How to progress to an inverted planche or victorian?

B1214N said:

Matt JC said:

B1214N said:

You are right that too much tightness is bad for sprinters, but having extreme flexibility like a gymnast is detrimental for sprinters. There is a an amount of flexibility that is optimal, but not at extreme flexibility like in the case of the manna. I'm not confused with static stretching pre-workout and post-workout, but thanks for the reply anyways.

Considering how fast I have seen gymnast sprint down a vault run way, I really doubt this is true. I have no data, but I would say our matured gymnastic athletes are easily running around a speed of 12 flat or less for a 100m. Which would be quite well considering they don't directly train for a sprinting event.

It may look fast, but it is not optimal. 12 flat in the 100m is a big difference from sub 10 or even sub 11. Even a couple tenths of a second is quite a big gap. You may be able to still get to sub 11 with extreme flexibilty, but you will not reach your potential with that much flexibility in the hamstrings and hips. In sprinting, you want every help you can get to get from point A to point B that comply with the rules and having some tightness or stiffness in the hamstrings is beneficial because it makes your tendons/hamstrings springy which would make it easier to sprint faster. So for sprinters you want enough stiffness that doesn't inhibit ROM and posture.

Just a quick point, but in adults tendons don't get longer. The muscles do.

The following is hypothetical in nature but based in well established science regarding intrinsic muscle force production. What probably happens with something like sprinting, which is a sport where you want peak actin-myosin overlap to occur in the range of motion where you are actually exerting force on the ground, is that if you stretch the hamstrings to the point where they get too long you will no longer have optimal overlap... the muscle can get too long and you won't quite have the ideal force production in the muscle itself. There are other issues that deal with passive tension, but it is unlikely that this plays a significant role.

Thanks for the correction Joshua, I don't know much when it comes to anatomy and kinesiology. My point is that a certain amount of stiffness and flexibilty is needed to be optimal in sprinting. I got most of my info from forum discussions in the Elitetrack forums, particularly in this topic: http://www.elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/8954/P0/

ausswe said:

haha gregor! very true! maybe I should become an astronaut. gregor do you train for a victorian at all? and do you think the reason gymnasts dont do victorians in general is because it is just ridiculously harder than everything else or because its a little bit harder than say a maltese and no body really focuses on it?

Occasionaly...

Because of:

1. it's harder then rest of F's or E's

2. If they succseed to do it, they will most likely got deducted in competitions

3. Probably you would seen them more if it would be G value (some copensations for deductions )

Ok so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that gymnasts could perform decent victorians if they put more focus into it but they dont because other moves graded equally are easier. Kinda gives a bit of hope for very very far into the future victorian work. It is definately something I would like to focus on once I am proficient enough at ring work. I dont really expect to achieve a decent one if at all I haven't got an ideal body shape for starters my legs are to long and big. Then again my upper body is getting to a decent size thanks to the perfect pre and pwo nutrition thread and I really couldn't care less about hypertrophy! wouldn't mind losing some leg size though....

Rodriguez's is probably the most decent what we will see.

So I have resumed Victorian training and have found that I can essentially hold a flat tuck VC with my feet in the air. Does anybody else have advice on how to work this? Everytime I extend my legs, my body doesn't go any lower than it did in my Victorian progress 3 video.

So I'm working flat tuck for awhile to see if this helps. Any thoughts would be sick.

I'm nowhere near as advanced as you, but I think using a variation where you can hold your hips at the right level is better than doing a more advanced variation with hips lower or higher than horizontal. I think Coach Sommer said something like that in the past to a forum member's maltese progression. Then I think you can follow an SSC with it or use sets of high intensity holds and some supplementary work. I'm sure Coach or Gregor here can help you out better. Keep up with the great work and keep us updated .

If you won't mind me asking, how is your pulling strength currently when you can do this victorian variation (e.g. How many FL rows or OAC can you do)? Thanks!

Yea that's definitely the way to go. As far as pulling exercises, I don't really train the OAC ever, but I can do several sets of 1 rep in a day. And on a good day I can do a few reps in a row of FL rows. I think the FL rows have helped substantially with whatever VC progress I've made, but OACs haven't other than to develop a higher degree of bicep and lat strength. I think bent arm exercises are great for what they're worth but only ever indirectly contribute to the advanced rings elements.

mirroredrain said:

I think bent arm exercises are great for what they're worth but only ever indirectly contribute to the advanced rings elements.

A very keen observation. For some reason, people have a hard time with this one.

mirroredrain said:

Yea that's definitely the way to go. As far as pulling exercises, I don't really train the OAC ever, but I can do several sets of 1 rep in a day. And on a good day I can do a few reps in a row of FL rows. I think the FL rows have helped substantially with whatever VC progress I've made, but OACs haven't other than to develop a higher degree of bicep and lat strength. I think bent arm exercises are great for what they're worth but only ever indirectly contribute to the advanced rings elements.

It's great that FL rows worked pretty well for your VC progress. I think you can make it even better by doing wide FL rows since they are more specific and have more emphasis on the rear delts. Another supplementary exercise you can do is the wide typewriter FL I've seen Cisco do in one of his videos. These are just some ideas for supplementary exercises for VC and I don't actually know how effective they are.

I would really like to see slizzardman or someone of equal size obtain a half decent victorian! that would be something to be awed by and would give me hope in achieving it myself! as I am 6'1 with heavy legs =(

Hello all,

So after continuing to train the VC on rings a ton, I decided to give the inverted support lever (planche) another go. Probably because of my strength increase in the Victorian I found that I could hold an Inverted planche lean with half my bodyweight applied to my chest. This was a definite increase in strength for me! So I took to the wall assisted version that I had previously been doing and found an improvement there as well.

-HOU6OhJN-M

Now obviously I agree a fully unsupported static hold of this may be impossible, especially for a non-professional like me, nevertheless, it seems like it's more a matter of when than if. If progress continues that is....

ausswe said:

I would really like to see slizzardman or someone of equal size obtain a half decent victorian! that would be something to be awed by and would give me hope in achieving it myself! as I am 6'1 with heavy legs =(

Me too Give me ~5 years and we'll see how things have progressed