My plan for a bicep tendon of steel!

Just want to check with the almighty Joshua or someone else equally skilled.

My plan:

Planche leans ( start with fingers forward ):

- Start with hands 3-4 cm in front of shoulders. Minimal strain in elbow.

- Move 2 cm once in every month, until hands are a sensible distance behind shoulders.

- Then begin the whole progression over, but this time with fingers 45 degrees backwards.

- Everyday i use a heatpack on the elbow joint to accelerate bloodflow and healing.

- 4 times a week, 2 sets of 60s each time.

- I do dynamic calisthenics on the side, but only pullups directly work the biceps.

- I have a little hyperextended elbows. Should I let the joint jam with no bicep tension ( locked arms ), or should I tense the bicep to not jam joint ( if I do that, I even feel it in the tendon on step 1 of fingers forward. )

What do you think?

I'm nowhere as skilled as Joshua, but I can still provide some tips and suggestions in the interim.

1.) Hands in front of shoulders will not stress the biceps and is not a planche lean (more like the opposite of one).

2.) Work bicep curling exercises (pull-ups don't count) be it gymnastic type curls or DB/BB curls before or along with straight arm work. For DB/BB curls aim to get at least 85% of BW curl (two arm). I started out with this much biceps strength before I got into Gymnastic Strength Training™ and have never had any issues with the biceps tendon and inner elbows once I started training FSPs and other elbow intensive stuff.

3.) Always lock your elbows with straight arm work or else you will be cheating yourself out of strength gains for the connective tissues. You may want to take straight arm work slowly and progressively to avoid injuries.

That's all I have. Hopefully Joshua or someone else will give you much more in-depth tips and suggestions to help you out.

Thanks for the advice.

I think I overdid it last night, I feel a little strain in my biceps tendon now.

Going to pause the bicep cond, and do easy vertical pulls, and high rep,ultra light bicepcurl until it disappears. Plus im going to use a heatpack on the elbow joint.

For future bicep cond, I'll lock my elbows, place hands slightly behind shoulders(so that no strain is felt at 60s hold), and go ridiculously slow.

Anyone has more to add, feel free.

Thanks.

Build over time. In most cases take the length of your plan and double it. True connective tissue strengthening takes time. Years if you're honest about it.

My plan for bicep strength is push ups - hands wide apart, pointing outwards. And push ups again - hands down near your hip as if you're trying to planche, hands pointing downwards.

You can also try rings, lower them to chest height, grab them, lean backwards at 45 degree and curl your own weight.

My plan for bicep strength is push ups - hands wide apart, pointing outwards. And push ups again - hands down near your hip as if you're trying to planche, hands pointing downwards.

This is a plan for triceps strength and will do nothing to condition the bicep tendon.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I would like to remind you that the entire idea behind the pre-requisites and the progressions listed in the book is to prepare your body for the harder elements. Follow the program as outlined on the forum and you will have biceps of steel at the end.

That said if you have some deficit then you may have to address these things additionally along the way. For example I feel slight straining in the long head of my biceps and it has been recommended to me that I do bicep curls to give them additional strength.

I just can't see how jamming the elbow joint like a one-way hinge, without tension is good. Locked, but not jammed will be my practice.

Personally I feel there is something missing in the book. I don't feel comfortable with going from frogstand to adv. frogstand with straight arm. That was murder on my biceps tendon.

Maybe I didn't read the book well enough, but I don't recall any specific biceps conditioning or prereqs besides the progressions.

Anyway, thanks for the help. My biceps is much better already. I actually strained it trying to do tuck back lever, which is the first progression. Combined with the adv. frogstand it went wrong.

- It has nothing to do with "jamming" the elbow and everything to do with properly conditioning the brachialis; but only after the proper foundation has been laid. While you may be able to avoid fully locking the elbow and engaging the brachialis on lower intensity skills, you will most certainly be unable to do so on an iron cross later.

- The planche progressions in the book are not particularly brachialis intensive. If you are finding that they are; then your biceps are significantly deconditioned and need quite a bit of additional rowing, pull-up and MPPu work.

- At this point I would also say that you are not yet ready to begin dedicated BL work.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks for clarifying that. I don't mean the elbow will be bent, but the biceps brachii and brachialis muscles must be tensioned, or else I will break the joint, like in an armbar.

I will take it slow, and start with the planche leans and some german hangs, no dedicated FSP work yet.

Thank you Coach Sommer for helping me!

My pleasure, just be sure to slow down a little bit. Uninterrupted-slow-steady-progress beats super-fast-combined-with-injury-timeouts every time.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I don't mean the elbow will be bent, but the biceps brachii and brachialis muscles must be tensioned, or else I will break the joint, like in an armbar.

The elbows are bent if they are not completely locked even if they look straight, but given your current situation I suppose it's fine to not lock them completely to protect them. When your tendons and elbow flexors are conditioned and strong enough to protect the elbows when locked, then you should always keep your elbows locked from then on for straight arm exercises.

How does it train the biceps, if you don't have tension?

As I said, I have hyperextended elbows. When I do planche leans, they are actually past 180 and locked, but with tension in the muscles.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post, but if you do your straight arm exercises and conditioning properly, there will definitely be tension throughout the biceps. Perhaps you aren't far along enough yet in your straight arm leverage progressions to have enough tension in your arm to feel it, but when you place weight on a locked out elbow, there will be plenty of tension in your biceps. In a planche or iron cross for instance, there is obviously significant tension felt throughout the biceps muscles and tendons.

mirroredrain said:

Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post, but if you do your straight arm exercises and conditioning properly, there will definitely be tension throughout the biceps. Perhaps you aren't far along enough yet in your straight arm leverage progressions to have enough tension in your arm to feel it, but when you place weight on a locked out elbow, there will be plenty of tension in your biceps. In a planche or iron cross for instance, there is obviously significant tension felt throughout the biceps muscles and tendons.

Excellent observation.

To add to what Coach said, if you don't lock the elbow and then get tired in a low leverage situation like planche or a cross (god forbid) then what ends up happening is that you LOSE tension and now have all the force slamming into the bones with only ligaments and tired muscles to support the joint.

That is the fastest way to tear stuff in your elbow. Such an injury would be catastrophic and possibly the end of a gymnastic training career.

Like Mirroredrain said, there WILL be tension with locked elbows but the bones will be resting on each other as well. You are NOT passively sitting there, the biceps and all other muscles that cross the elbow are working as hard as they need to. This allows the load to be shared by the bones, the muscles, and the ligaments without any jamming or slamming around in the joint. This minimizes the risk of injury.

Together with slowing down your timeline, as others have suggested, and follow Coach's advice. From what I've heard he's built one or two pretty strong guys in his time! (I am, obviously I hope, of course dramatically understating Coach's expertise in an attempt to be funny.)

I was a little confused as to what you meant when saying locked elbows.

As I have said, I will progress very slow with the planche leans. Question, just how far should I progress with the leans? Until shoulder strength gives out?

From there its adv. frogstand and tuck back lever ( maybe german hangs, I'll see ).

Thanks for your kind help

I can see that being confusing!

Locked elbows just means full extension. Once you're there you still want to have tension in the biceps and the rest of the elbow flexors! You are not trying to turn them off That would be very bad.

Only go to where you can't hold good form for 40-60s but can for more than 15-20s. Then just build up to the 40-60s range and move a little bit forward. That is the fastest you should go, but sometimes that's too fast.

Form is one indicator, but how your joints feel is another. It should be pretty easy in the elbows and wrists before you increase the difficulty and should never hurt or give you a twinge.

I started the planche leans in a position where I can hold 60s and not feel it in the biceps. Fingers forward.

I will progress as said, one inch or more once a month, then I will turn fingers back and do it over again.

Doing it 4 times a week, 2x60s each session.

When finished with the leans, I start planche prog at advanced frog stand 10s, increasing hold time by some seconds each week --> on with the progressions.

I will master one FSP at a time, starting with L-sit(1min) --> Straddle L(1min) --> BL(30s) --> FL(30s) --> PL(30s) --> Manna. So planche is far ahead in time But I will do biceps conditioning all the time.

Thanks for your help all of you, and the best of luck with your own biceps conditioning!

Yeah, I was quite confused when you said the biceps could be without tension when arms are locked. There will always be tension in the biceps tendon and elbow flexors when arms are locked in low leverage positions where the elbow crook is facing the ground. Eventually your elbows and tendons can be strong enough that you wouldn't really notice any stress.

Good luck with your training and preparation!

I will take my time to build them up!

Thank you B1214N for your help, and the best of luck with your training too!

here is a link that will prove very valuable to you!!....If you having trouble with advanced frogstand and back lever personally i would suggest trying them for one sessions a week and focusing on being exceptional at these pre-reqs that slizzardman has done. The progression may be a basic one in the coach's program but to someone who is new to the program and not training in gymnastics full time, these progressions are al equally as hard if you are not in a conditioned and strengthened state to take them on. Particularly in the beginning progressions you MUST be patient! Your body needs to understand what you are trying to accomplish with it. Once it adapts to this kind of training you next progressions will be able to flow alot smoother because you will be confident in the fact that your joints are prept properly and you will only have to focus on form. Also another BIG factor when it comes to joint conditioning and connective tissue strengthening is REST!..LOTS AND LOTS of adequate rest. There's very very little blood supply to tendons compared to muscle tissue so healing is a long drawn out process. I find it best to have one session a week on the static hold you are working on...the gains are far more noticeable.

this will help you!! even if you have to knock the progressions on the head for a while and focus on these pre-reqs

Patients is key!

cheers

Thanks, bio mechanix!

Right now, adv. frogstand seems extreme for my elbows. But I will take it slow with the planche leans, and incorporate german hangs and XR support holds. The support holds I begin in pushup position. German hangs I focus on straighten body, even though I don't feel it in the biceps at all, only shoulders.

I use heat pack on the elbows to keep good bloodflow.

I will get there. But I want to be injury free.