Elbow Lever & Planche: Making Your Body Lighter than a Feather

Introduction

The Elbow Lever was originally introduced to me my Sophomore year of High School when I was learning to breakdance. I knew it as the turtle back then and could do all sorts of crazy spins, hand to hand transitions, hops, and more…something I still haven’t really seen much on other Bodyweight Training sites advocating very specific progressions.

I don’t – I prefer to move in and out of the progressions standards offered by most tutorials vs. staying on a specific one for a period of time.

The Elbow Lever isn’t the hardest feat, but it is a challenging one because of the needed wrist extension range of motion (how your wrist bends) and then of course,  the weight the wrist has to handle because of putting all your body onto your elbows and accordingly also stressing out your wrists.

The other move, the dreaded Planche, I learned about when I was 16. Worked on it off & on, but never got to where I wanted to go – all the current progressions (the main ones at the time were from Coach Sommer’s dragondoor article: Click here to find out more) put me into pain after a period of time on working on the isometric strength needed for each position.

I don’t do very much holding anymore either.

What Do You Do Then?

I didn’t really refine the way I trained for the Planche and Elbow Lever until I met Frankie Faires, who didn’t say much except two things at the time:

1.) Isometrics/Holds are probably hurting you

2.) Try doing movement transitions in and out of the position and see if that helps.

Do you think I tried it?

Yup.

In the accompanying video, you’ll see some of the Movement Variations I am doing to continually speed up my development into a one-handed hopping lever both with straight and bent legs and a full planche pushup. Later on I’ll explain more about why I’m specifically training this way and go more into the conceptual understanding of it, but try these out and let me know what you think.

These variations are meant for:
If you can at least hold any type of elbow lever (support your weight on your elbows) or If you are close to a straddle or full planche.

They can be easily modified by:
If you refer back to Coach Sommer’s article: Click here, you’ll notice the main positions (Tuck Planche, Adv. Tuck Planche, Straddle Planche, Full Planche). Modify any of the variations I show you in Part 1 of this video series to either the position you are on or the position you will be on and enjoy the sped up progress.

Here’s the video, Enjoy! Also credit to Jim Bathurst for his Staddle Planche picture used for this article.

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Tags: Biofeedback Training, Bodyweight Training, Easier Strength Training, Elbow Lever, Frankie Faires, Gym Movement, Planche, PREveryday, The Movement