The Planche Challenge – 10 Training Tips To Master The Planche

Learning the planche is not easy. There are a lot of elements of training that need to be covered for you to be able to pull it off.

 

In doing my planche challenge over the last month, I have had a lot of little revelations on how to master the planche without injuring yourself – more on that later – and doing so in a quick and effective way. No one wants to wait a year to planche, right?

 

More Than Lifting Straddle Extensions Planche Training 

Extended Frog Stand Planche Progression​

 

To help you guys out I am going to share my best tips to get you over the line and planching like a beast, faster than me even! See you at the finish line. . .

 

Top 10 Planche Training Tips:

 

  1. Start With Reps
  2. 10 Second Holds
  3. Hand Placement
  4. Wrist Flexibility
  5. Locked Out Arms
  6. It’s All In The Shoulders
  7. Building Slow
  8. Train Out Of The Planche
  9. Use a Crash Mat
  10. Train in Short Bursts

 

Start With Reps

 

When you first start planche training, or you move on to a more advanced exercise, do it as reps to start off with, not holds.

 

Isometric exercises take a lot of energy to maintain, you are essentially tensing your whole body under pressure, so don’t expect to get straight into a tuck planche and hold it for ages, it probably won’t happen.

 

Instead, start with rep versions of the exercises, like I suggested in my first post with the tuck planche.

 

Get into the starting knelt position and do lifts into a tuck planche for reps. This will help build the back and shoulders, it will help you find a solid balance point and it will allow you to train with locked arms without putting too much strain on the elbows.

 

Once you can do reps without much difficulty, move on to the isometrics (holds).

 

10 Second Holds

 

One of the coaches at gymnastics said that you want to be holding your planche exercises for at least 8 seconds to really benefit from them, which is why it is important to keep working all of the progression exercises.

 

Even if you think you are past the tuck planche, do it, do it after you have done a tougher one, because we all know how quickly you fatigue from planche training.

 

If you are doing extensions, that’s great, but don’t expect extensions to build the planche. The extensions are teaching your body what position to be in, not building much strength. So use them with other exercises that do build the strength, that you can hold for about 10 seconds, then you will start seeing rapid development.

 

Hand Placement

 

Hand placement is essential for learning the planche, there is a lot of weight being put on your arms, you need to have a solid support from floor to shoulder to be able to pull this off.

 

More Than Lifting Planche Training Hand Placement 

Hand Placement For Planche Training​

 

When you go to put your hands down, line them up with your shoulders. They should be shoulder width apart so they sit directly under your shoulders as you planche, this will provide you with the most stable support.

 

You will also find it best to turn your hands out, not point them forward.

 

Although I started learning with my hands forward, I was really struggling to develop because my wrists weren’t flexible enough to bend forward enough.

 

What will be easiest to learn from is to have your hands slightly further round, so your thumbs point forward. As you develop, you will notice your hands turn even further past 90 so they are facing backwards, like the pseudo planche.

 

This will allow you to apply pressure through the palm of your hands rather than your fingers.

 

Wrist Flexibility

 

As I have said above, your wrists take a big pounding doing the planche. I have actually hurt my left forearm training the planche too much while also training for the competition I have in 2 weeks!

 

Make sure you warm up your wrists properly giving them a good stretch in all directions, preferably on the floor so you can apply more even pressure and slowly and gently increase the range of motion over time.

 

My wrists are pretty flexible, but they aren’t stable enough to keep solid during a full planche. I need to do strengthening exercises so I can maintain tension when I lean into a full planche, it is a long way forward after all.

 

Your wrists are pretty delicate things so work on strengthening your grip and training floor isometrics to help build them up, make sure they get a good warm up before training, and try not to over do it, because your wrists can be injured easily and they are used a load in day to day life – you will find this out when you injure them!

 

Locked Out Arms

 

I have already written about the importance of developing locked arm strength. The planche is one of the reasons you need to get this down. Locked arms are a prerequisite to the planche, if you are doing it with bent arms, it ain’t right bro.

 

Planche Frog Stand Locked Arm More Than Lifting 

Frog Stands are great for building locked arm strength in the Planche​

 

The frog stand is a great exercise for building up your locked arm strength and stability, having your knees against your upper arm will force your elbows straight, but be careful not to over train it or you will get achy elbows.

 

You do need to be careful when training your arms in this way, ligaments aren’t very forgiving if you upset them, trust me. Like I suggested in my previous post on Locked Arm Strength, collagen is the protein you need for joint care, look after your ligaments and feed them some of this stuff.

 

It’s All In The Shoulders

 

Shoulder strength and stability is the single most important element of the planche. If you can do a Dragon Flag, or an Elbow Lever, you can probably hold your body horizontally to the ground. What a lot of people don’t realise is this is not the hardest part of the planche.

 

The biggest struggle you will have with your planche training is building strong enough shoulders to support your body.

 

The shoulders are big powerful levers but they need to be really really powerful if you want to planche, just like the front lever, it is the shoulders that will require the most work.

 

So get building those rotator cuff and scapula muscles!

 

Building Slow

 

Guys, i know I am doing this planche challenge, but it isn’t a very smart idea to race someone to planche if it means you are going to be pushing yourself too hard.

 

This isn’t an easy trick to learn, it takes a whole lot of strength and control in many from all over your body, not something that can be developed in a few short weeks.

 

Now I risk sounding very hypocritical here, but I have already developed a lot of this strength, I am nearly there, which is why I have agreed to this challenge.

 

Earlier in the year I kept repeatedly injuring my back, over and over. It put me out of training for 2 ½ months and slowed my development down a lot because I could barely stand comfortably, let alone do a training session.

 

Unless you are specifically looking to injure yourself, do not try and master this exercise quickly, build slow, work hard and celebrate your little wins.

 

If you grab the average guy off the street, I’d go as far as saying the gym even, I would bet that they couldn’t lift their body weight of the ground and hold a tuck planche

 

Do not expect to learn this quickly, take it slow, be smart and prevent injury, don’t wait for it to happen.

 

Train Out Of The Planche

 

Another tip my gymnastics coach gave me was to train out of the planche. You fatigue so fast doing the planche it can almost hinder your development by itself.

 

If your wrists are weak, do Russian dips, pseudo planches, pull ups and leg raises.

 

If your shoulders are weak, do more leg raises, german hangs, front lever training and other shoulder exercises.

 

If you are solely training the planche, you will take a lot longer to develop because of the 8 second rule above and the speed which you fatigue individual parts of the planche.

 

Yes, you need to train the planche, but train your muscles, use the planche for skill training not muscle gains.

 

Use A Crash Mat

 

I call it a crash mat because comfy pillow doesn’t sound serious enough, but that is what you want. Something small to face plant on when you over lean.

 

This comes from a brilliant tip my competitor told me. He said, ‘If you’re not falling over (forwards), you aren’t training the next stage of the planche, and you will get really good at holding that one position, but advancing won’t happen.’

 

You want to always be pushing yourself further. It is hard to understand how far forward you have to learn to balance your body in the planche. Your hands should be somewhere down by your hips, with your head and shoulders miles in front.

 

You will fall forwards and face plant the floor unless you grab yourself a cushion off your sofa to fall onto. Each time you lean you will be able to push slightly further forward, comfortable with the fact that you will overbalance and fall forwards, but that will strengthen your wrists up to that point, and allow you to remember that position, that extra 1 or 2 degrees more than last time.

 

Train In Short Bursts

 

Remember the planche is a skill, so you must apply skill training to it. yes, many of the exercises in my progressions posts, here, here and here, can build muscle, but ultimately with the planche you are developing control.

 

Skill training takes small bursts of focused work to train hard and not fatigue. Don’t worry about hour long planche training sessions every 2 days, because you won’t be able to train the planche for an hour!

 

Instead, spend 5-10 minutes, 2-3 times a day practicing the planche extensions or other progressions, then stop. Leave at least an hour between sessions so you don’t fatigue.

 

Remember the amount of pressure you are putting on your wrists, elbows and shoulders; let them rest so you don’t run the risk of injury.

 

Remember

 

Learning to planche takes time but it is possible, keep your eyes on the goal ahead but don’t try and do it too fast, listen to your body, train smart and don’t hurt yourself. And if you want one-on-one time with me, send me an email at rhysmorgan@morethanlifting.com and we can set up a call via skype or google.

 

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