Back lever

Hoping to get some advice pertaining to my back lever training. Here is the video

. I recently received some good advice (per Slizzardman) regarding my hand positioning. As you can see by the video the palms are up. I have Coach Sommers book and in it he states this is a personal choice although this does not build the biceps like the palms down position does. My question is, should I abandon the palms up hand positioning altogether? I can assure you the palms up back lever is no joke to perform, it requires alot of muscle tensioning and my biceps and bracheoradialis muscles are working hard. I have been following Slizzardmans and BtGB book advice and working the palms down too. It is very evident the strain on the biceps is greater palms down, and I have not as of yet achieved the back lever this way. I appreciate your input. Thanks

Well, it helps to prepare the biceps for other skills, such as planche, and from there more difficult skills.

I guess Coach says it's personal preference because it's not necessary to do the back lever with palms down in order to prepare for for those other skills, though it definitely helps.

Change your hand position to palms down, simulates other skills much better

I appreciate your input. It is clearly evident to me now why Coach Sommer stated the back lever is a prerequesite prior to developing the straight arm planche as the strain on the biceps is massive when performing the back lever palms down. My question still is, since the strain is less this way would it not be beneficial to utilize the palms up positioning to continue strengthening the accessory muscles when in this position using this a as a progressive step. Or is this completely counter productive, greesing the groove in the wrong way.

A better progression is probably to just modify the position and keep the palms down grip

You could certainly use it like a warm up, and it is good to be familiar with the body tension, but the bulk of your work needs to be palms down because no amount of palms up is going to prepare you for palms down

My elbows are still messed up and I can do full lay back lever with palms up It's completely different and won't help with planche very much.