Levers and Progression

[Kyle Clayton]

I want to develop my core more by training to do some static gymnastic holds, and I was thinking the elbow lever was a good place to start. Has anyone worked on levers/planches? I'm looking for advice as to how to train them properly and progress without hurting myself from the standpoint of someone who has never done them and needs to work up to the actual hold.

[Philip Stablein]

http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/229/ - planche and front lever progressions by Coach Sommer

http://beastskills.com/elbow%20lever.htm - elbow lever tutorial by Jim Bathhurst

However...for (anterior) core specific training, I think you would be better off doing L-sits, hanging leg raises, and body levers. All you might need to know about those moves and their progressions can be found on drillsandskills.com, beastskills.com and gymnasticbodies.com

[Steven Low]

For front lever... start in inverted hang and do slow negatives to hang. 7-10s each.

Planche there's tons of stuff you can do. Start with the above links is fine.

Elbow lever is mainly balance and won't give you much strength either way. Train it as much as you want (everyday if possibly) as like handstand it's mainly skill work.

Otherwise, I'd work L-sits, hanging leg raises, ab wheel, etc. for abs. For lower back I mean DLs easily cover it.. but you can do other stuff as well.

[George Mounce]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

For front lever... start in inverted hang and do slow negatives to hang. 7-10s each.

Planche there's tons of stuff you can do. Start with the above links is fine.

Elbow lever is mainly balance and won't give you much strength either way. Train it as much as you want (everyday if possibly) as like handstand it's mainly skill work.

Otherwise, I'd work L-sits, hanging leg raises, ab wheel, etc. for abs. For lower back I mean DLs easily cover it.. but you can do other stuff as well.

Steven is there anywhere that lists all the progressions in one place? Or does Coach S's book cover all that?

[Craig Loizides]

This thread lists a lot of the progressions along with some other info from Coach Sommer.

http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=892

I like working the 360 pulls along with the levers.

[Steven Low]

Yeah, if you can't find a progression you want in the link Craig provided above then I can give you one.

Um, don't know if Coach Sommer's book is good enough yet.. so we'll see on that topic. I assume it will be fairly good for the beginner though.

[Kyle Clayton]

Thanks. I'm doing a GTG routine working towards a planche. Decided one goal at a time is best, so I started with the first hold on the link above, which is the frog sit, and I'm working it until I can easily hold it for 30-60 seconds, then I'll move up.

[Steven Low]

Good luck.

Planche utilizes such small muscles (delts mainly) that they burn out easily. THe few people I've seen that GTG the planche failed miserably. However, GTG front lever/back lever worked fairly well if you can do that. If you can get the planche to work with GTG you have phenomenal recovery and physical ability.. hence my good luck statement.