Pancake (improves)

Hello my friends, happy new year , today after my pull and mobility training, I tried do pancake to my limit, and here is the result:

I think I need the push more my chest to floor, so how do you see it?

Other cuestion is, if I improve my pancake will it help me improve my V-sit? Or should I focus more on developing a good pike stretch?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,  

Hey Vasyl,

Point those toes and never neglect your pike! Both pike and pancake will compliment your compression whork.

Nice work man.

On 31/12/2016 at 7:16 PM, Everett Carroll said:

Hey Vasyl,

Point those toes and never neglect your pike! Both pike and pancke will compliment your compression work.

Why pointed toes? That is cheating if you have bad calves flexibility. The point of an unassisted pancake is to relax as much as possible.

Vasyl, that is very nice work. And it is rare to see such a wide straddle. Keep up the good work!

Hi Alex, 

Toe point in the pancake stretch fires up the quads, which when the quads are engaged this allows for the hamstrings to open up.

Another way to put it is shorten the quads to allow the hamstrings to lengthen! 

Plus we are doing gymnastics and toe point is beautiful  

45 minutes ago, Tanya Hill said:

Hi Alex, 

Toe point in the pancake stretch fires up the quads, which when the quads are engaged this allows for the hamstrings to open up.

Another way to put it is shorten the quads to allow the hamstrings to lengthen! 

Plus we are doing gymnastics and toe point is beautiful  

 

Only overly tense quads will prevent the full range of motion in the hamstrings during pancake (and especially pike). The solution to this is quadriceps relaxation stretching methods.

When you are pointing the toes you are shortening the calves and the Achilles tendon. Given the typical gymnast have overly tensed calves musculature from all the toe pointing I understand why toe point is recommended, because a close-to-neutral ankle stance for pancake might lessen depth in the position.

But for OP he should not point his toes. He has beautiful form and there is no reason to break that and point the toes for aesthetic reasons, unless you actively are trying to compress deeper.

2 hours ago, Vasyl Havrylyuk said:

Hi Alex, thanks for your answer!

I wanted to ask you something else, are you see it normal that after doing the pancake, at the time of making "straddle ups" (for core strength) feel pain on hip flexors?, more or less where the psoas (image below) or a little lower

I think I still need a lot of conditioning of the hip flexors, what are you think?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

It is hard to say what causes it. It could be breaking posterior pelvic tilt/engaging ppt too late. Or tense hip flexors which does not allow proper functioning, stuck fascia or something else.

It is hard to tell. I had it once on a relatively low scale but it got better as my activation, strength, flexibility and looseness improved.

Try foam rolling and stretching.

3 hours ago, Alexander Egebak said:

But for OP he should not point his toes. He has beautiful form and there is no reason to break that and point the toes for aesthetic reasons, unless you actively are trying to compress deeper.

I think that the stretch with pointed or flexed feet feels completely differently… so that's why I think we should work on both versions, pointed and flexed, to get benefits of both. Then if we want to look pretty (and yes, we want), we point the toes nicely for the camera

2 hours ago, Suzanna McGee said:

I think that the stretch with pointed or flexed feet feels completely differently… so that's why I think we should work on both versions, pointed and flexed, to get benefits of both. Then if we want to look pretty (and yes, we want), we point the toes nicely for the camera

We point the toes all the time in compressed positions. With pointed toes you can use your calves, quadriceps and hip flexors to pull yourself deeper into the stretch; it works as a stretching technique but in the end we want to relax as much as possible, and pointing the toes are counterproductive to that.

Pointing the toes has its merits for building strength and adding range of motion, but the goal of the end position should eventually be to relax.

Nice work Vasyl

Alexander,

There are other mobility elements where we focus on flexed feet while stretching.  

Unless otherwise stated, when stretching the basic pancake here at GB the toes will be pointed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Hi Vasyl,

It looks pretty good. Make sure that your knees are completely straight as you stretch. Nice improvement!

Hi Vasyl, 

Great improvements make sure to keep updating us on your progress. 

Nice work Vasyl!

Wow! Great work!

That is a nice position, well done! If you want to challenge yourself further you can experiment with elevating your feet progressively higher and higher. 

Great job Vasyl!

Hey Vasyl,

With this degree of pancake mobility, I suggest you work more seriously towards developing your middle split. 

18 hours ago, Everett Carroll said:

Hey Vasyl,

With this degree of pancake mobility, I suggest you work more seriously towards developing your middle split. 

Yes my friend, I have thought this too, so, don't weighting my pancake and focus go deeper with my abs and develop my middle split?

Regards,  

Sounds like a good plan to me, Vasyl.