Bodyweight exercises in calisthenics offer a unique challenge, requiring strength, balance, and precise technique. There are dozens of different skills but 2 skills create confusion even among intermediate calisthenics athletes. These skills are the elbow lever, and the bent arm planche. While both involve balancing the body horizontally with bent arms, they differ significantly in execution and difficulty, catering to different levels of strength and skill.
In this article, we will go over the difference between bent-arm planche and the elbow lever.
Elbow Lever VS Bent Arm Planche
Understanding the subtle differences between these two calisthenics skills can help you identify your current level and get you closer to learning more advanced push skills like the full planche.
Elbow Lever: What Is It?
The elbow lever is often confused with the bent arm planche because of its very similar body position. Legs straight, toes off the ground, and hands by your waistline. However, the elbow lever can be identified by the elbows pointed inwards towards the center of the body. This allows you to rest your upper body weight on your triceps and giving you a more stable base.
This is the biggest difference between the elbow lever and bent arm planche. During the elbow lever, having the elbows pointed inward creates more stability and takes a lot of pressure off the shoulders and allows the triceps to carry the load of your bodyweight.
While the elbow lever is still impressive, it is significantly easier than the bent arm planche due to requiring less balance and shoulder strength.
Bent Arm Planche: What Is It?
The bent arm planche is an intermediate calisthenics skill where the practitioner balances their body horizontally on their hands with their arms bent at approximately 90 degrees. This position requires exceptional upper body strength, particularly in the shoulders and triceps, as well as advanced core stability. Achieving and holding a bent arm planche demonstrates significant strength, control, and mastery of bodyweight techniques.
The key difference between a betn arm planche and elbow lever is that during the bent arm planche the elbows are away from the body on the side. Instead of having your elbows inward like the elbow lever, a bent arm planche has your elbows off to the side of your body with no weight resting on your triceps.
While performing the bent arm planche, you may notice much more strain on your shoulders. This is because in order to balance the bent arm planche you must lean forward significantly more than the elbow lever. In fact, the amount you lean forward during a bent arm planche is exactly the same as in the full planche making it a great progression when learning the planche push up.
Bent Arm Planche Vs Elbow Lever: Which is Harder?
While both calisthenics skills are impressive, the bent arm planche is significantly harder than the elbow lever. The core reasons why this is the case is due to the elbow lever using the triceps to find balance and offload the weight of the upper body. In order to balance the bent arm planche, you need significantly more shoulder strength in the protracted position in addition to leaning forward more. This means keeping your shoulder pressed downward and emphasizing your hands being at your waist. In the case of the elbow lever, many can get away with placing their hands slightly above their waist line and even at their belly button.
Going From The Elbow Lever To Bent Arm Planche
The elbow lever can be a progression for those wanting to learn the bent arm planche.
If you can already hold an elbow lever, start by inching your elbows away from your center of mass. By slowly moving your elbows outward away from your body, you are increasing the amount of tension on your shoulders while decreasing the tension on your biceps and forearms.
Once you are unable to progress moving both arms outward at the same time, move 1 arm outward while keeping the other inline with your body’s center. This causes 1 arm to be in the elbow lever position while the other is supporting a bent arm planche. Just make sure to train both sides!
Want To Learn More Calisthenics Skills Like The Elbow Lever and Bent Arm Planche?
To learn more about how to train calisthenics skills check out our training guides or blog. We cover many skills in both push and pull categories. From skills like the front lever, basic pushups, or iron cross, we break down each of these skills into progressions and answer many commonly asked questions.
