What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, Athlean-X.com.
The front lever is definitely one of the more difficult body weight exercises, but it has
some great rewards and you can do it.
Even if you can't do one right now because most often I see people try to do this exercise
and they don't use the right muscles to get it done.
If you learn how to use the proper muscles I'm going to tell you, you can start doing
this thing and I'm going to take you through step by step.
So here's the setup.
I've got myself in a squat rack in an inverted row setup.
So I've got the bar at about hip height and I'm going to get on underneath it.
Now, the first thing you want to try to do is position a bench out in front of you that
allows you to put your feet up on it.
So you can unweight some of your body weight, right?
You can't do a front lever, obviously you're not going to be able to jump right into this
thing and do it with full body weight.
So if unweight your legs, the first thing I want you get in the habit of is learning
how to engage the right muscles right from the start.
This is nothing more than the suspended version of a straight arm push down.
If you see me from here, a straight arm push down is what?
It's not a tricep exercise, it's a lat exercise.
It's basically like a pullover, except done standing and now we're going to go inverted
and suspend ourselves and tha't what we're going to try to do.
So the first thing you want to learn how to do is initiate the upward movement of your
body with your lats.
Not in a pull up position, but really in a push down position.
So you could do that with this first variation that I'm showing you.
Good.
You got that?
Simple.
Now we're going to make it a little bit harder.
So now, keep those legs out there, keep them together, nice and straight up on the bench.
Now what we're going to do is initiate as high as you can go until your body is in full
extension, until your hips are in full extension and then from there, let's get a little bit
stronger.
Let's give your back a little bit more responsibility by going into a pullup.
So instead of a pull up not really done to the upper chest, but really done a little
bit more towards mid chest, or even lower if you can.
What you want to teach yourself is the ability to counterbalance your body.
So as I pull up eventually with the lever, I want to be able to shoot my upper body from
here back behind the bar to counterbalance the weight of my legs.
A lever is really a balancing act.
Can you balance out your upper body with all that weight of your lower body that you're
holding up?
You can if you get yourself to slide back so it's not just up, but it's up and back,
like that.
So now we get in that position, get in the habit of building more strength by doing this
inverted row into a pullup.
So, good.
Now that we're there, now I have to teach you how to sort of suspend yourself on the
bar.
The easiest way to do this is in a ball, right?
This reverse curl position.
There's not a lot of weight of your legs out in front of you for gravity o push down on
and make it more challenging.
You're kind of getting in this nice, tight, ball position.
It should be very doable for those that are just starting out.
From there you want to be able to slowly increase the amount of weight that your body's going
to have to handle by exposing more to the force of gravity.
So you can do that by just slightly shifting your thighs a little bit forward and see if
you could hold this position now, for 30 seconds.
Build up your isometric strength to do the movement.
So have yourself in this position until you can master that for 30 seconds.
From there extend one leg out, right?
We're gradually exposing more to the force of gravity.
Can you hold this position?
If you can't, no worries.
Build up your strength to do that until the point where you could then shoot that last
leg out and now you've got the ability to hold yourself up in the lever there.
Again, it's a very difficult thing to do, but easier than initiating form the bottom
up and then holding yourself up in that position.
So start yourself all the way up at the bar and then work on your isometric ability to
control it.
So now when you're ready, now you head back over to the bar and the first thing you can
do if you're just starting out – again, on this full progression – is attach a resistance
band to the bar, put both feet in it and now initiate the movement with a little bit of
extra help.
So now you're doing the exact exercise, but you still have a little bit of a crutch with
that extra resistance band.
Okay, when you're ready you go through that progression one more time where you get out
from, again, under the low bar like I am now, and get back to the high bar and you start
with your ability to do that tuck position, or reverse crunch, back to the legs perpendicular
to the ground.
So the thighs out a little bit more.
Then one leg out, then both legs out, and now you're ready to go.
Now you should be able to go out there and pull the full front lever by doing exactly
what I showed you.
Initiate from the lats, slide yourself back, counterbalance the weight of your legs, try
to stick it at the top, and then slowly lower yourself back down.
You might find that you're somewhere in the middle of this progression and you find the
thing that you can do and that's where you start.
Then you move step by step from there.
A great bodyweight exercise along with rewards, and one that you shouldn't avoid just because
you can't do it today because that's the whole name of the game here.
Don’t keep doing the things you're comfortable doing because that doesn't provide the challenge
that you need to change yourself.
Do the things you're not so comfortable doing and I guarantee you you're going to start
seeing some great results.
If you're looking for something to make you not so comfortable, guess what?
I've got plenty of tools to do that.
As a matter of fact, one that uses nothing but your entire bodyweight is our Athlean-0
Program.
Complete bodyweight only, no equipment at all workout program available over at AthleanX.com.
In the meantime let me know what else you want to see here and I'll do my best to bring
it to you.
Leave your comments below to do that and I will make sure I do my best to make those
videos for you in the coming weeks.
I'll see you guys back here soon.