2021 is about to come to an end and it's time to reflect and answer two most commonly
asked questions.
The first question I am going to answer is: "What happened to my front lever training?"
Believe it or not, I am still stuck at the straddle half lay.
I talked to multiple people and reached out to multiple coaches and the advice I got are
all pretty much equivalent to "train hard, be strong, and don't be not strong."
As a person who is strong enough to do the one-arm pull-up, I am tired of hearing people
telling me that what stops me from achieving the front lever is because I am not strong
enough.
I was able to find out the reason why the front lever is nearly impossible for my body
to achieve after a DEXA scan.
The DEXA scan report provides the data of my weight distribution, and I was able to
draw a conclusion after writing down some math and physics equations.
I am going to skip the math and physics derivation and just jump right into the conclusion.
Comment below if you really want to see the full heavy math and physics breakdown video
of my DEXA scan data.
The basic idea is that your center of mass has to be right below the bar, otherwise your
body will swing unless you have superhuman grip strength.
Therefore, if you have long arms, the angle between your torso and your arms can be bigger,
which will make the front lever easier for you, but if you have short arms like me, the
angle between your torso and your arms needs to be smaller, which will make the front lever
significantly more difficult.
If you don't believe me, you can go find a lat pulldown machine yourself and see how
much weight you can pull with various angles in the front lever position.
I am sure you will find out how fast the weight you can pull will drop even if you just reduce
the angle by a few degrees.
For me, personally, when its around 55 degrees, I can pull 1.2 times of my body weight.
When it's around 50 degrees, it drops all the way down to 0.9 times of my body weight.
When it's around 45 degrees, it drops all the way down to 0.4 times of my body weight.
Based on the calculations for my body, for the full front lever, the angle needs to be
47.673 degrees.
For the half lay, the angle needs to be 49.615 degrees.
For a 45-degree leg straddle, the angle needs to be 49.942 degrees.
For a 45-degree straddle half lay, the angle needs to be 51.276 degrees, and just for completeness,
for the advanced tuck, the angle required is 54.244 degrees.
Now, if I look at popular calisthenics YouTubers who showcase their front lever, you will realize
their angle is around 52~55 degrees, and guess what, I can pull my entire body weight on
these angles, too.
You might wonder, so what's the main difference between their bodies and mine?
It can't be just that their arms are longer than mine, right?
Yes, there is another key difference, which is that they all have massive hypertrophied
upper body muscles and these extra masses allow the center of mass to shift towards
the upper body.
As a result, the angle between their torso and arms doesn't need to be as small as
mine.
After analyzing all these thoroughly, I am inclining towards giving up on the front lever
because I won't get it no matter how hard I continue to train for it.
No one can defy physics.
If you guys send me a video of someone doing the front lever at an angle of 47 degrees,
maybe I will resume.
I am also at the tail end of my athletic career, so I am not down to mess with my diet for
the sake of putting on extra weight on my upper body for the front lever.
I am happy with maintaining my pull strength by continuing doing the one-arm pull-up, the
muscle-up, and climbing for the rest of my life.
The second question I am going to answer is: "What happened to my planche training?"
When I released the video of myself learning the tuck planche earlier this year, I said
that strong bent arm push strength wasn't necessary for learning the tuck planche and
I proved it with my experience even though it went against what the mainstream calisthenics
YouTubers preached.
To my not so great surprise, there were loads and loads of people in the comments saying
YouTube experts were right, and I was wrong.
It took me 64 days instead of 10 seconds to learn the tuck planche because my bent arm
push strength was crappy, stuff like that.
Even today, I still don't see how strong bent arm push strength is related to the planche.
Normally, I am not afraid of challenging mainstream calisthenics concepts if they don't sound
like they make sense.
As you can evidently see, I was not afraid of alienating some of my viewers by making
a video explaining why training body weight one-arm pull-up negatives for your first one-arm
pull-up is an absolutely terrible idea, but this time I've decided to give in and blindly
trust the crowd.
I was confident to make my own judgement for the pulling-related training since I was fairly
advanced in pulling, but I was not confident enough to make my own judgement for the pushing-related
training since my push strength was pretty much at a beginner level.
Therefore, I did not go for the next planche progression, which is the advanced tuck.
I started to work on my bent arm push strength instead, as all of you suggested.
My bent arm push strength was pretty much non-existent, so I had to start literally
from zero with push-ups.
The milestone I set for myself before going back to trying the advanced tuck planche is
to achieve the bent arm press handstand.
I did not choose something like achieving 20 push-ups in a row or something like that
not only because that would be a boring video but also because I am aiming for one rep max
here instead of endurance.
The journey of learning the bent arm press handstand so far has been no less painful
than learning the one-arm pull-up for me.
It takes so much effort and a lot of trial and error to make progress, which I will talk
about in detail in another video when I achieve it in the future.
Currently, I am able to get into the starting position and bring my legs up, but I don't
have enough strength to push myself up at the moment.
Lastly, I want to review the goals last year I set for 2021.
I achieved the one-arm pull-up, which I am pretty happy with.
As for the front lever, I didn't achieve it and moreover, as I have explained, it's
just impossible for my body.
As for the press handstand, obviously I didn't achieve it and I mentioned last year that
this was a distant goal of mine because it seemed impossible.
However, since I started focusing on the bent arm press handstand due to all your comments
on my tuck planche video, the press handstand might start seeming to be more possible once
I achieve the bent arm press handstand.
As for the remaining 3 climbing goals, I did not achieve any of them because I injured
my finger on the MoonBoard at the start of 2021.
I know talking about injuries is boring, especially for climbers who have never injured their
fingers from climbing.
It just isn't as interesting as hearing what training I've done to advance to the
next grade or seeing me sending a grand outdoor climb, so I am going to keep what I want to
say short.
Dont get injured; especially don't repeatedly get injured.
It took me 4~5 months to recover from my first finger injury and climb a V7 again, but almost
a year has passed since my second finger injury and I still can't climb a V7 again.
Our body does not like repeated injuries and our body will make sure to let us know
it doesn't like it if you don't listen to it.
As cliché as it sounds, you should remember that the number one rule for climbing is don't
get injured.
Here are my goals for 2022, and I don't want to set distant, unattainable goals this
time.
Number one, bent arm press handstand.
Number two, advanced tuck planche.
Number three, back lever.
Number four, gym V7.
I think these should be reasonable goals for me to achieve in 2022.
Thanks for watching.
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