Planche Push-up - Week 1

After the difficult research phase it was finally time to start working on our goal! As the title implies it did not exactly go as planned and we had to make some adjustments.

Day 1

The first day was fairly smooth. The planks were a little tougher than expected but we managed to get through them. We'll probably stick with 60s for the next session but we can probably start working towards 120s after that.

The dips posed a bit of a challenge. The gym we're using doesn't have any parallel bars so we had to improvise. For this session we used a bench, but we'll probably try to find something closer to parallel bars next time.

In terms of difficulty the pull-ups and push-ups were the most challenging for my buddy. I got the sense he was a little disappointed with the amount of reps he did, but given that a year ago he couldn't even really do a single pull-up he should be proud of himself.

For next week we'll keep the program the same, working towards clean reps for all sets. We'll also try to find a better place to do dips.

Day 2

In this session we were really confronted with the fact that we're very much beginners. To start of the planche leans were much tougher than expected. We ended up doing just 30s per set.

L-sits were even more fun: we could barely get in the position, let alone hold it for 30s. This did not give us a lot of hope for the L-sit dips so we ended up doing hanging leg raises instead.

The Scott curls were fairly easy, which was nice after the disappoinment of the previous 2 exercises.

When it came to the wall handstand we were able to do 30s per set. For me it was quite comfortable as I had done them before, but for my buddy it posed quite a challenge. In addition to the physical challenge there is also an element of fear on his face. This adds an extra layer of stress to the execerise. To alleviate this we started at an angle and over the next couple of weeks we'll be working towards the 90 degree angle.

Given that we scrapped some exercises and spent less time on the planche leans we filled out the day with a single set of squats with just the barbell (20kg) to failure.

For next week we'll adjust the program to what we ended up doing.

Next Week

Now that we know a little better where we're at we can start with some more realistic goals. For me the first major milestone is a freestanding handstand. I can do handstand push-ups with wall support but I lack the coordination/technique to do a static handstand without support. I hope that the exercises we're doing will help me get there.

For my buddy the first major milestone is handstand with wall support. It will be a good test of strength and coordination, as well as overcoming his fear of falling.

Below is the program we'll be using next week and probably for a the foreseeable future.