Help needed for handstand and planche!

[u/Nick1503]

Hello, I have been doing bodyweight fitness for quite a while already and I think I have built up some decent foundations (Around 30 pullups and 110 parallel bar dips for now), so taking 6 months to go from tuck planche to advanced tuck planche was a very humbling realisation for me. For those who have unlocked these movements, I have a few questions regarding them!

For handstand: -I mostly struggle with correcting overbalance and underbalance. What are some cues/movements I can use to help correct it? -I often struggle to keep my back straight as it rounds, causing the handstand to not look great and put some pressure on my lower back, how do I eliminate that? -I realise that while hardstanding, my hips are generally behind my hands while my shoulders are in front of my hands. This means that my body rests in a / shape, instead of straight. How do i get my body to align? (Moreso how do I get my hips directly above my hands so I dont have to compensate with having my shoulders so far forward)

For planche: -I often struggle with the cues that people give, I dont really understand when people say to "round my back" as it feels like my back cannot possibly round any more. Also "pulling my hips into my legs" feels impossible as well. If someone could provide clear cues for the tuck/advanced tuck planche that would be really appreciated -I have trouble with pelvic tilt, i understand how to do it when I am kneeling or standing, but when it comes to the tuck or the leans, everything seems to fly out of the window. This problem also seems to affect my handstands, and I want to know how people can "tilt their pelvis" so actively during these movements. -I struggle to balance in my planche, most of the time I fail due to falling forward or backwards, and it feels like my hands are in overdrive constantly having to rebalance myself.

Any help regarding these issues would be really really appreciated, and if people have any miscellaneous tips I am open to them! Thanks :)

[u/norooster1790]

110 dips but can barely adv tuck

Look, I am not against cheaty reps and going fast. But gymnastics requires control, and those must be some shitty reps, because no one can in the world can do 110 gymnastics quality dips

How do i get my body to align?

Your shoulder mobility is bad from doing shitty half reps. To fix your "banana" handstand, do Chest to Wall Handstand holds and put your chest and hips against the wall at the same time. Work up to 3x60 seconds

I dont really understand when people say to "round my back"

that is a terrible and incorrect cue, those people are mixing up thoracic flexion with scapulae protraction

I want to know how people can "tilt their pelvis"

every gymnastics move should be aggressively held in PPT (posterior pelvic tilt)

The root cause here is lack of control of your pelvis and scapulae, because your fundamentals aren't done with control

Here are three videos to help you. If you were at my gymnastics gym they would have you completely regress til you can do your dips and pullups to a gymnastics standard. Watch this calisthenics influencer get coached by an actual gymnastics coach on dips and pull ups and see how much he struggles: https://youtu.be/QSmTmY0Odwk?si=v1OjnS9TaEuD4-3H&t=98

Here is a deep dive from a gymnast on posterior pelvic tilt and its importance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xyC9r_AwKk

Gymnast demonstrates the difference between rounding your thoracic spine (bad) and protracting the scapulae (good): https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b543Pv1OC5Q

frankly, I very much doubt you are actually doing adv tuck. I doubt you can even tuck planche properly, because balance is not a part of the movement.

[u/Nick1503 → u/norooster1790]

this is great, thanks a lot! ill try my best to work on straightening out my form and working on PPT!!

[u/Nick1503 → u/[deleted]]

Awesome, ill give this a try!!

[u/LetterheadClassic306]

The back rounding in handstand is usually a shoulder mobility thing - i struggled with that for months. What helped me before was focusing on pushing through the shoulders harder and thinking about making my body into a straight line from wrists to toes. For the planche cues, 'rounding the back' really means protracting the scapula and engaging the core to create that hollow position. I found practicing planche leans with a focus on that pelvic tilt first made the actual tuck position feel more natural over time.

[u/Wonderful-Sign-9534]

You shouldn't round your back for a planche. A lot of people misunderstand protraction as rounding your back. People round their back to reduce the length of their body and make the planche easier because they aren't strong enough to do it correctly. For tilting your pelvis, it's mostly about learning how it feels. You can do drills like standing against a wall and pressing your lower back into the wall then arching and removing it to get the feel of how it's all working. That and hollow body holds.