Elbow lever

In an elbow lever your bent arms become a shelf. The elbows tuck against your hips and your straight body rests on them, level with the floor, with only your hands touching down. With the elbows doing the carrying, it is far more approachable than the planche: the Elbow Lever sits at Green, the full Planche at Red.

It teaches two things the bigger balances need. You learn to find a balance point over your hands with your whole body off the floor, and you learn to keep that body rigid while it is horizontal. It also gets your wrists and forearms used to carrying load, useful groundwork for the planche chain later.

The chain is short and mostly Green, the second of five chalk grades. White is the Plank, the base for a rigid body. Green builds the balance: the Straddle One Arm Plank, the Straddle Elbow Lever and One Leg Elbow Lever, then the full Elbow Lever. Blue moves it onto rings and starts the one-arm version with the legs straddled, and Yellow is the One Arm Elbow Lever with the legs together. Every standard is 3 × 20–30s.

The ladder

Every step has a standard. Own it, then climb. Grades run White, Green, Blue, Yellow, Red.

1. 01
   PlankWhite
   3 × 20–30s holdfloor · core · shoulders · forearms · video
2. 02
   Straddle One Arm PlankGreen
   3 × 20–30s holdfloor · core · shoulders · forearms · video
3. 03
   Straddle Elbow LeverGreen
   3 × 20–30s holdbar · core · shoulders · forearms · video
4. 04
   One Leg Elbow LeverGreen
   3 × 20–30s holdbar · core · shoulders · forearms
5. 05
   Elbow LeverGreen
   3 × 20–30s holdbar · core · shoulders · forearms · video
6. 06
   Ring Elbow LeverBlue
   3 × 20–30s holdrings · core · shoulders · forearms
7. 07
   OA Straddle Elbow LeverBlue
   3 × 20–30s holdbar · core · shoulders · forearms · video
8. 08
   One Arm Elbow LeverYellowSame video as the straddle version. The difference is the legs: straddle wide first, then squeeze them together over time — legs together is the full move.
   3 × 20–30s holdbar · core · shoulders · forearms · video

How to climb it

Move on when you own 3 × 20–30s at the current step. On BARCROSS, holds run a ladder: 3 × 10s at first, five seconds more each session, and at 3 × 30s you move to the next step. Because the elbow lever is mostly balance, it rewards short practice: a few attempts early in two or three sessions a week, while your wrists and focus are fresh.

Warm up your wrists before every session, since your hands take your whole weight bent back. Put a soft mat in front of you while you learn; tipping forward is the usual beginner exit. If your elbows dig in uncomfortably, move them a little until you find a spot that takes the load without pain, and keep the legs squeezed once you leave the straddle.

Form cues

• Elbows dig into the hips/belly
• Lean until the legs float, balance, then hold

Common mistakes

• Leaning too little: the legs only float once your shoulders move forward past your hands, so a stuck hold usually needs more lean rather than more strength.
• Piking at the hips: dropping the legs to save the balance keeps your feet near the floor, so squeeze the glutes and hold one straight line.
• Elbows sliding wide: once the elbows slip off the hips the shelf disappears, and your arms have to hold you alone.
• Jumping into it: kicking the legs up instead of leaning into the balance turns every hold into a coin toss.
• Rushing the one-arm version: a single hand adds a rotation the two-arm hold never asks for, so own the Ring Elbow Lever before you try it.

Questions

The chain follows the r/bodyweightfitness progressions chart. Standards, grades and words: BARCROSS.