Planche training using weights w/o doing the progressions?

I read this article by Coach Sommer describing how a body builder could use weights to progressively train for the Iron Cross:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_iron_cross_for_bodybuilders

"As for their effectiveness, I've seen many gymnasts capable of planche push-ups do double bodyweight bench presses on their first attempts. Conversely, I've never seen a weightlifter capable of doing a double bodyweight bench press even come close to a planche push-up initially." Coach Sommers

It's been repeatedly said that a person that can do a double body weight bench press will be unable to do planche push ups.

Instead of doing a regular "chest" bench press, what if you did a "reverse grip hip/waist" bench press. This exercise, when inverted, mimics a pseudo planche push up. By increasing the weight on each side, one could methodically work up to a full body "reverse grip hip/waist" bench press. I would suggest starting on a Smith Bench Press Machine to help counter the instability and eventually work up to a barbell and even on dumbbells.

Of course that will only help develop bent arm strength. To develop the straight arm strength that person must also hold a static hold at the top of each repetition for about 3+ seconds.

Now for strengthening the back, I would suggest doing the weighted "Reverse Leg Lifts" entitled in the Lower Back section of Coach Sommer's book Building the Gymnastics Body. A static hold of about 3+ seconds would also be necessary at the peak of each repetition. I'm just throwing out a number here, so I'll just say that a Reverse Leg Lift with half the person's body weight is necessary. It might be more, or it might be less.

Maybe even you could even work up to a support to planche on the rings using a barbell/dumbells. When you can do a full body reverse grip hip bench press, start with the barbell below your hips. Keeping your arms straight, attempt to lift the bar until it is above your chest. Keeping your arms straight, slowly move your arms down until it is below your hips again. That constitutes one repetition.

This is just pure speculation based on that article. Of course, I still believe that the progressions (frog, tucked, straddle, half lay, full) are necessary. These are just extra exercises to supplement/accelerate your progress.

Zach Armijo said:

Progressions are THE way towards progress. Bodybuilding mentality of strengthening piece by piece just doesn't work. You have to teach your body to use all those muscles in unison. People are always looking for a way around progressions. Put in the work and it will pay off. There is no substitute for hard work, period.

You know I would believe you, but I can't because I'm not sure you can do a full planche can you? Before you bash it, why don't you try it? It actually helped me progress from a tucked to straddle planche after I plateaued for a couple of months. The barbell/dumbells exercises seems unorthodox, but Coach Sommer's uses weighted RLL to strengthen the back. (You would have seen it if you read the book.)

Did you read my last sentence?

Of course, I still believe that the progressions (frog, tucked, straddle, half lay, full) are necessary. These are just extra exercises to supplement/accelerate your progress.

Zach Armijo said:

I did read it indeed and I do have a straddle just as you do. You just worded it to make it seem as if you could weight lift each area without progressions and be able to do a PL. I know for a fact that strengthening certain areas of the body with weights helped as i do DB swings for my back that helped in PL for me (as in the book). I am just saying that your proposed bench lift wouldn't give you the PL you are seeking. You assume much for not knowing anything about me.

Yeah sorry about that...

Would you mind visiting my channel and critiquing my straddle planche?

It's just that out of all the planche tutorials I have seen on YouTube, NO ONE has ever suggested doing a RGHBP (I just decided to use that acronym for "Reverse Grip Hip Bench Press". I can bench my whole body weight (125 lbs) but find it very difficult to do the aforementioned exercise using two 30+ pound barbells in each hand, so my hypothesis is that 100% BW RGHBP = Full Planche Push Up. I'm also not sure if I'm doing RGHBP correctly, so my friend spots me to make sure I go absolutely straight up and do the static hold directly above my hips.

Zach Armijo said:

I understand what you are getting at. I think you would be better spending your time on XR PPP and PPP+. Your planche isnt bad. You have nice lean, but your lower curves significantly when under the full straddle load. How is your protraction during your PL? It seems a little understressed when leaning into your PL. You should spend more time in adv tuck PL for now. Try some PPP and video it so i can see where you are at as far as that. I posted a video of myself doing a adv tuck PL push up and Josh gave great pointers. I only did one rep but I do 4x3r in my routine with the 303 tempo. You should have a very good feeling of your ribs being crushed when you have the correct activation. It is the line between adv tuck and straddle where improper activation/form begin to bite you in the ass. I can see your eagerness to jump to straddle since you almost have it down, but your time will be better spent in adv tuck and with PPP.

When my lower curves, is that a sign of weak back?

Protraction is like you're shrugging your shoulders right?

I'll post a video attempting protraction and ppp.

I don't have rings yet so I can't practice ppp+ but I do plan on buying some. I'm assuming you use the Xtreme Rings? Have you used any others? I'm just not sure to choose between Xtreme Rings, metal or wood rings (sold by RogueFitness), or bullet proof/riot shield rings (sold by RingTraining), Plastic Rings, or home-made PVC rings. I know that rings are rings, but I'm just really fickle mind about the grip and I don't know how each of them feel except for wooden rings at open gym, which didn't feel very good, but I guess the other pair of rings sold by RF feel differently? I've done almost all my conditioning on paralettes.

And can you explain what that 303 tempo is? Sorry I know I registered almost two years ago, but I haven't visited the forums as much as I should have been since then.

Take a look:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6448&start=15

This can work in theory for the strength part, but won't do anything for the balance part since balancing a barbell is much different than balancing in a planche. You can replace PPP with these, but PPP is better because it's more specific.

There's not really much balance involved in a planche, if you're strong enough to lean you can hold it.

OP, I wouldn't really call that "having a straddle", it's a bit shaky and you rapidly lose your position. Your elbows bend a bit and shoulders start to sink. It would be helpful in your case to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.

External resistance like weights or bands can be useful to develop a weak link but of course you have to do planche.

One exercise I like is laying on your back on a bench, lifting dumbells with straight arms.

yuri said:

There's not really much balance involved in a planche, if you're strong enough to lean you can hold it.

One exercise I like is laying on your back on a bench, lifting dumbells with straight arms.

I find these types of exercises to be useful. I also hold a hollow on the bench while doing the lifts to get a feel for the body position and how I need to brace my core. These are a staple of my straight arm days during the accumulation phases.

yuri said:

There's not really much balance involved in a planche, if you're strong enough to lean you can hold it.

OP, I wouldn't really call that "having a straddle", it's a bit shaky and you rapidly lose your position. Your elbows bend a bit and shoulders start to sink. It would be helpful in your case to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.

External resistance like weights or bands can be useful to develop a weak link but of course you have to do planche.

One exercise I like is laying on your back on a bench, lifting dumbells with straight arms.

I do these several times per week for high reps, along with holding a maltese-ish position and doing high reps of 20-30 degrees of flexion and then going back to straight arm. This helps a LOT. I also do these on free-motion machines. 25 lb DB or per arm on freemotion for the high rep days, 35lb DB and 37.5lb freemotion for days where I only do sets of 6-8 reps. Always with hollow body and often with hollow hold position.

Weighted scapular push ups (which are even better when performed on the elbows)also benefit planche work enormously, because the serratus anterior is going to be THE weak link for nearly all of us as adults and this specifically targets the weak link.

This bench bent arm exercise is good for the prime movers, but doesn't necessarily require much of any serratus anterior activation, which is one of the primary differences between bench press and push up variations. The other major difference is that bench is an arched body shape by nature and push ups are hollow body.

yuri said:

There's not really much balance involved in a planche, if you're strong enough to lean you can hold it.

How about with fingers facing backwards? I do mines like that and tend to fall forward once I lose balance. Sometimes loss or lack of strength also makes me faceplant, but I even struggle to balance tucked planches sometimes even though they are not a challenge to my strength.

I do these several times per week for high reps, along with holding a maltese-ish position and doing high reps of 20-30 degrees of flexion and then going back to straight arm. This helps a LOT. I also do these on free-motion machines. 25 lb DB or per arm on freemotion for the high rep days, 35lb DB and 37.5lb freemotion for days where I only do sets of 6-8 reps. Always with hollow body and often with hollow hold position.

Weighted scapular push ups (which are even better when performed on the elbows)also benefit planche work enormously, because the serratus anterior is going to be THE weak link for nearly all of us as adults and this specifically targets the weak link.

This bench bent arm exercise is good for the prime movers, but doesn't necessarily require much of any serratus anterior activation, which is one of the primary differences between bench press and push up variations. The other major difference is that bench is an arched body shape by nature and push ups are hollow body.

I also used to do DB exercises where you mimic back lever pull to maltese press to planche and found them to be a good assistance exercise.

For the bench exercise, couldn't you protact your shoulders on every concentric to bring in the serratus anterior to work like in actual planch push-ups? I remember hearing people protracting the shoulders by the top of every bench press rep before and I think I have done that before as well.

You can, but for whatever reason I just don't feel it the same way.

Joshua Naterman said:

yuri said:

There's not really much balance involved in a planche, if you're strong enough to lean you can hold it.

OP, I wouldn't really call that "having a straddle", it's a bit shaky and you rapidly lose your position. Your elbows bend a bit and shoulders start to sink. It would be helpful in your case to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.

External resistance like weights or bands can be useful to develop a weak link but of course you have to do planche.

One exercise I like is laying on your back on a bench, lifting dumbells with straight arms.

I do these several times per week for high reps, along with holding a maltese-ish position and doing high reps of 20-30 degrees of flexion and then going back to straight arm. This helps a LOT. I also do these on free-motion machines. 25 lb DB or per arm on freemotion for the high rep days, 35lb DB and 37.5lb freemotion for days where I only do sets of 6-8 reps. Always with hollow body and often with hollow hold position.

Weighted scapular push ups (which are even better when performed on the elbows)also benefit planche work enormously, because the serratus anterior is going to be THE weak link for nearly all of us as adults and this specifically targets the weak link.

This bench bent arm exercise is good for the prime movers, but doesn't necessarily require much of any serratus anterior activation, which is one of the primary differences between bench press and push up variations. The other major difference is that bench is an arched body shape by nature and push ups are hollow body.

Josh, can you yuri or someone make a vid of this? Training with dumbells and on the free motion. The correct position

Hi guys,

 

I've added some weight training to my routine in hope to get a benefit for the planche.

Here's what my shoulder/arm workout looks like:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb-1uQgbeJk

 

Any tips for the planche/maltese presses? It's kinda hard to see but I guess scapula is correctly protracted...

 

What do you think? 

I think that if you have iron cross you can safety  train maltese simulating it with light weight approach. on the other side no one could say if your elbows or shoulders tomorrow will be fine.

I think the progressions are the base. You could possibly create an exercise where you can simulate indiviudal muscles movements used in the planche. But, you cannot activate all the same muscle fibers, you cannot achieve the same amount of protraction or depression. The best way to train for planche is to stick to progressions. That is my opinion. I made a mistake training with weights, i was focused more on that than on progressions and i got injured.