new drill, what do you think?

Hey guys, my friend came up with a way to train the front lever by combining a dragon flag and straps that come out of the wall to hold the arms in position.

Here is a video of him demonstrating it, I just want to get a few opinions on whether you think it will help? Or is it a waste of time and we should just do dragon flags and ice cream makers.

Cheers, here is the video

Tom

it looks like it stresses the arms and lats very similar to the front lever...but then you may as well be doing front lever variations! Dragon flag is good because you get a bit more leverage over it and generally stresses your core more than your upper body. For the shoulder girlde you may as well do ice cream makers, lever rows, front pulls etc but this could be another tool in the toolbox.

I think it's a cool drill but it's trying too much to find an easier way. There are plenty of better tools out there. Look at the study where they studied muscles activated in a maltese, even in similar positions with bands and other stuff muscles activated were different. Therefore train the position and the dynamic variations like front pulls and front lever pulls.

same sentiment as previous posters,

very creative and interesting. i'd say work the progressions layed out by coach sommer, then if you stagnate in your progress due to abdominal strength lagging behind, then these may be of some help to strengthen that link. this can just be another tool, although i think there are better ways to break a plateau.

I think an exercise not yet mentioned, but one that would be better than the OP, is ab wheel roll outs.

I prefer to do a straight arm body lever aka hollow dragon flag with straight arms. Straight arms makes the lever a lot longer.

More so, I'm using it as an assistance exercise 1/d week to my front lever work.

I've found that weighted inverted sit ups are the single best thing I have ever done for pure abdominal strength. They laid the foundation for the core strength I currently have, which is certainly not the best it has been, but I can hold straddle FL pretty easy and body levers/"dragon flags" are pretty easy.