Once you have mastered the straddle planche, it is time to move on to something much greater, the straddle planche push-up. The gravity-defying straddle planche push-up is an exercise only a few can do due to its difficulty. For those who don’t know, it is basically a push-up without any assistance of your legs. It does look like you need to be in space in order to be able to do it. But somehow, people, including myself, managed to do it. And today, I am going to show you how you can do it too!
In this post, I will show you some progressions and exercises that helped me progress from the straddle planche to the straddle planche push-up.
Bent Arm Planche
The bent arm planche is exactly what you think it is. You are in a planche position, but instead of straight arms, your arms are bend. But why is this exercise so crucial? When you lower yourself from a straddle planche, it is important to maintain the clean straddle form. By practicing the bent arm planche, you will learn to keep this horizontal form. A lot of people tend to break it or use their legs to create momentum. Only your arms should do the work.
So before you really start training, master the bent arm planche first. It will benefit you in the long run. And by mastering, I mean at least 10 seconds. This will further improve as your journey goes on.
Advanced Tuck Planche Push-Ups
If we take a look in terms of progressions, the advanced tuck planche comes before the straddle planche. This makes the advanced tuck planche push-up the perfect exercise if we want to learn the straddle planche push-up. The two actually look very much alike, which is very beneficial because you will get familiar with the straddle planche push-up.
However, this exercise can be really challenging at first. That is because you need to use the right muscles at the right time, which can be very difficult for those who have never done this exercise before. But, after some time, you will get a feeling for it.
The biggest mistake I see a lot of people making when it comes to this exercise is not leaning far enough. In addition to the straddle planche push-up, leaning is incredibly important.
So master the Advanced tuck planche push-up first before moving on!
The handstand push-up
Leaning forward, which I just talked about, requires a lot of shoulder strength. Building shoulder strength takes time. But, what I found is the fastest way to build the required shoulder strength is handstand push-ups. I sincerely advise you to them as often as possible, the more, the better. Back when I was still learning the straddle planche push-up, I did thousands of handstand push-ups. And eventually, those really paid off.
With handstand push-ups, it is better to do them freestanding. Balancing without any wall assistance is better for your mind-muscle connection, which can be beneficial for the straddle planche as well. Still, doing handstand push-ups against a wall isn’t bad either. In the end, we do them to increase our shoulder strength.
Resistance bands
With resistance bands, you can make the impossible possible. This makes them very useful if we want to learn the straddle planche push-up. With a resistance band, you basically make yourself lighter, and this again allows you to perform skills such as the straddle planche push-up.
The best part of resistance bands is that you can very easily progress, you just decrease the strength of the band. You keep on progressing and progressing until you can do it without eventually.
Another benefit you get with resistance bands is that you can experience how it is in a particular skill. This way, you get familiar to know which muscles to use, and you can work on your technique.
Really something to implement in your workout routine!
Using weights to replicate the straddle planche push-up
The next exercise is not really part of calisthenics, although it benefits me very well when I was still learning the straddle planche push-up. I used weights to imitate the straddle planche push-up. You need two 10kg(at least) dumbbells. The exercise kinda looks like the dumbbells press, only don’t press from your chest. You press from the middle just like in a planche push-up.
Here is a picture to demonstrate it:
The advantage of exercise is that you can easily adjust the difficulty. The more weight you push, the faster you will get to the straddle planche push-up.
Weighted Pseudo Planche Push-Up
The pseudo planche is a well-known planche beginner exercise. Only here, we are going to increase the difficulty a little bit. For those who don’t how to do a pseudo planche, it is basically a planche lean push-up. So, a planche push-up with your legs as assistance.
Nevertheless, this is still fairly a beginner’s exercise. Thus, we are going to add some weights to make it more advanced. Start off light, and slowly build up the weight.
Implement all these exercises, and I will assure you the straddle planche push-up will come!
