Should I continue practising my planche/lever?

[Richard Walling]

Hey guys I have a question but first I'll give a little bit of background.

I'm 33 and I spent most of my 20s as a zombie playing video games. At 28 I started doing barbell based lifting. At 29 I found rock climbing, which has been my primary hobby ever since. I have continued to lift on and off but over the last year I've focused most of my cross training on body weight.

A while back my girlfriend, who coaches gymnastics, introduced me to the concept of the straddle planche. I could immediately move into the tuck position and after about 2 weeks was able to do a bent arm straddle planche. It didn't take too long after that to get to a 10 second slightly bent arm sPL. I have slowly progressed closer towards straight arm but haven't been able to lock out completely due to poor range of motion. My Front Lever is similar, I can hold for 10 seconds but my arms don't completely lock out.

I just started F1, Hs1 and the stretch series this week. I realize I need to focus on Range of Motion and that is my main priority.

The question is should I continue to practice those skills in addition to the Foundation series, or should I stop and focus exclusively on progressing back at the pace set in the curriculum?

[Piotr Ochocki]

Slightly bent is still bent, not straight :). Training bent arm will not prepare your elbow for straight arm, this requires dedicated prep and it is quite a step from slightly bent to straight (in terms of prep needed).

You can't straighten your arms because they are not prepared for the load, and that blockage is good as it is decreases your chance of injury from doing what your body disagree with at this moment.

Now, it is your call.

 

[Mikkel Ravn]

Stop worrying too much and just stick to the program as is.

After foundation work you can play around a bit with Tuck Planche, but don't structure it. A few sets now and then will make sure that you keep your strength, but pay attention to those elbows so you don't f^ck them up.

Think long term, you will get back to straight arm strength soon enough. 

[Jon Douglas]

The rule of thumb is that there's generally no harm in some more intense work after your course assignment; the proviso here as above is that a bent arm planche is *not* the same thing as a straight arm planche. You may be able to quickly developthe strength to pull off a couple second straddle planche as you sound quite strong upstairs, but this is not the same thing as having the straight -arm conditioning for it. 

Bottom line feel free to play with bent arm variations if you like, but best to steer clear of the temptation to lock your arms out in playtime until your elbow prep is in place