Engaging Upper body in L-sits

This maybe a daft question but are you meant to actively push down with your pecs/lats in the first L-sit variation or is that more for when you start bringing you hips forward and trying to straighten your back? I haven't been doing this at all so far, letting my shoulders hunch up a little so it's been mainly core and thighs that burn. I accidentally tried to push down with my shoulders to get a little more height today and it just fried my lats in seconds.

Yep, I push down and keep everything nice and tight.

Due to my english comprehension, I couldn't understand all the text, but if I must say something, here I go: yo must have straight-arms and a flat back. You must push your hip forward and your legs must be forward parallel to the floor.

I never did the first L-sit variation as part of my training, but when I do it for fun, I made it like this

I simply can't push my hips forward yet without collapsing, maybe that's because my shoulders aren't tight enough. Will try and start incorporating this technique into my next cycle. Think this might be a bit too much for me at the moment. I'm only doing 5*12secs at the moment and that feels mega-hard for me, the last couple always have me shaking and struggling for balance a bit.

I'm not an expert here, but I think you should focus first on getting good shoulder position, straight legs and straight arms for some seconds easly, and later you work on getting flat back, and even later on the advanced position, with your hips forward.

Well I tried it today and found it a lot easier locking the shoulders down before lifting the feet rather than visca versa. Seemed a lot higher as well so had my feet a much more comfortable distance from the floor. Thanks for the help guys.