re re ead PLANCHE SECRETSPLANCHE “THE PLANCHE” Mother of all calisthenics exercises. Such a simple, yet “impossible” element to truly understand and master. In order to make this guide as good as can be, | am taking assistance from our head coach “Ivan Kajtaz” who's attempt of the FULL maltese at 180 cm (5’9) can be found to the right. In the following pages, me and Ivan will try to cover the 3 CORE principles that have helped us & many of our students master the planche. Making use of all the 3 principles, and the PLANCHE table stands. Without just one of the three, the table falls over. This is the point where most athletes screw up, So pay VERY close attention in the following few pages. Welcome! My name is Dominik Sky & through my 15 years of training & coaching calisthenics, I've probably dedicated a good decade to the planche specifically. @ DomiINIK skyPLANCHE To not keep you waiting any longer, let's get to it! As mentioned above when going through the planche journey, there are 3 CORE principles in place to make the process smooth & rising upwards. #1.) PROPER MUSCLE ACTIVATION & STRENGTH #2.) STRENGTH-TRANSFER (levers) #3.) ELIMINATING WEAK LINKS The planche is one of those skills that most people NEVER get. It requires not only HARD work, but most importantly SMART work. That's what the principles above will hopefully help you understand & put into practice. Now, right off the bat: | am not gonna be proclaiming that height & weight don't matter... Because they do, training is obviously personal & different for everyone in accordance with their body composition & multiple different variables... BUT | am going to do my best to explain a BASIC structure that, if applied correctly, will get anyone well on their journey of mastering the planche. @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE | SECRETS EE PROPER MUSCLE ACTIVATION & STRENGTH Now - There is no question that the planche requires an incredible amount of strength to be properly executed. Let's take a look at WHERE it is needed that we develop strength specifically for the planche, and how we go about doing so. Let’s dig in =) In order to hold a planche and maintain that horizontal position, there is going to be tension throughout most of our muscles. Some of the muscles are obviously going to be working more than others. Let's focus on the muscles with the most amount of tension and required strength: the muscles in, and surrounding the shoulder girdle. (Anterior) Deltoids, Chest, Serratus Anterior, - to name a few. Having sufficient strength in these parts of the body can be achieved and measured with a couple of different exercises. ®@ Vertical plane pressing, and the ability to press your FULL bodyweight overhead (100% BW Military Press or Deep Free Balancing HSPU) @ DomINIK skyANCHE ®@ Horizontal plane pressing: You should be SUPER comfortable with Pseudo Planche Pushups (hands at hips), whilst maintaining full scapula protraction & depression all the way throughout the set. Again, keep in mind the strength level needed may vary from person to person due to the differences in our body composition. In a minute, | will show you how to progress based on your current level. “100% BW Military Press?! How will I ever get even close to that?” | have covered strength training one too many times in the past, so if you want to take a deeper dive into that - feel free to click the link below and read another one of my ebooks: “the simple strength system”. https://drive.google.com/file/d/I5p7nG32ZgF3x96HieMUIsq-jFz-JTgxG/view Here's a quick recap of it: There are 2 parts to what we call “strength development”. The first one being muscle development. Keep in mind that the size of the shoulders, pecs, etc, matters, since a bigger muscle has more strength potential. @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE We need to develop enough muscle mass, and distribute it correctly, in order to build a body that’s even capable of holding a planche. | have covered muscle development dozens of times & most certainly will keep doing it in future e-books & content, so let’s not bother ourselves with the basics of hypertrophy in this book. The second part of strength development is the actual activation training (strength training). Again there is NO “one site fits all” solution here, but in general the CORE structure should be based on 3-5 exercises, 3-5 sets per exercise, 1-6 reps/ set with a 4+ minute pause in between each of the sets. That is a VERY general approach to it, so make sure to adjust it to your needs & get after it. After the “strength aspect” of the planche is taken care of... We move forward to actually putting that strength into practice. In order to use the strength properly & “defy gravity” here, the force is going to run through the lever (our arms) & touch base with the ground. This is where the next principle comes into play... @ DomiINIK SkyANCHE EEG STRENGTH-TRANSFER (levers) In order to successfully withstand that type of tension, the arms & tendons have to be conditioned properly. There is no specific metric by which we can track this due to it being so personal but let’s go through the process of conditioning step-by-step. Once you have the strength, there is no guarantee that you can already hold a specific progression... it’s entirely possible to be ridiculously strong in the shoulder girdle but barely manage to pull off a tuck planche. Therefore, in order to master the element, we need to focus on conditioning the lever + arms (bicep tendon, triceps, elbows, wrists...) to be able to withstand all that force. There are a couple of milestones to hit in order to be prepared for the full hold. EXIST 20 second Planche Lean (Perfect Hollow Position) Start working on your planche lean, complement it with additional resistance exercises and once you are able to execute a planche lean for 20 seconds with perfect hollow position, you can slowly start moving to the next progression. High-volume is key here. 2-5x per week for 5+ sets to really build that resilience & strength in the joints and tendons for future holds. @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE (EQS Tuck Planche for 10+ seconds (Perfect Hollow Position) If you can hold a tuck planche for less than 10 seconds, drop the ego, and keep working on your planche leans. If however, you can hold a solid tuck planche for a period of 10 seconds or more, implement it into your training 2-4x per week with pretty high volume to keep on developing that resilience. Advanced Tuck Planche (Perfect Hollow Position) This is a plateau for most people - progressing from tuck planche to advanced tuck planche. If you find yourself in a similar situation, there are usually one of two things hindering you. oe The strength in the shoulder girdle. In this case, | suggest you to keep working on your OHP & planche pushups (as mentioned in principle #1). 6 Absence of strength/resilience in the moment arm that's not allowing a proper strength transfer. In this case, keep working on the milestones above - keep conditioning the elbows & the bicep tendon, and the adv. In order to progress onwards from the advanced tuck- , to the half lay planche, | once more suggest that you use a lot of volume 2-4x/ week for 5+ sets of 10+ second holds. @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE (CSE Hallt-Lay Planche (Perfect Hollow Position) The process here is basically the same as for advanced tuck planche; high-volume, progressing from 10-20 second holds. And before progressing to the straddle, make sure that your basic pressing strength is where it needs to be (100% OHP, perfect PPP), so that you won't have to regress down to basic 5 by 5 strength training just before the final step. EXESOLE Sy straddle Planche (Perfect Hollow Position) Almost there... If you can hold a straddle planche for only a couple of seconds, don't rush to incorporate it into your training just yet. Remember? - 10-second holds or longer. This is the mistake MOST make & therefore plateau. YES! Even after achieving the straddle planche, should you regress to a progression you can hold for 10 seconds or more, practice the movement pattern there & build the basic strength in the meantime. With all honesty, the full planche is gonna be possible way before The Full Planche (Perfect Hollow Position) Congrats, that's one goal crossed off the bucket list... BUT, even after reaching such a level of strength (if you wish to progress further, maltese, etc), make sure to stick to the golden 10-second progression holds & work your way up from there! @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE So, all that we went through right now is awesome, makes sense... BUT it can't be that easy right? Of course not @ Training & life overall is unpredictable so, in 95% of the cases, something will go south... There will be a plateau, injury, or a weak link, and that is where the 3rd principle comes into play. EEDN WEAK LINKS IN THE KINETIC CHAIN To make it simple to understand right off the bat, I'll use an example. Ex.: If we start pulling a steel chain apart, there is always that one link that will rip off first. Our body works in a similar way... When working towards a skill or element you want to master, there is always gonna be a part, which gives up first... Either it’s retraction, protraction, depression, posterior pelvis position, hollow body... Something will give up. So as calisthenics athletes training for the planche, our job is to constantly discover new and potential weak-links & work on overcoming them. @ DOMINIK skyANCHE It's a never ending process of improvement. The truth is, there are hundreds of those just for the planche, let alone all the other elements - BUT let’s use our time wisely & just focus on the 2 most common ones. @ Weak Scapula Protraction Acommon occurrence in the planche world is the scapula sliding down into retraction towards that end of the hold... That is often the case due to strengthening the chest superior to the Serratus Anterior muscle... To fix that kind of problem, make sure to focus on your Pseudo Planche Pushups & Practice those PROTRACTED planche progressions. @ Planche w/ Bent Arms If your arms start bending during a planche hold, it turns out you haven't done a really good job of conditioning them. You have the strength but have a hard time transferring that through the moment arm (your arms) Get after more of those leans & especially make sure the tricep is activated & locked out all the way through. @ DOMINIK skyPLANCHE | could go on & cover all the hundreds of potential weak links and give you directions on how to overcome them... But it doesn’t really make sense. At the end of the day, the only way to make something out of this guide is to adjust it to your personal body composition, circumstances, etc. As mentioned above, there is no “one size fits all” method | could just share & we would all happily get results afterward. This guide was the closest thing that | could make. The bigger chunk of every training plan is personal, so make sure to plan accordingly, ask a friend to help, get a coach, etc. And of course, let me know if you need any help ;) That's it for now! | tried my best to cut right to the juicy stuff in this little ebook and hope that you got some value out of it =) Remember that no results are going to be made without putting in the work. If you got some value from this, make sure to start working on those principles right away. It's always a pleasure! Dominik Sky «and remember, You're a Champion @ DOMINIK sky