Front Lever advice

Troy Kerr · 04-08-2010, 08:42 PM

Just what the title says. Looking for some advice regarding my front lever training. Over the past 6 weeks I have progressed my back-lever and planche quite well, however I am still stuck on basic tuck while training my front lever. When working my statics, its hard to focus on contracting. I try to focus on keeping my rhomboids retracted and hips up, but it dosent seem to be helping. I am currently working the front lever with the planche and back lever 3 days a week for 60 seconds of static work.

Steven Low · 04-09-2010, 06:25 AM

What order do you do your exercises in?

If front lever is near the end and you're getting very good quality out of your first exercises your front lever ma suffer.

That is what I've seen the most... if people do say back lever, planche, front lever in that order it's expected that front lever will suffer some being in the back of your exercise order.

You generally want the exercise you want to improve the MOST to be first in the list.

That said, even if it is first sometimes exercises stall out like that for a couple weeks but then they usually jump up in progression. Since it's been 6 weeks apparently this has not been the case. You may want to consider adding some specific work on the back muscles such as the external rotators, retracts, posterior delts.

Also, you do not need to focus on retracting the scaps. Just go into inverted hang and then pull your hands forwards towards your hips while your body starts descending. There's no specific technique as long as you don't bend your arms -- whatever feels more comfortable.

Garrett Smith · 04-09-2010, 06:33 AM

Maybe take a week off.

Troy Kerr · 04-09-2010, 08:09 AM

I typically do the planche, then dips, front lever, then back lever. For specific movements to improve these muscles, I have seen Ido Portal's suggestion to use front lever rows, body rows, and band pulls in a superset fashion to help bring up these retractors. Any comments?
Also would doing the front lever pullup, body row, and band pulls replace my front lever static work?

I did 6 weeks where I was doing each static position for 30 seconds to ease my body back into the program after taking a few weeks off. I recently took a week to deload and was only in the gym once. Now I am on this program which is structured similar to the basic program steven has outline in his body-weight article.

Steven Low · 04-09-2010, 09:40 AM

Ido's recommendation there is good. Yes, it would replace statics for a few weeks.

It's possible that you do need a week off. How many times are you training per week right now?

Troy Kerr · 04-09-2010, 09:50 AM

3 days per week right now. I am in school and work weekends so recovery is not always optimal, it would be weird to assume that it would only have negative side effects on the FL though.