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Planche assistance


Kiyoshi
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I can hold a tuck planche for over 30 secs and I want to move onto an advanced tuck planche. How do I go about doing this? I know that I must keep my hips at shoulder height but I dont know how to get into advanced tuck position from regular tuck. Do i just lift my butt/hips higher up in the air and lean forward more or extend my legs or a combination of both.

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move your legs backward while leaning forward more, it might feel like you're pushing your legs sorta back and up at the same time.

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okay so its just basically a high tuck planche and lean more forward. I can lean forward fine but when I extend my legs It gets harder to do.

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Joshua Naterman

Only count the time in tuck during which your hips are even with or slightly higher than your shoulders with straight arms.

Work the tuck until you get to 60s. The strength you get from this is immense, but more importantly you will be building the connective tissue in your inner elbow, specifically the bicep tendon. Planches are a feat of tendon strength, not muscular strength. As the angle increases, the force on the tendon will get so high that the tendon will deform, which is bad, if you try to push ahead too soon. It can take months for symptoms to appear, and obviously many months for them to go away and actually heal the injury. That can easily become a long cycle of re-injury if you aren't careful to build up to 60s with tuck and then advanced tuck.

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Only count the time in tuck during which your hips are even with or slightly higher than your shoulders with straight arms.

Work the tuck until you get to 60s. The strength you get from this is immense, but more importantly you will be building the connective tissue in your inner elbow, specifically the bicep tendon. Planches are a feat of tendon strength, not muscular strength. As the angle increases, the force on the tendon will get so high that the tendon will deform, which is bad, if you try to push ahead too soon. It can take months for symptoms to appear, and obviously many months for them to go away and actually heal the injury. That can easily become a long cycle of re-injury if you aren't careful to build up to 60s with tuck and then advanced tuck.

I understand that is typical protocal for the planche progressions but I have read and heard from other people that you only need about 15 secs to move to next progression. And there are some people who can hold a regular tuck for under 30 secs that can do a adv tuck already.

So the planche doesnt train the muscle much? what kind of benefits (besides being able to do gymnastic moves) does having great tendon strength help you with? What sport or activity will this give me an advantage in?

Have you seen this video before?

He doesnt seem to use static hold progressions but he is able to do a planche in 5 months of just training Pseudo planche pushups , wall planche pushups , and straddle planche pushups.

So I guess that wall planche pushups are really important, I cant even do one of them yet.

Can you tell me what you think about this video and how effective his training methods for the planche are?

Thanks I greatly appreciate it :D

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A strength program that doesn't develop coordination, balance, and general body awareness leads to athletes who are very strong but inefficient at moving their body in space.

A good strength program, like one that incorporates gymnastic movements develops this body awareness. Having this body awareness makes picking up new skills and sports much easier since an athlete is already adept at using their strength to manipulate their body in a precise manner.

And the guy from youtube is a freak of nature who was already very strong before he started training planche.

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Joshua Naterman

As Sean said, the guy in the video already had very highly developed strength from many years of bodybuilding. He had a certain base level of tendon strength from all those years of consistent training as well.

My friend, I was able to hold a 3 second straddle planche after 4 months of training. My tendons weren't ready for it, despite being a very strong guy, and I had to lay off planche training for about 5 months completely. Now, I'm 230 lbs. The guy in the video was around 170 when he did the video, which is a LOT lighter than I am. He also has his fingers forward, which make the planche MUCH easier if your wrists can handle it. A part of the reason for my injury was my high bodyweight, and another part was my prior elbow tendonitis, which I never properly resolved. It always lay in wait, and every time I got to a certain strength level I'd start feeling it.

What I recommend comes from my own personal experience and has been verified through talking with several of Coach's athletes in person. Some smaller people can get away with trying new progressions with less of a base, simply because the forces acting on their tendons are not anywhere near as great due to BW and also lever length.

Of course planche works muscles. But, if you let yourself think of it as a strength challenge, you are inviting injury. Working so close to your muscular strength limits means that you run a very, very high risk of causing more damage to the tendon than it can completely heal and supercompensate from by the next time you train! That leads to a slow degeneration of the tendon, and by the time you actually feel the symptoms there is already considerable damage that will take 1-2 months to heal. If you keep training until there is acute pain you're looking at closer to the 5 months I had to take.

Coach Sommer recommends that you build up to a 60s tuck and advanced tuck. Go read a bunch of his recent posts. He has mentioned this several times. It IS important. It is not a secret scheme to keep you from achieving your goals. All I want to do is help you get there as fast as is safely possible, so that you don't go through the same BS that I have.

Hell, I can hold an advanced tuck for 5-10 seconds, always have been able to. I train advanced frogstand. My elbows are not yet healed, and I know it because I can not yet do it with perfectly straight elbows for 60s, so I am being smart. Seeing as you have no injuries, you should reach that perfect 60s far sooner than I will. You will then reach 60s of tuck and advanced tuck sooner if you follow the same scheme, and at that point you will have a pretty solid straddle planche without ever having trained it directly unless you are not following the WODs.

Tendon strength gives you an advantage in everything. Connective tissue is neurologically dense, meaning that it has a TON of receptors, especially the fascia that attaches to the tendons and the muscle. When this tissue gets damaged through hard work, your body literally limits the strength of the neural impulses (more accurately, the number, since the more impulses you receive per second the stronger the contraction. All impulses are around 70mV) which directly limits power output. When your body has tendons and fascia that are already highly developed and remodeled, they will not sustain damage, which means your power output will always be at its' maximum. You will be able to train harder, get better results, play harder, AND suffer fewer injuries.

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Coach Sommers recommends that you build up to a 60s tuck and advanced tuck.

Remember where?

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Joshua Naterman

His article on planche and front lever, the seminars, and I don't remember the random posts, honestly. You can search for his article though, it's how I found this site!

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Ahh found it, for the frog stand to advanced tuck planche, the protocol is 60s in one set. Beyond that it is not.

It was good to read the article again, especially this note: "My own son at the age of 13 and a bodyweight of around 110 lbs. could chin 50 lbs. for 8 reps." I forgot about the son because of Naner and her sister.

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Joshua Naterman

Yea, I believe that 30s straddle is the next goal. I have no idea if there is even a goal for PL. I suppose 10s is considered pretty solid.

Edit: In the article, Coach says that a perfect 10s straddle will probably be enough to start working towards full planche.

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Patrick Patterson

Hello all!

Sorry for the long-winded post, and honestly I'm not trying to be a smart-ass or trying to nit-pick. I've done my homework and am honestly confused. This is the only way I know how to explain it all.

It seems that a new protocol is emerging for approaching planche than I (and it seems a lot of other people) had thought. Or I have completely misunderstood things from the start. Namely: holding each progrssion for ONE set of 60secs before proceeding, and being able to do 3x30sec L-sit on the floor before starting planche work. If so... it seems I need to re-think my plan.

Like slizzardman I too found this site via Coach's original article ("Building an Olympic Body") and started working (about 2 years ago) from that article. As soon as his book came out I got it, digested it, and have been following that (as well as reading the forum) since. In the original article there seems to be some confusion between 60 seconds "total" (divided into seperate sets) and ONE 60 second set.

In the intro section he says: "Hold for sets of however many seconds you feel comfortable, while continuing to combine the time of your sets until you reach 60 seconds total time. The number of sets it takes to reach the 60 seconds combined total time is irrelevant. All that matters is that you accomplish 60 seconds of “quality workâ€." Then in the next sentence he says Once you can hold a position correctly for the entire 60 seconds in one set, it is time to move on to the next harder exercise and begin the training procedure all over again." Now... those both seem to say different things and I was confused. However later in the article in the Frog Stand section he says "Continue holding sets of this position until you have reached your one minute total time." In the next secion, Tuck Planche, he says "At first you may only be able to briefly raise off the ground. Do not worry. Keep adding small sets together to reach your goal of 60 seconds total." So in both of those section he seems to say SEPERATE sets adding up to a TOTAL of 60 sec. In the next section, Adv Tuck, he says "Once you feel comfortable with the tuck planche and are able to hold it for 60 seconds with correct hips and elbows..." which is vague because it doesn't say one set or combined. Later in that section he says "Continue working this position, until you are once again able to hold the static for 60 seconds correctly in a single set with your back completely straight (“flatâ€). Which now seems to say ONE set. And later in the Straddle planche setion he talks about only being able to hold hor 10sec, etc... I don't mean to criticize Coach's writings or to nit pick... but when I started working from this article, although I was confused I came away thinking I was always to work towards a TOTAL of 60sec divided into small sets.

When I got the book, (I don't have it in front of me to quote now) the planche section was very similar to the article, but with the added Adv Frog section, and, as I remember no mentions of any times (only explaining the form, not talking about times or sets... I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it). Only at the end of the book in the section about programming does he spell out the way it should be done and there it's clearly stated (giving as an example actually of a tuck planche) to do seperate sets that add up to a total of 60sec and once you can do it for 15sec in one set to move forward. So, getting the book seemed to cure me of any confusion there was in the article. And reading so many posts here on the forum also seems to confirm this... everyone working in small sets in a progression they can do a max hold time of atleast 5 seconds, but no more than 15 secs (less than 5 and it's too advanced, more than 15 and it's time to move forward). Over the months/years I've even seen several posts of people who say they are trying to do things in 1 set of 60sec and then everyone else corrects them and says "No. Several sets that add up to 60sec. Read the book." etc.. It seems that me, and a lot of people, have been moving forward with this protocol. I've posted seperately my stuggles with moving past the tuck stage for the past year. And now suddenly I see all this new information.

I'm not saying that we were deliberately misguided or anything like that. Maybe it just seems that over time and experience (like most things in life) Coach and/or others have made changes/adjustments to the protocols. So, I just want to see if that's true, and if so... what are they? (Slizzardman mentioned a new edition of the book for instance)

So... does that mean we are moving towards a new idea of how to get to planche? What should I do? I've been stuck at a max hold time of about 16sec for tuck planche for about a year. I can easily do a 60sec adv frog with good form. If we are now working towards doing a 60sec in ONE set tuck planche hold does that change the programming? I have only been working L-sits on push-up bars (not on the floor) and my last test I did an Adv (not 100% perfect form but definately not a regular L-sit) L-sit hold for 24sec. Also, since I don't think I'm close to doing 3x30sec L-sit on the floor... what should I do? Stop doing planche? IS this why I've been stuck at planche? Should I stop doing L-sit on push-up bars and now only use the floor? Usually I start my workouts with Planche and end with L-sit (more important/harder first)... should I reverse that and make L-sit my priority?

Sorry again for the long winded post, and although it may seem like I'm hijaking the post, I actually thing this is the heart of the original topic. Thanks again all.

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Joshua Naterman

The total time of 60 seconds is to make sure that you're getting enough volume. Until you have a solid 60s perfectly steady advanced frog stand, ONE SET, you should not be doing tuck planche. Until you have a solid 60s perfectly steady tuck planche, ONE SET, you should not be doing adv tuck. Straddle is tricky, because your straddle flexibility will determine how easy straddle is. With perfect splits, it's not much harder than adv tuck. With flexibility like mine, it's not all that much easier than a full lay.

I challenge anyone to successfully move through the progressions without prior conditioning by achieving a 15 second hold and then moving on once you've reached that point. You will not make it, plain and simple. There MAY be one person out there, but that would literally be a genetic anomaly.

What I am almost POSITIVE Coach meant was "if you don't have a 15 second hold, minimum, in a certain position you are not ready to train that position with work sets."

The experience of virtually every person here who has achieved success in their progressions will show that a 15 second hold in advanced tuck FL, for example, is not an indication that you can move on to straddle, or that a 15 second L sit means it's time to train an advanced L sit.

More often than not, the error is that of the reader. Here is a DIRECT QUOTE from "Building an Olympic Body":

The number of sets it takes to reach the 60 seconds combined total time is irrelevant. All that matters is that you accomplish 60 seconds of “quality workâ€. Once you can hold a position correctly for the entire 60 seconds in one set, it is time to move on to the next harder exercise and begin the training procedure all over again.

So, for work sets, you need 60s of perfect position. That is what quality work is. Now this next part, which I made bold, underlined, and large, is what you need to pay attention to, because somehow this has been missed by everyone. You MUST complete a single 60s set in order to move on to the next step in the progressions.

Now, a direct quote once more, on the advanced tuck Planche. Seriously, it is VERY important to read slow enough to understand what is being read. I know I am being a little condescending here, and I apologize for hurt feelings, but I hope this makes everyone reading this thread more careful in their reading. I don't care about you being able to quote things correctly half as much as I care about you being able to make progress without injury, and that simply won't happen if you don't read carefully and at least twice. NEVER assume you know. Always check the source.

Advanced Tuck Planche

Once you feel comfortable with the tuck planche and are able to hold it for 60 seconds with correct hips and elbows, you can increase the difficulty of this exercise by progressing on to the Advanced Tuck Planche. The primary difference between the tuck and advanced tuck planche is the position of the back. Note that in the tuck planche the back is curved, while in the advanced tuck planche the back appears flat. While holding your hips shoulder high, try to extend your hips back behind you until your back is flat. This “flattening†will greatly increase the intensity of the tuck planche. In fact, I think you will be extremely surprised at how much harder such a small movement can make the tuck planche.

Continue working this position, until you are once again able to hold the static for 60 seconds correctly in a single set with your back completely straight (“flatâ€).

I have not altered anything except the size, boldness, and underlining of the text. The format is cut and paste.

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I trust you all about the 60 sec thing, so I'm not going to make that mistake. And I will take your word for it and train till I can hold a high tuck planche for 60 sec now.

I have 2 questions now.

I could hold over 30 secs at a mid level height planche but at my highest planche (hips are at least shoulder height) I can only hold about 20 secs. How long if I train the static every day and do 2x10 PPP lean and wall planche every M,T,TH,F will it take for me to get a 60 sec hold high tuck?

And my other concern is that when I hold the high tuck for awhile the bone in my forearm starts to hurt very bad right when I take the pressure off of it. Its almost a sharp pain. This wasnt ocurring in a lower tuck but only when I go too high. Is this an injury? If so how do i recover/ how long will it take , will it have permanent damage? oh yeah, I do the tucks on my knuckles to get height and because it painful on my wrists if I do them on my wrists. And the pain in my forearm only happens while I use my knuckles.

I appreciate it.

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Joshua Naterman
I trust you all about the 60 sec thing, so I'm not going to make that mistake. And I will take your word for it and train till I can hold a high tuck planche for 60 sec now.

I have 2 questions now.

I could hold over 30 secs at a mid level height planche but at my highest planche (hips are at least shoulder height) I can only hold about 20 secs. How long if I train the static every day and do 2x10 PPP lean and wall planche every M,T,TH,F will it take for me to get a 60 sec hold high tuck?

And my other concern is that when I hold the high tuck for awhile the bone in my forearm starts to hurt very bad right when I take the pressure off of it. Its almost a sharp pain. This wasnt ocurring in a lower tuck but only when I go too high. Is this an injury? If so how do i recover/ how long will it take , will it have permanent damage? oh yeah, I do the tucks on my knuckles to get height and because it painful on my wrists if I do them on my wrists. And the pain in my forearm only happens while I use my knuckles.

I appreciate it.

For your first question, it is really hard to say. What I can say for certain is that if you only train with your hips at shoulder height you will get there the fastest. If you start with five 12 second holds and can complete all the sets, bump it up to four 15 second holds. When you get to where that isn't a problem, go for 5 sets of 15 seconds. Then bump up to 16-17 seconds per hold. You will need a good visible clock on the floor (my personal preference is a digital kitchen timer) to be precise on this, but it will work! You may be at a 60s hold in six months if you do your static work 4 days a week. If you do 5 days a week, I'd just do 2-3 sets of advanced frog for 60s. Make sure you end your sets the second you lose even an inch of position! You can always do a few smaller sets at the end to make up for what you miss, but you will accomplish two things: One, you will teach your nervous system the correct position and two, you will minimize the recovery needed. When you start dropping inch by inch that's a negative, and that causes a LOT of damage. Damage means recovery. By abandoning ship the moment you lose position you are conserving your body's regenerative resources which is a good thing. That is how you can train very frequently. This is something that many people do wrong.

Where is the pain in your forearm? That's a large area. Is it closer to your wrist or your elbow? Try and be as accurate as you can. No matter whee it is, the increased force from holding the higher position is what is causing it. That means that the connective tissue isn't strong enough yet. You should probably do shorter holds for a while in the high tuck. That's what I mean when I say that planche is a feat of connective tissue strength, it is always where people run into problems. You are probably feeling the same frustration that I felt before, in that you want to get that darn planche already! Don't worry about a timeline. The worst thing you can do for your progress is to try and match it to a date on the calendar.

As fr your second question, you might have a small injury, but it's nothing serious right now so don't worry! Spending a lot of time in advanced frog stand will probably be the fastest way for you to heal. If the lower tuck doesn't bother you, then that is probably the healthy limit of your connective tissue. Stay there for 6-8 weeks and then raise your hips about an inch. Just keep repeating that cycle keeping the same hold times, and you should be fine! It sounds slow, but in six months (something of an arbitrary time, but it's certainly possible!) you will either be doing a painless hip-level planche or you won't be. Your patience with your progress and your focus on working as hard as you can without pain or discomfort will be what determine whether you will or will not be there. Does that make sense?

If I were you, in the same spot in my training as you, I'd be frustrated reading this, so don't feel like you're an idiot if you feel that way. I feel frustrated too, but I'm being patient and I am making steady progress. In two years, I will be at least doing a strong advanced tuck. That will make me a very happy man! It will only happen because I am determined to stay patient and not push too hard.

Edit: a question about your wrists: What is your hand position? fingers straight forward, forward at an angle, out to the side, or back at an angle? Just so you know, a LOT of people including me run into wrist pain when their fingers are forward and sometimes even when it's just forward at an angle. Personally, that is why I am working on my advanced frog with my fingers pointing back. It is MUCH harder in every way except wrist strain. I still work on planche leans with my hands forward to SLOWLY develop the strength and flexibility to be able to do planche that way in the future, but I suspect that is a long time from now!

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Neal Winkler

Why would you want to hold the tuck planche higher than shoulder height? I haven't heard that before.

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Patrick Patterson

Thanks Slizzardman and no hurt feelings. The thing is those quotes that you gave are only in that original web article, but are totally absent (deleted) from the book. The book only talks about times at the end section on programing (no mention in the planche section) and even there as I remember it actually gives an example of doing a tuck planche and moving forward to the next progression once you can hold more than 15sec. As the book came after the on-line article, and, well, it's The Book, that was always my guide. My experience has been what you have explained however (not being able to progress forward in the planche while applying what's in the book about programming). As I haven't taken a seminar nor talked directly with coach (which I assume that you have) it seems that now what he wrote in the article, and not the book, applies to the planche progession, correct?

My situation is this: for about a year I've been stuck with a max tuck planche hold time of 16sec. I've detailed it in these posts:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2693

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3926

From this new take on it, should I now change my approach? I havent' yet tested myself at the end the new cycle which incorporates what was mentioned in the last thread (doing sets of Adv Frog at 30sec, some sets of Tuck at 12-15 sec, and some sets of Adv Tuck, instead of the usual 8x8 Tuck planche I've been doing for a year) so we'll see what progress is there. However... the other big information that I hadn't heard anywhere before was about not even starting planche until a 3x30sec floor L-sit is accomplished. Could this be the key behind my stagnation? Should I stop planche work and focus instead on L-sit and make that my priority? (perhaps do maintainece work on planche or something?) Am I basically spinning my wheels here with the planche when I should be establishing something first in the L-sit?

Thanks again.

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Joshua Naterman
Thanks Slizzardman and no hurt feelings. The thing is those quotes that you gave are only in that original web article, but are totally absent (deleted) from the book. The book only talks about times at the end section on programing (no mention in the planche section) and even there as I remember it actually gives an example of doing a tuck planche and moving forward to the next progression once you can hold more than 15sec. As the book came after the on-line article, and, well, it's The Book, that was always my guide. My experience has been what you have explained however (not being able to progress forward in the planche while applying what's in the book about programming). As I haven't taken a seminar nor talked directly with coach (which I assume that you have) it seems that now what he wrote in the article, and not the book, applies to the planche progession, correct?

My situation is this: for about a year I've been stuck with a max tuck planche hold time of 16sec. I've detailed it in these posts:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2693

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3926

From this new take on it, should I now change my approach? I havent' yet tested myself at the end the new cycle which incorporates what was mentioned in the last thread (doing sets of Adv Frog at 30sec, some sets of Tuck at 12-15 sec, and some sets of Adv Tuck, instead of the usual 8x8 Tuck planche I've been doing for a year) so we'll see what progress is there. However... the other big information that I hadn't heard anywhere before was about not even starting planche until a 3x30sec floor L-sit is accomplished. Could this be the key behind my stagnation? Should I stop planche work and focus instead on L-sit and make that my priority? (perhaps do maintainece work on planche or something?) Am I basically spinning my wheels here with the planche when I should be establishing something first in the L-sit?

Thanks again.

Stopping your planche work would be madness! However, shifting your priority to the L-sit is probably a good idea because it is a prerequisite for almost everything.

If you can hold a 16s tuck, I can't imagine you not being able to do 60s advanced frog. I'd do three sets of 60s frog two days a week and your tuck planche work two other days, probably alternating like M - Adv Frog, T- tuck PL, TH- Adv Frog, F- tuck PL. Try that for one month and see how it works. You may see results even sooner. It is surprising how much regular Advanced Frog helps Planche development!

I looked through The Book last night and I couldn't find any specific references to time for statics. All I see is

Patience and perseverance are potent tools. Progress on the planche is most

often measured in months, not weeks. Don't get too caught up in minutiae or

trying to progress as quickly as possible.

Aha! I found what you are referencing. I don't know why that is in the book, because not only has that not been my experience personally, but it has not been the experience of anyone here that I know of. The article seems to be more on point, not only with our experiences but also with what we were passed down in the seminars. Now, with easy 15s work sets I could see this being a possible minimum recommendation, but that would imply a 30s max hold so I have no idea what was going on with the recommendation in BtGB.

All I can say about that is that we as a group have found that despite the 15s recommendation we are getting much better results with longer holds. We should always go with our experiences, especially with such an overwhelmingly similar experience across such a wide and varied group of athletes!

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Coach Sommer
All I can say about that is that we as a group have found that despite the 15s recommendation we are getting much better results with longer holds.

The duration of the static holds is directly related to level of the static hold in question. The easiest static holds (e.g. parallel bar support) have a maximum requirement of 60 seconds, while more advanced holds (e.g. iron cross) would only build to a maximum of 15 seconds.

We should always go with our experiences, especially with such an overwhelmingly similar experience across such a wide and varied group of athletes!

Actually you may want to consider asking the coach who could then explain the intricacies involved in the training. :wink:

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

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I train for planches since 2006 and still can´t hold a decent full planche but this year i felt a lot of progress after increasing the volume of the easier holds (that´s individual, everyone has his own easy and hard positions) so i stopped doing a workout for planche that was constitued of 10 sets of 5 secs of straddle planche and implemented a workout with more volume and easier holds for me that was like this:

Mon,Wed,Fri = 15 sets of 5 secs Half-Lay Planche :arrow: total time 75 secs

Tue,Thu,Sat,Sun = 10 sets of 20 seconds on Advanced Tuck Planche :arrow: total time 200 secs

This high frequency high volume medium intensity workout is easier for me than the 10sets of 5 secs straddle or trying 2 or 3 secs of full planche, and is giving a excellent result in a short time (3 months since i started this scheme).

There is a proportion created by Vilfredo Pareto saying that 80% of your results comes from 20% of your efforts, i was doing some ring strength workouts and spending a huge amount of energy in some strength routines that did increase strength but for planche they wasn´t so effective than this approach that takes only 1h/day to complete and is directly related to planche development.

Sometimes we have to put some areas in maintenance mode and build up the necessary conditioning for what we want.

My advice for who's struggling to progress towards a more difficult variation, be advanced tuck or full planche, is build up more volume on the easier ones, why not doing 3 sets of 60secs in adv frog to help build up the transition from tuck to advance tuck? Go down two levels and put a big volume with good frequency and i bet you'll trespass the plateau that hold us sometimes.

I don't want to say that the approach of one set of 60 secs it's wrong, it's not, i just think it doesn't hurt to increase even more than 60 secs to help you build a lot of work capacity for the next levels cause near the end is like a geometric progression, you have to do a lot more effort to go from advanced tuck to half-lay than the effort you've done to go from frog to advanced tuck.

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Patrick Patterson

Excellent, thanks guys!

Yes, I've been following what was spelled out in the book, but as you say slizzardman, since it's come out it seems that myself and others have hit a wall with planche when applying that, so it's good to see this development in approaching it. However appliyng the formula to the other 3 static exercises I've been doing (l-sit, front lever, back lever) I've seen consistent results. So it does make sense that the difficulty of the hold is adjusted for in the times. I now wonder if the smaller walls that I've hit in, for instance, back lever, could work with this approach (doing work sets of 6-10 sec got me quickly to a max 25sec flat tuck BL, but the past 2 cycles I haven't been about to get to a full straddle, been stuck at doing 8x8 of "half-straddle" and my max times have been the same... so maybe I should just do longer holds of the flat tuck instead of 8sec holds of the half-straddle). Basically as jutajata mentions: high frequency high volume medium intensity.

Yes, holding a 60sec Adv Frog is no problem for me. I'll be testing tomorrow as I'm at the end of my cycle and then start a new one. In the new one I'll try out the suggested routine both slizzardman and jutajata mentioned: alternating days of adv frog and tuck planche work. For the adv frog days I should go with 60sec x 3 sets, and for the tuck days... should I stick with the 8sec x 8 I've been doing, or (as in my recent cyle following advice from my other threads) pushing myself to do longer holds in tuck (like 12sec x 5-6 sets), or...? Also what about rest times (for both the 60sec adv frog and tuck days) between sets?

I also think I'll move my L-sit to the start of the statics workout (before it was always last and planche was first) and move planche to the end (or second... or...?).

About the L-sit: since the emphasis from Coach now seems to come from doing 30sec x 3 on the FLOOR... should I stop working Lsit on the push-up bars and just use the floor (I think my hold times on the floor are about half what they are on the push-up bars)? My last test I did a 22sec max hold of Adv tuck (on push-up bars). Should I just test myself now on the floor and go from there using the the programming as in the book: work sets of max hold divided in half, adding up to 60sec hold time... or perhaps doing something for l-sit like we all are talking about for planche (doing longer holds for more max time, alternating days of easier progression holds for 30-60sec holds with harder progressions holds around 10sec work sets)?

Thanks again everyone.

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Joshua Naterman

Actually you may want to consider asking the coach who could then explain the intricacies involved in the training. :wink:

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

HAHAHA! Well, to be honest I was only talking about the first few planche progressions. I know that a 60s straddle would take forever and ever to build, and I haven't the slightest idea about full lay or anything else! I figured that for now the info through flat tuck would be enough since that's all any of us are doing!

But, since you mention it... :lol:!!! What are your recommendations for straddle FL and PL max hold goals? Full lay?

I certainly wasn't saying that we should just figure it out on our own. I was purely referring to the contradiction between the 15s mentioned in the book and the 60s mentioned in your article!

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Joshua Naterman
Excellent, thanks guys!

Yes, holding a 60sec Adv Frog is no problem for me. I'll be testing tomorrow as I'm at the end of my cycle and then start a new one. In the new one I'll try out the suggested routine both slizzardman and jutajata mentioned: alternating days of adv frog and tuck planche work. For the adv frog days I should go with 60sec x 3 sets, and for the tuck days... should I stick with the 8sec x 8 I've been doing, or (as in my recent cyle following advice from my other threads) pushing myself to do longer holds in tuck (like 12sec x 5-6 sets), or...? Also what about rest times (for both the 60sec adv frog and tuck days) between sets?

I don't know what Juta's doing, but it's working so hopefully he'll weigh in. For me, 1-2 minutes is plenty. I have yet to take more than 90s for adv frog. For your tuck days I'd go with whatever you're doing now, unless you think you can do it with less rest.

I also think I'll move my L-sit to the start of the statics workout (before it was always last and planche was first) and move planche to the end (or second... or...?).

Coach, can you advise here? I know you have your guys do the L-sit, Straddle L and MSH in warm up, but do they do planche there as well?

For your advanced frog days, you should absolutely have it in the warm up. I don't know about your tuck days, I'm waiting for coach on that one. I am wondering what is best there as well. My suspicion is to still have it in the warm up, honestly.

About the L-sit: since the emphasis from Coach now seems to come from doing 30sec x 3 on the FLOOR... should I stop working Lsit on the push-up bars and just use the floor (I think my hold times on the floor are about half what they are on the push-up bars)? My last test I did a 22sec max hold of Adv tuck (on push-up bars). Should I just test myself now on the floor and go from there using the the programming as in the book: work sets of max hold divided in half, adding up to 60sec hold time... or perhaps doing something for l-sit like we all are talking about for planche (doing longer holds for more max time, alternating days of easier progression holds for 30-60sec holds with harder progressions holds around 10sec work sets)?

Ok, I am not sure what you are saying!!! You switched from L-sit to Adv tuck!

If you have trouble with ground clearance in L-sits, as I do, you could use books or cinder blocks(my personal choice) or something else for hand elevation! I use these for bent MSH and Straddle L as well since I don't have a convenient ledge or anything of the sort. They also happen to be excellent for weighted pike stretches.

I think that floor testing is the most accurate thing for you to do, but realistically you should be testing on whatever you do your work sets with. So if you're doing most work sets on the floor, yes you should test on floor. L-sit on the floor is great for beginning wrist conditioning, I know that for sure!

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