Simulating planche with weights

Hey everyone.

It seems as If I have been working on planche forever, and have made very little progress.

I have recently changed my program to include straight arm lifts with weights and have made much more progress then when I was using the 60sec static hold method.

Basically what Ive been doing is lying on the bench with my arms up, and the weights stacked all on the thumb side of the dumbbell. Lowering the weights with straight arms down to an inch off the ground (close to a back lever position) And then backup to infront (parrallel to the body like planche, not wide like maltese).

I started off with only 5 kilos and have worked it up to 11.25 kilos in each hand (3 x 7). Ive gone from being unable to progress past tuck planche to flashing a straddle planche for a few seconds.

Ill get a video up for critique soon.

EDIT Here is the vid

Anyway just wondering if anyone else has used this method? what were your results?

I got the exercise from one of the coaches from the state high performance gym next door.

From the post above it is obvious you didn't read a 10% of planche training and accsessory exercises to have a whole training "richer".

I have written alot of information about dumbell accsessory exercises and many others like planche leans, weaklinks (if you know what is your week link you know what to add into your training),...

EDITED

Bottom line this is just a accsessory exercise and not main, it could be verry important part of training though.

Sorry if I sounded rude, but many people just don't look enough hard to find basic information wich have been disscused already few times and some are in sticky topics :roll: .

Ps:I think one is in sticky and one long topic about planche and not improving (why?) wich was being disscused and explained reasons (but I think it's not sticky, but is disscuse by me, Razz I think and maybe slizz? but I don't know who is an author of a question).

That's the problem with such a popular forum. You really can't expect someone to read through ever single topic just to make sure they aren't double posting. Just at the bottom of the main page it points out that there are over 36,000 posts in 4,000 topics. So many of those posts contain the words "planche" and "weight" that you can't tell the person they should just do a search first because that would almost take just as long

maybe search for authors of post :roll:

If I'm frank I am tired of revriting everything for 3 or more times.

ThomasJG said:

Hey everyone.

It seems as If I have been working on planche forever, and have made very little progress.

I have recently changed my program to include straight arm lifts with weights and have made much more progress then when I was using the 60sec static hold method.

Basically what Ive been doing is lying on the bench with my arms up, and the weights stacked all on the thumb side of the dumbbell. Lowering the weights with straight arms down to an inch off the ground (close to a back lever position) And then backup to infront (parrallel to the body like planche, not wide like maltese).

I started off with only 5 kilos and have worked it up to 11.25 kilos in each hand (3 x 7). Ive gone from being unable to progress past tuck planche to flashing a straddle planche for a few seconds.

Ill get a video up for critique soon.

Anyway just wondering if anyone else has used this method? what were your results?

I got the exercise from one of the coaches from the state high performance gym next door.

If the only thing you were doing was FSP holds then of course your planche progress was less than stellar! There are entire warm up series that we go over at the seminars that, through different methods, cover what you tried and much, much more.

So what you're doing is smart, but don't think that's the only thing you need to do. A complete training program is required for truly excellent progress!

IF you really want to know more read Gregor's training log "Building the body for rings" because he generously has shared a LOT of his own personal training program.

A final word of advice! Make SURE you concentrate heavily on keeping your pulling and scapular retraction strength as well developed as possible. Too much planche-specific work without that for balance will completely wreck your body down the line.

Video coming tommorow.

I used several other exercises, Negatives, planche leans, static holds, pushups... nothing seemed to work until now.

Still, does anyone else do this exercise a lot, what were the results?

slizzardman said:

If the only thing you were doing was FSP holds then of course your planche progress was less than stellar! There are entire warm up series that we go over at the seminars that, through different methods, cover what you tried and much, much more.

So what you're doing is smart, but don't think that's the only thing you need to do. A complete training program is required for truly excellent progress!

Yeah, but you can't blame him or anyone else since only a few people, relatively, have seen this extra stuff.

ThomasJG said:

Video coming tommorow.

I used several other exercises, Negatives, planche leans, static holds, pushups... nothing seemed to work until now.

Still, does anyone else do this exercise a lot, what were the results?

As you say, sometimes these little details make a big difference. The single most important thing is joint balancing and working the body as completely as possible through the course of a training cycle. That is the primary function of the WODs, and that is why everyone who has switched over to WODs and FSP warm up on WOD days has gotten excellent results. However, it will absolutely benefit everyone to research through Gregor's training log and attend the seminars. There are things you learn that will drastically accelerate your progress.

I am glad you're seeing success, but I would like you to read through the first few months of my training log, and then realize that my short term success led to nearly a whole year of wasted time due to injury. You can avoid this by being diligent about focusing slightly more on scapular mobility, shoulder flexibility/mobility and strength balance across the shoulder girdle, specifically scapular retraction and depression.

We're looking forward to the video. I've done this and more early in my stint here after reading about it in Gregor's log, but as I said I did not pace myself properly and ended up wasting what is actually more than a year now. Things got really bad last August, and now it's 13 months later. I'm finally able to start training again properly. Don't pursue the planche with reckless abandon, pace yourself. Do your statics as SSC, and use this other supplementary training in a similar fashion. It takes people 2-3 years to properly condition the biceps tendon. Don't try to do it faster, you are just as subject to human biology as the rest of us. It does you no good to hold a planche in 12 months if you are injured at the 18 month mark. You'd be better off setting a 2-3 year goal and being pleasantly surprised if you follow all the rules and have a solid 5 second full lay planche in 18 months. Does that make sense?

The accessory work will help a LOT, but don't think that it exempts you from the time it takes to develop the connective tissue. That doesn't change.

You will also find that bicep specific work helps a lot, so putting some bicep curls in your warm up is a good idea.

Hey dudes dont worry im not in a rush.

Its been a 3 year goal for me and Im already 1 and a half years in....

I go to a circus school and I want to have it by graduation (3 year course, So I still have another year and a bit to make it).

The video I made is too big so I gotta make another one in less quality.

Try youtube's advanced file upload, it allows files over 3 gigs! it does have to be less than 15 minutes though!

I split my eyebrow open at training yesterday and had to get stitches. It was pretty sweet but it meant I'm not aloud to train for a few days so that the scar is minimal.

So video will be next training week lol.

yeah I think I will youtube it, my videos work on there.

How did you split your eyebrow in TRAINING? That's a terrible place to have a scar!

I was doing a frontsault through a stack of hoops.

I blanked on one of them and forgot to tuck late, so my knee took the hoop into my face. Its made of centimetre thick wood so it does a pretty good job of splitting skin.

My chinese trainer told me no handstands for a few days when he saw me doing weights today. So... its going to be a long and boring week at circus school when im not aloud to train.

Its not such a bad place to have a scar? Don't chicks dig scars?

LOL!!! That's a pretty good story!

I'm just thinking as a fighter. You never want scar tissue around your eyebrows, one half-decent hit on scars there and they split open and quickly more or less blind your eye.

Sorry the video is so dark its nowehere near that dark on my phone. Something must have got lost in translation...

I get my stitches out today

I've been doing almost only this for my planche training since I've been away from the forums, only started 2 weeks ago, and have noticed drastic advances. Then again, I didn't start on true work outs until then, so consistent practice is probably the main factor.

Just like you, I've been doing that exercise with a barbell with 50lbs. I (personally) don't think the dumbbell version is necessary because there's not that much instability with planches. You won't be doing them with one arm any time soon

This isn't the best place to put this post but... I think suddenly jumping back into planche training with such large weights has made my tendonitis symptoms come back. However, I'm treating them and it hasn't actually happened, so I don't have tendonitis... yet. I just do my regular work out until I can feel it starting to come back, stop working, and then ice it.

The instability of DB will help if you plan on rings planche, but I suppose it's true that either BB or DB is fine for building strength.

Seiji said:

I've been doing almost only this for my planche training since I've been away from the forums, only started 2 weeks ago, and have noticed drastic advances. Then again, I didn't start on true work outs until then, so consistent practice is probably the main factor.

Just like you, I've been doing that exercise with a barbell with 50lbs. I (personally) don't think the dumbbell version is necessary because there's not that much instability with planches. You won't be doing them with one arm any time soon

This isn't the best place to put this post but... I think suddenly jumping back into planche training with such large weights has made my tendonitis symptoms come back. However, I'm treating them and it hasn't actually happened, so I don't have tendonitis... yet. I just do my regular work out until I can feel it starting to come back, stop working, and then ice it.

The instability of DB will help if you plan on rings planche, but I suppose it's true that either BB or DB is fine for building strength.

As for your tendonitis issues... if you feel anything, you have an issue brewing. Period. Stop doing what you're doing, all you will do is reinforce your injury. Start off with around 10% of your BW. For me, I'm using 20 lbs. TOTAL. That means 10 lb db each hand, just to be clear. I will be working this for 6 weeks, and then increasing the weight 2 lbs. I'll probably have to use wrist weights for that, but that is ok. Then another 6 weeks, same thing. Same reps. Same sets. No change. With such small increments and the somewhat large time for adaptation there should be no issues and this should be a restorative exercise. Of course, I am going from back lever position through maltese to planche and back, 15 reps with 4-6 seconds for each rep. I don't think there will be any issues, and I think that in 4-5 years I will have an incredibly solid planche. Taking it slow like this, making a multi-year plan and sticking to it, that is what will get you where you want to be. Now, with your body weight you will be there much sooner than I will, perhaps 2 years if you start now. I'm talking about a straight arm static, not those crappy bent arm planche push ups I see all over youtube. You and I could both be doing those dinky push ups in two months if we wanted to.

Hey ThomasJG,

What did your training look like while you were doing the dumbell planche presses?

I started adding the horizontal DB PL/BL work to go along with DB CrossHS on Tues. Pretty fun but I was only able to work up to 5r with 25's. Unfortunately, all we have at the gym is 30's. Perhaps I should get some adjustable DB and the weights to build this further. Unfortunately, single DB are pretty expensive.

I did this on my light day after ring strength series day and felt fine the day after. I think I'll continue doing it. 1 set of 15s, 1 set of 20s, 1 set of 25s.

http://gymnasticswod.com/content/mon-0418