If you are tall or heavy don't lose hope - full planche at 202cm 102kg/6'7 225lbs and other feats by heavyweight calisthenics athletes

[thomaslowrens]

@vic_torres Thank you, I would have liked to know this level was possible when I started training.

 

[bnowacek]

@thomaslowrens I am 6 foot trying to achieve the full planche and the one arm handstand. Now I know it is possible, hopefully I can achieve it. I am only 170 pounds, and I am starting to think I will need to add more muscle weight. What do you think?

 

[thomaslowrens]

@bnowacek I've seen (relatively) many people at 6'/183cm with a full planche, and some of them are lighter than you. If you have heavy legs you'll have to get bigger upper body muscles too, a few years of training could get you to your goal or close if you do it in a well structured manner.

I'm 182cm 82kg/5'11 180lbs and I train legs, at the moment I can hold an advanced tuck planche but I'm bad at several aspects of training, nutrition and recovery so I keep training, experimenting and improving my knowledge and I intend on reaching the full planche even if it takes me 10 years from when I started.

 

[bnowacek]

@thomaslowrens I’m stuck at advanced tuck too. It’s really such a hard skill to learn. And yes I do not want to be a super skinny guy doing a full planche, I train legs like you too.

I feel like training the planche is a lot more mental than anything.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@bnowacek It needs a lot of strength in scapular protraction and shoulder flexion and strength of the biceps and connective tissue in the locked arms position, so we need to keep building those muscles and strengthen the elbow joint without overdoing it and getting bicep tears.

There's various good free articles on Lab Coat Fitness about developing the strength and technique for the planche and front lever, for now I'm training around 1x a week with Mindful Mover style accommodating resistance, if I plateau I'll probably try a style more similar to LCF.

The mental part is being persistent over the years at building that strength base and not rushing it to avoid big setbacks from injuries, it's as hard as the physical part of training itself.

 

[bnowacek]

@thomaslowrens Yep the hardest part is swallowing the recovery pill. These connective tissues can sometimes take a full week to recover depending how intense the workout was.

Btw that was a great video. I currently do a lot of dumbbell zanetti presses and supinated skin the cats to strengthen my biceps. Do you think I should be incorporating bicep curls more often, or is the straight arm work what is important here?

 

[thomaslowrens]

@bnowacek Straight arm strength is crucial but bent arm work helps too, especially with muscle mass. My bicep gains only come from the pause at lock out in pseudo planche ups ups, assisted one arm pull ups and a supinated German hang stretch, and overhead pressing (I use pike/handstand push ups) is the other thing that helps me in everything else needed for the planche that's not straight arm strength.

It's been enough to slowly improve my lean and reach the advanced tuck (not on the floor yet, only on parallettes where I can shift the weight on the back of the wrist so there's less lean required, a trick from this article by LCF). I'm not getting much muscle growth so I'll see if I can keep up with my minimalism or if I'll have to train more often at some point.

Another good resource is this article by Steven Low about programming for lever moves.

 

[ralphjp]

@thomaslowrens Great links and motivation (I'm 6'), but we have different definitions of big legs. I'm not trying to look like a roided up upside down triangle.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@ralphjp Thank you, which legs do you mean as the big ones? My perceptions are probably too skewed after watching many calisthenics athletes who use their legs only to walk and maybe carry the groceries.

 

[soldier0fchrist]

@thomaslowrens I didn't know height can make them harder. Wow.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@soldier0fchrist Square-cube law, weight grows proportionally more than strength as height increases.

 

[dawn16]

@thomaslowrens I guess also, your limbs are further away from your centre of gravity, which also makes it more difficult?

 

[thomaslowrens]

@dawn16 Longer limbs make some bent arm movements and things like the iron cross harder because of the range of motion and lever length, but they can actually help with the planche and front lever because long arms mean less lean and that can put the muscles in a more favorable angle to produce force. At least between people of the same height, being tall by itself is only a disadvantage for those moves.

 

[dawn16]

@thomaslowrens Ah good to know! I am 5'9 and a woman (so no advantage of testosterone), it is encouraging to know it's not completely impossible.

 

[refrigerantcomp]

@thomaslowrens Really nice motivation!

Even though I'm only 1.71m I still can't do all those advanced moves.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@refrigerantcomp Thank you, at least you would have an easier time learning them if it's your goal.

 

[mhrova]

@thomaslowrens Thanks for this post. At 193cm it is really inspiring to see these athletes perform moves that I did not think are possible. Great post!

 

[thomaslowrens]

@mhrova Thank you for appreciating it.

 

[monstersvsmartyrs]

@thomaslowrens Those are all sick cunts m8

 

[thomaslowrens]

@monstersvsmartyrs Absolute units.