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Back lever trouble


Joakim Andersson
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Joakim Andersson

I have the muscular strength to hold a full BL for 3x5 seconds, probably a 10 second maximum if I tried. My problem is my elbows, they hurt from doing a full BL during my workout sessions. I thought of solving it by doing easier BL variations such as flat tuck or half lay for longer time. Is it a good solution or should I do something else? Feels a bit frustrating not being able to train as hard as I could, but of course an injury wouldn't be worth it.

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Joshua Naterman

Take at least a few days off, apply some moist heat to your elbows as often as you can, and take 10-15g of the omega 3 caps if you can. Go all the way back to flat tuck and work for 3 sets of 20 seconds. If you can't do this you shouldn't be doing full lay at all. Until you can do those with no elbow discomfort whatsoever for at least two weeks move on to straddle. Build up to the same thing. Back lever's pretty easy, muscularly speaking, but it's really hard on the inner elbow connective tissue. After you can do the 3x20s of straddle BL don't mov estraight to full lay, just close your straddle by a little bit. Close it little by little until you're doing long sets of BL full lay, the 3x20 would be good. The closer your legs get, the less you should close by each time you close, and you shouldn't change the position of your legs more than once every two weeks.

This is coming from personal experience, I screwed my elbows up and was and am in the same situation. I can hold a back lever almost forever but my elbows aren't anywhere near ready for full lay. I'm just now starting to train it again at all, I'm taking my time. My muscular strength is still there, it won't be going anywhere and neither will yours.

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Joakim Andersson

Just the kind of answer I was looking for :) I'll try to do that and hopefully my elbows will get stronger with time. Thanks.

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Joshua Naterman

No problem! They will get better, don't worry. It'll be a little while, but you will end up doing full lay with no problem!

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Yes, because back levers try to hyperextend your elbows.

I'm still healing from a flare up of an 8 month old BJJ injury to my elbow. I can do front levers fine but I tried a back lever the other day and I still wasn't ready to go back to them.

edit: I accidently said "no." Meant to say yes as you can tell from the rest of my response. Everyone must of thought I was nuts.

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For the most part, I don't feel that FL are as hard on the elbows as BL. This could be due to the fact I have to use an easier progression on FL than BL.

I still have felt it slightly at times, but it's more common to have felt it being aggravated during BL. And lever work for the tall+big guys is hard. Not so bad for the sticks out there (climber type bodies who are often interested in rings), but is quite challenging for the 200+ crowd.

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Joshua Naterman

Back lever puts much more stress on the INNER elbow. Pretty important distinction! The outer elbow is typically pretty strong, and it is not a locking joint in terms of the front lever position. In the back lever, done right, the position itself "locks" the arm straight! That puts huge stress on the inner elbow connective tissues, which are more vulnurable because almost nothing besides straight arm work stresses them, combined with the lever effect in the elbow itself.

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  • 3 months later...
Gerald Mangona

Hey all...several-week long reader, first time writer. Started BtGB work last week and am loving it. I've been working on my Back Lever progression (I'm holding tuck BL for 15 sets x 4 sec) in a neutral grip, and then this morning I read somewhere today about the value of having the hands facing toward my body in an effort to prepare for straight arm work. Then I checked Coach's book and read the same.

So I come home, try to do a tuck BL with straight arms and hands facing toward me, and OUCH. Left elbow is in pain. So I immediately let go and try it again, this time getting in to the tuck BL really slowly, and the sharp pain of elbow hyperextension ended that pretty quickly.

What do I do to prepare my elbows for this? There isn't an easier progression that I should be aware of, is there?

Best,

Jerry

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Gerald Mangona

Update:

I tried it again a few seconds ago just to be sure. This time, I got into the inverted hang with the palms facing me, and THEN dropped into BL Tuck. The first few times I got into the BL Tuck and then twisted my palms to face them in.

This time around the pain wasn't nearly as bad, since I found myself tensing my biceps *hard* on the way into the tuck. It was barely painful at all this time. I guess the first few times I twisted the wrists in without doing the necessary bicep tension because I was already in the BL tuck. This time the hyperextension was very faint, if any at all. Hard to tell if that was just residual pain.

But if you guys have any other ideas. Holler.

Thanks all -- great site.

J

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Coach Sommer

Your biceps tendon is currently aggravated. My advice is to cease to attempt to work around it and to allow it to heal.

In the future, I would recommend that you focus first on inverted hangs and then later German hangs prior to recommencing BL work.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

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Yep, too much too fast.

German hangs and inverted hangs are a good start as is the rest of basic strength work such as ring supports and the like.

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Gerald Mangona

Thanks to both of you...will halt all the straight arm and support work for the next 7 days and then will recommence, subbing inverted hangs for the BL work.

Jerry

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Philip Papandrea

Is there another way to get into a german hang other then lowering from an inverted hang? I had the same pain doing BL with palms down so i've been doing support holds and inverted holds. I know German Hangs are also recommended but to get to one you have to pass through the painful part which is the BL.

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Phillip, you can start in a basket or inverted pike position. This starts your body out at horizontal instead of inverted (though you are still upside down). Smaller ROM.

You could also lower the rings low enough that you could stand on your tiptoes in german hang.

I've added support holds and skin the cats to my boy's warmup and mine. It's the first thing we do. This way we start loosening things up with some swings on rings so we don't still have to be tight in our backs and shoulders when we start our first event. It seems that sometimes they are still looser when we hit our first swinging event. That way we don't have to loose precious time when we start the event to loosen up by just doing swings and skin the cats and stick dislocates.

Our WU does a bunch of stuff like inchworms (standing pike walk out to pushup/prone and do a pushup or planche lean for 40'). I liked doing PB walks and pommel walks as a WU but it takes quite a bit of time.

I've noticed when I work my levers, I warmup to them by starting with some easy steps (like a tightly compressed tuck and then gradually opening up out of the tuck besides skin the cats). As well, I take a DB or stick or bar and do 180 degree circles from right to left with my forearm sticking forwards at horizontal.

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Philip Papandrea

Thanks Blairbob i'll give that a try. It's very frustrating when you don't even have the strength or conditioning for even the easiest of progressions.

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That would be many of my boys, they get irritated, annoyed, and frustrated that one guy gets to practice something far more cooler than them a lot of the time and of course they don't get why.

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