the advice, Zach.

Cheers,

N