Question regarding the planche static hold position

[Mason89]

Hello, iv progressed from the planche frog stand to the Advance frog stand, but find it very difficult to lock my elbows out in order to maintain the straight arms as described in GtBGB, however i tried this position out on a pair of push up bars and got it straight away. I believe that the reason i cannot do it on the floor is because of poor wrist flexibility, this is something i shall work on but what i would like to know is, am i hindering my progression by just using the push up bars?

Many thanks

Stirling

[Joshua Naterman]

Absolutely not. I am the same way. I can do my PLs on both floor and bars, but I feel more in control of my muscle activation on bars. It is important to work both in my opinion.

Fair statements. If you want a floor planche you are obviously going to need to address the wrist issue by either adjusting hand position and working easier variations on the floor (planche leans are really the way to go here) or stretching for a while and re-visiting the floor in a month or two. Either way, start with planche leans and don't bother with adv frog on floor until you have a 40-60s planche lean with your wrists at your belly button and a proper hollow body. The lean allows you to very slowly and progressively strengthen and stretch your wrists simultaneously.

[Mason89]

Thank you for the replies, i will give the leans a go. my wrist flexibility is so poor haha ill improve

[Joshua Naterman]

Floor PL for me is more of a matter of getting that nice hard protraction, but I do focus heavily on PL leans for floor. I don't think the PL lean can be emphasized enough.

Interesting. For me it's about learning to squeeze my elbows towards my body with my lats and chest. At this point my lats actually get tired during push ups lol!

[Joshua Naterman]

Me too. The trick there, I believe, is that shoulders tends to focus on delts. Elbows focuses on lats and chest, which are both key support muscles in planche and help keep the shoulder centered in the socket by fighting the posterior translational pressure due to gravity pulling the core down against the head of the humerus.

Shoulders is the original word taught at the seminars when talking planche activation, but your lats connect to the upper arms and perform shoulder adduction. Therefore focusing on elbow position and movement seemed to be the smarter visualization to use, which I have been using for about a month now. It works much better for me, glad to hear it works for you too!

[Erik Sjolin]

When you say "centered in the socket" do you mean in terms of elevation and depression, retraction and protraction, or both? I've gone back to focusing only on planks, PL leans and adv frogstands to really drill scapular protraction in, so there's pretty heavy protraction in my PL work. I'd really hate to be doing the wrong thing again.

[Joshua Naterman]

When you say "centered in the socket" do you mean in terms of elevation and depression, retraction and protraction, or both? I've gone back to focusing only on planks, PL leans and adv frogstands to really drill scapular protraction in, so there's pretty heavy protraction in my PL work. I'd really hate to be doing the wrong thing again.

Scapular positioning is separate. I am talking about the head of the humerus in the glenoid fossa, upper arm bone in scapula. The position of the scapula is not as important as muscle activation of the upper arm-to-scapula muscles and upper arm-to-rib cage muscles. Those are what stabilize the head in the socket. The scapula to ribcage/spinal column muscles are what hold the shoulder socket in a stable position so that the upper arm muscles mentioned previously have a stable surface to stabilize the humeral head on.

Does that make more sense?

You are going to be protracted nearly fully in a static planche position, but that has nothing to do with centering the humeral head and equalization of forces in the socket.

[Erik Sjolin]

When you say "centered in the socket" do you mean in terms of elevation and depression, retraction and protraction, or both? I've gone back to focusing only on planks, PL leans and adv frogstands to really drill scapular protraction in, so there's pretty heavy protraction in my PL work. I'd really hate to be doing the wrong thing again.

Scapular positioning is separate. I am talking about the head of the humerus in the glenoid fossa, upper arm bone in scapula. The position of the scapula is not as important as muscle activation of the upper arm-to-scapula muscles and upper arm-to-rib cage muscles. Those are what stabilize the head in the socket. The scapula to ribcage/spinal column muscles are what hold the shoulder socket in a stable position so that the upper arm muscles mentioned previously have a stable surface to stabilize the humeral head on.

Does that make more sense?

You are going to be protracted nearly fully in a static planche position, but that has nothing to do with centering the humeral head and equalization of forces in the socket.

I think I get it...my shoulders usually feel pretty solid in presses (despite some pretty poor flexibility), so it seems to be a weird combination of too little flexibility in my shoulders and too much with my scapula. To get the right position, I've been feeling tension mostly in my upper chest, trapezius and have been trying to activate the latissimus dorsi as well. Are those part of the muscle groups you mentioned? :?

[Joshua Naterman]

Yes. Traps = scap to spine & rib cage

Upper chest and lats are upper arm to rib cage (and collar bone aka clavicle for upper pecs).

[Erik Sjolin]

Yes. Traps = scap to spine & rib cage

Upper chest and lats are upper arm to rib cage (and collar bone aka clavicle for upper pecs).

Awesome. Guess I'll stay the course and hopefully review in May.

Took a while for me to figure out the intricacies of the front lever, so maybe this'll help spark a few epiphanies on the planche too. :roll:

[Joshua Naterman]

LOL! You'll be fine, keep up the good work!