Wrists not flexible enough for planche

I had been doing the frog stand for a while and was trying to do the tuck planche when I ran into a problem... my wrists aren't flexible enough. (As an aside, it showed me my arms were too vertical in the frog stand.)

Lying my forearm flat on a table, I can bring my hand up to about a 60º angle. With my hand flat and bringing my arm up, I can get to 90º before it becomes painful.

What is the best way to improve flexibility in my wrists so I can progress in this exercise?

Turn your hands out to the side when doing planche work, that way they never need to go past 90 degrees, I've even seen hands turned to the back on rare occasion.

Hi vafarmboy,

If you look at the mechanics, the gradual shift in the centre of gravity as you move through the planche progressions requires the placement of the hands to move lower for balance, and the angle between the arms and the ground gets more acute. Therefore the extension of the wrist will increase (if your fingers are pointing forward). That is another reason the angle is nearer vertical in the frog-stand, since your elbows can be bent - not necessarily that your hips were low/high.

In addition to ts00nami's great advice - you'll probably want to work on your wrist flexibility a little anyway, since it will take time and may be a limiting factor in other exercises if getting to 90deg causes pain!? Coach Sommer wrote an essay a while back regarding wrist conditioning, which in addition to protecting your wrists from injury will help with balancing in the planche/handstand. You can find it here: http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=270#270

Cheers,

George.

Hi ts00nami,

In your opinion, would performing the planche with hands sideways (or even backwards) impose any limitations later on?

To elaborate, I try to keep a similar hand position/width in most floor exercises to keep continuity, since I hope to progress to all manner of presses to (and from) handstand over time*. As an extreme (though relevant to this discussion) example; planche to handstand. Depending on long term goals, would you say it is better to take extra time starting off properly? ...or is fixing details like this easy enough to do later that one need not worry about it now?

* ...a loooong time!

Thanks,

George.

Thanks for the link, George. I hadn't seen that before.

It doesn't hurt to get to 90º. Doing pushups and (trying to do) handstands is just fine. Going beyond 90º is when it starts to get painful. Think of it this way, if you put your hands flat together in front of you like you were praying or meditating I can bring them down to where both of my forearms are in a straight line and my hands are pointing straight up. What troubles me is bringing my hands lower to where my forearms are in more of a V shape pointing down and my wrists are bent back beyond 90º.