Frog stance to tuck planche transition

First of all, I apologize if this has been covered in another thread but I couldn't find an answer to my specific question, which is: will I slow down my progress in planche training when I skip the advanced frog stance position and move straight towards a (low) tuck planche?

I have no problems whatsoever holding a regular frog stance. Strength-wise, the advanced frog stance is not much of a problem either, but I hate the stress of my knees on my elbow/tricep region! So I decided to try a couple of tuck planches. And I could actually hold them (admittedly, for a few seconds only, and with my hips below shoulder level, but still...). So I was wondering whether I should simply continue to improve my tuck planche, or go back to the advanced frog stance and suck up the discomfort

It seems like a lot of people here skipped advanced frog. I Honestly am not sure why it is important beyond learning your center of gravity. I too skipped advanced frog and went straight to tuck.

The problem will be you probably won't be able to work the 60s of volume in your "tuck planche" so you can't do a proper SSC program.

I dislike advanced frogstand as do most of my boys. However, the younger boys tend to find it easier for themselves to balance in a tuck planche than any of the frogstand stuff. It doesn't make any sense.

I've noticed when I'm too tired to balance, I can sub down to advanced frogstand or spotted planche on swiss ball. I prefer the latter.

If I was to do a SSC, I would incorporate the advanced frogstand. My boys are not and using the tuck planche/frogstand as sort of getting to know it work, focusing on L-sits or spotted planche for strength.

I see your point about the volume, but won't there always be a transitional stage (moving to the tuck planche) in which one fails to get 60 s of work done? Even after a period of underloading at the end of an SSC? I'm sure smooth transitions are possible later on in the planche progressions but the adv. frog stance seems to target balance and arm straightening rather than focus on the shoulder girdle.

Maybe I'm just overanalyzing here but hey, I'm a scientist thanks for the replies anyway guys, and I'd love to hear more about experiences with either strategy.

As long as you can do 60s of aggregate work you're fine. Honestly, that really doesn't matter much either. I mean, if you can't get a total of 60s, do your best with 10 sets. For example, if you can manage 10 sets of 3 seconds, that's an ok start. Generally what you do is you take a max hold and use half of that for your work sets. So, if you can hold tuck for 10s, you'd do 12 sets of 5s. Or as close as you can get. The idea is that because you're not working to failure you can repeat submaximal holds many times. You may find that you need more rest for some sets than others, and that's ok too. Each time you work, try to reduce the average rest time until it's at a minute or less. That usually takes a while, several months.

The goal is 60 total seconds of work. You may find that doing planche leans will help you. That is how I personally built myself up to doing the freestanding tuck planches.

Yep, I like the planche leans a lot...so long as they are planchy. Many of our young kids are barely doing a pushup position when doing them and need to be shaped into the lean.

Planche leans with straight arms, hands close to the hips, and elevated feet I presume? Sounds like the way to go thanks again!

Basically, yes.

I will have my boys do these on parallettes or a floor bar in undergrip. Nipples over the bar is what I tell them at first. I tell the girls to try for ribs. Their feet are propped up so they can be parallel to the ground.

If I can, I will spot them on parallettes in tuck planche sometimes. We still work frogstand as well for beginners because they need the balance. Most of these boys are better off working L-sit than planches at this point.

I thought another reason for not skipping ahead in progressions is to give your shoulders, elbows and ligaments time to addapt to the added stress.. And by jumping forward, the jump in stress increase could give you some injury issues.. I know I got them, and I didn't even jump any progression. I had a bad shoulder going in to it though...

That's why I've decided not to jump any progressions any more..

viking said:

I thought another reason for not skipping ahead in progressions is to give your shoulders, elbows and ligaments time to addapt to the added stress.. And by jumping forward, the jump in stress increase could give you some injury issues.. I know I got them, and I didn't even jump any progression. I had a bad shoulder going in to it though...

That's why I've decided not to jump any progressions any more..

I agree but in this case I feel as if the advanced frog stance doesn't really target my shoulders. It feels as if it mainly helps in finding your center of gravity when using straight arms and leaning forward.

My suggestion to make the advanced frog stance harder and give more work to the shoulders is to not just let your knees rest on your arms but try to actively lift yourself up from this position so that you get as litte help as possible from the knees. Thats the way I did it.

Tomas Johansson said:

My suggestion to make the advanced frog stance harder and give more work to the shoulders is to not just let your knees rest on your arms but try to actively lift yourself up from this position so that you get as litte help as possible from the knees. Thats the way I did it.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. But I'm actually having quite some fun with the planche leans and they make my shoulders work so I'll stick with them and my low tuck planches. But your approach does sound good!

The more I think about it, the better of an idea the advanced frog stand seems. I was always thinking of it as a wrist balancing exercise and so it never helped me, but using it to slowly extend into the tuck planche is a great way to ensure that the hips are at an appropriate height!

I personally don't like advanced tuck planche but will do it when necessary.

However, my boys and kids tend to be very difficult to convince, especially when their arms hurt from where their knees push. At this point generally, they have other things they can be working on like L-sit or I just spot the tuck planche.

Doing planches off of the swiss ball is also a good idea, I'm doing them now as part of my elbow recovery Plus, I'm sick so I am too weak to hold anything but advanced frog The swiss ball planches are straight from blairbob, and they work well. You may want to use them to learn the body position, they allow you to slowly take more and more of the weight while maintaining your hips at or slightly above shoulder level.

I'm now doing the planche leans with my feet on my homemade parallettes. They are high enough to make sure my body is more or less parallel to the floor. Should I lift my feet even higher (Swiss balls seem to be quite large)?

Swiss balls can be big, but they do come in different sizes. I don't know if they will be right for you, what I like about them is the elastic nature of the assistance they give you, plus it's slightly unstable so your arms are working a little more. It really depends on whether you like how it feels

slizzardman said:

Doing planches off of the swiss ball is also a good idea, I'm doing them now as part of my elbow recovery Plus, I'm sick so I am too weak to hold anything but advanced frog The swiss ball planches are straight from blairbob, and they work well. You may want to use them to learn the body position, they allow you to slowly take more and more of the weight while maintaining your hips at or slightly above shoulder level.

Ding Ding! I love these! Having a mirror in front of you also helps a great deal! I used to use a swiss ball but the one in our gym disappeared! Now I use a panel mat with a small cylindrical mat I found buried in the corner to do them, I just lost a little bit of the lateral instability but I can still lean forward and press it back. The panel mat is just to elevate the cylinder a bit because my arms are so dang long!

I always strive to pull my feet off the ball and squeeze with everything I have. . .one day it might just happen. 8)

I started my planche work after reading the article by Coach that introduced the planche and front lever. The advanced frog stand wasn't part of that article's progression. Maybe it's there if you need a good bridge between the frog stand and the tuck planche.

It's true, but I'll tell you this, mark: Doing the swiss ball tuck planches is excellent for developing a deeper arm angle. It's working wonders for me

How much do you think the arm angle changes as you move from tuck, to advanced tuck, to straddle, to full planche? Obviously you need a deeper arm angle (deeper meaning arms are closer to the torso, right?) for the full planche than a tuck planche. Once you reach the arm angle where, assuming you have the strength, you are balanced for a full planche, you don't need to go any further for the planche, right?

Also, are there any pictures of a tuck planche on a swiss ball to develop a deeper arm angle?

The degrees are practically 0 in a tuck planche. I think it would get to about 25-30 for an advanced tuck planche. Since I haven't gotten to the next stage, I don't know.

Try to copy what an advanced tuck planche looks like with your legs on the swiss ball, and roll/lean as far forward as you can go. Have a pillow, just in case you fall and hit your face. Also, look down so when you fall (if you fall) you land on your forehead instead of your nose

Mark, when I get a chance I will take some. Maybe tonight

You COULD keep going forward if you want to learn floor maltese

Mark, if you want to feel and develop the deeper arm angle needed for your progression towards full planche, try doing planche leans and pseudo-planche pushups. In both cases you want to position your hands as close to your hips as possible.

Planche lean: assume a regular push-up position with your hands on the floor, arms straight and your feet elevated to about shoulder level (I use a couch) and then actively lean forward while simultaneously walking your hands backward, as close to your hips as possible (retain a straight body alignment of course). This will result in a planche position with supported feet and a deep arm angle and if done correctly, you will definitely work your arms and shoulder girdle (otherwise you'll do a faceplant).

PPP: lie down on the floor, position your hands as close to your hips as you can, and perform a push-up they're very hard at first if you do them correctly, i.e. without ending up in a regular push-up position with your hands at chest/shoulder level... you want to keep leaning forward at all times. I can manage a couple of sets of four-five slow and gruesome reps like this before succumbing to exhaustion. The next step would be to elevate your feet in the PPP of course

Anyway, I think these are two nice exercises to help you develop the strength for planche and the necessary arm angle but I'm sure the more experienced forum members can teach you a lot more!