front lever skill help

hello all,

i need a little help or ideas for my front lever progression. it is frustrating me because i can do a full back lever, but i cant hold a front lever with legs bent at the hip for more then a second or two. which i will say is an improvement over a month ago when i started my work on it and couldn't hold it at all.

the two things i have been doing to work on this is front lever negatives and a variation of an inverted pike to front lever. the variation is such were i pike and then just move my legs out slowly to the front lever position or as far as i can. i typically only make it to about the 90 degree range.

oh, and i do have the coaches book and tried the body levers but i cant do one of those yet ether. i may have made it to hard but i tried to model it like the book showed, on an elevated object with only the shoulder blades touching the surface.

so any help or ideas will be greatly appreciated and thank you all!

Do you have a good hollow body position on the ground? That will probably help with the body levers. Also, how is your l hang on the rings. A lot of people use that as an intermidiate step. Last, you can do a front lever a bit higher then normal. After you build up some time there, lower it down to horizontal.

PHILIP said:

Do you have a good hollow body position on the ground? That will probably help with the body levers. Also, how is your l hang on the rings. A lot of people use that as an intermidiate step. Last, you can do a front lever a bit higher then normal. After you build up some time there, lower it down to horizontal.

yes i do have a good hollow body on the ground and my i and L hangs and sits are not to bad. i can get an advanced L sit on the rings for 15-25 sec.

as for the front lever being higher, are you saying do it to say a 45 degree angle instead of the 90 and do static holds?

Well the last thing is to make sure your scapula retractors are working well. Look up the bulgarian rows.

But yes. Work it at 45 degrees. Or lower if you feel comfortable and higher if you don't. But the general idea is building some quality time with the front lever. Once you have that, you will probably test your normal front lever and have a new record time.

definitely fro my experience and from some boys who train with me that if you increase your overweigthed pullup you increase your front lever!!!

about 9 months ago i was in a steady situation where i can't pass from solid falt tuck fl to a straddle and i have a full BL anch straddle planche!!

i started a strength progression for the pull up stopping for 2-3 months the front lever, when i was about at 110% bodyweigth pullup i started see progress in front lever ans i did 2-3 seconds of straddle front lever and 1 sec full FL...now i train boths and i am about 140+% bodyweigth training and now i can hold a front lever straddle for 18-20 seconds..so my objective was increase my full front lever and i am on the rigth way!!! so this process was recomended to me by Slizzardman and works very very well!!!

PHILIP said:

Well the last thing is to make sure your scapula retractors are working well. Look up the bulgarian rows.

But yes. Work it at 45 degrees. Or lower if you feel comfortable and higher if you don't. But the general idea is building some quality time with the front lever. Once you have that, you will probably test your normal front lever and have a new record time.

i have been doing the bulgarian rows on my rings and mix up just doing row and the plyometric side where i pull with enough force to make my hands leave the bar or rings and can clap or something. but i will add the 45 holds into my workout and see how the fair, it sounds like a great idea that i definitely overlooked!

alex87 said:

definitely fro my experience and from some boys who train with me that if you increase your overweigthed pullup you increase your front lever!!!

about 9 months ago i was in a steady situation where i can't pass from solid falt tuck fl to a straddle and i have a full BL anch straddle planche!!

i started a strength progression for the pull up stopping for 2-3 months the front lever, when i was about at 110% bodyweigth pullup i started see progress in front lever ans i did 2-3 seconds of straddle front lever and 1 sec full FL...now i train boths and i am about 140+% bodyweigth training and now i can hold a front lever straddle for 18-20 seconds..so my objective was increase my full front lever and i am on the rigth way!!! so this process was recomended to me by Slizzardman and works very very well!!!

that is an interesting concept. how did weighted pull ups help with that? is it that your arm and back strength help you to compensate for the other muscles or are they just that vital in the front lever? i would have never have thought to put that together in my building toward a front lever thank you so much for sharing this with me!

i think because the hands do a similar movements, is always a pull down...

also consider the idea that pullover and pull down at the cable can help to your goal..

but i prefer the pullup with hands at the shoulder's level, more open them are more is the work of inferior trapezius and posterior delts...so try the pull up full ROM, pull to the sternum until you can hear the triceps wich start contract..you can use a normal strength progression around 4 weeks...after four week you can increase your 1RM by 2.5-3 kg

The lats and lower traps are the two MOST important muscles in the FL, and those get very strong when you do pull ups and chin ups correctly. Progressively adding weight helps get them strong enough to where you can handle the forces required by the low leverage of the FL itself!

FL requires a helluva lot of pullup strength besides a strong core.

So think 3/4 to full BW+ pullup+body lever like it's going out of style.

BL does not require as strong of pull strength. It's more about core strength, locking out correctly (squeezing hard even when doing it without the lat cheat) and good push strength.

slizzardman said:

The lats and lower traps are the two MOST important muscles in the FL, and those get very strong when you do pull ups and chin ups correctly. Progressively adding weight helps get them strong enough to where you can handle the forces required by the low leverage of the FL itself!

well that makes sense and explains a lot. what would you recommend for pull up work, to focus on wide pulls and behind the head pulls to isolate more of the lats and back or just combine them all?

Blairbob said:

FL requires a helluva lot of pullup strength besides a strong core.

So think 3/4 to full BW+ pullup+body lever like it's going out of style.

BL does not require as strong of pull strength. It's more about core strength, locking out correctly (squeezing hard even when doing it without the lat cheat) and good push strength.

so then it is not uncommon to be able to do a back lever but be no where near a front lever? and what is the lat cheat?

also something else that may help with advice, i am 6'6" 225lbs. would anything change because of my height? i know that my height will make things a bit harder but will it play that big of a factor?

also i have another question that i dont think another tread should be started for, but my goal is while i am deployed for the next two years is to go from where i am now to being able to do all the 5 rated moves in the coaches book and progress to hold an iron cross. is that a reasonable expectation or would it take more time then that? i know it will depend on how hard i work, this is more a question of if it is physically possible to make the jump from in some areas starting at half to 1 and progressing to 5 in a two year time frame.

thank you all again for your great advise and help!!

2 years is not going to happen. You should have FL in 2 years or less for sure, but PL and cross? No way, not unless you already have a very solid 15+s adv tuck planche, and even then I think that's pushing it.

I am 6'2 and 215 right now, and based on current progress I am at least 3 years out from a cross and probably 4 years out from actually being able to train it frequently. Unless you have the true locked arm adv tuck planche for at least 15s right now there is no way in hell you will be able to safely hold a cross in 2 years, and even then I think it is probably a bad idea to try that.

I have found that my best progress has been coming ever since I stopped worrying about timelines and started just focusing on 6-12 week SSC for pretty much everything.

Having said all that, I think your best approach (and your best progress) will be to start working smart. Work your weighted pull ups and rows, work your BW progressions for FL,

2-3 sets of each 3 days per week is a very good idea. This will be a long workout, probably 90 minutes, but will literally hit EVERYTHING.

A more time-efficient method is to hit the WODs and to do assistance work (weighted chins/pulls and rows) twice a week for 2-4 sets each.

You should absolutely focus on mixing the grips, don't worry about behind the neck until you are very strong with double shoulder width pull ups. Close chins, shoulder width chins, shoulder width pull ups and parallel grip pull ups are the 4 grips that are the primary concern.

Also work on your ring support.

slizzardman said:

2 years is not going to happen. You should have FL in 2 years or less for sure, but PL and cross? No way, not unless you already have a very solid 15+s adv tuck planche, and even then I think that's pushing it.

I am 6'2 and 215 right now, and based on current progress I am at least 3 years out from a cross and probably 4 years out from actually being able to train it frequently. Unless you have the true locked arm adv tuck planche for at least 15s right now there is no way in hell you will be able to safely hold a cross in 2 years, and even then I think it is probably a bad idea to try that.

well at least i get the reality check at the beginning and can more effectively train. but the adv tuck planche definitely isn't solid and only at about 3 sec. but i would be very happy being able to complete the ring strength 3 at the end of my tour. i think that i am just excited about having a good chunk of time that i will have 3-5 hours a day to just work out and dial in skills and hope to make great strides during this time. but like all things, you can only grow so much so fast.

i will definitely take what you have told me and add that to my work out schedule. but would it be over working by training the bw progressions more then 3 times a week? what i have been doing is using that as kinda my warm up is skin the cats, bl negatives, fl negatives, pikes, L sit static holds, dips, push ups and extended arm planks (supermans i think are what some people call them) a couple of sets a piece of 5. then i will get into the wod and then what ever after if i still have more energy, followed by stretching. i am use to doing a similar routine prior to my work out but have incorporated the ring skill sets but i dont want to over do it. what are your thoughts.

slizzardman i do want to thank you very much for your honesty and all your help!