Planche: what it is, what the studies of ring gymnasts measured, and a practical progression

A planche is a push skill: you hold your body in a flat, horizontal line with your arms straight and only your hands touching the ground, so your feet are off it too. In practice, people build toward it through easier versions, from a lean to a tuck to a straddle to the full body.

The research found for this page is about the ring version only, which gymnasts call the support scale and which one of the papers says is also called the planche.¹ All three studies measured national or international-level gymnasts, and two of them say the gymnasts were men; the third doesn't give their sex. None of the studies cited here tested the floor planche or beginners, so this page tells you what they measured and labels the steps to get there as practical.

This page covers what the skill is, the three studies, what it works, what the strength numbers do and don't mean, a practical progression and the questions people ask. If your goal is an upside-down balance instead, see the handstand; the pull that mirrors this skill is covered on the muscle-up page.

What a planche is

In the 2025 muscle-activity study, the ring version is described as assuming and holding a horizontal body position with the arms fully extended above the rings.¹ That is the whole skill: a long, straight body, locked arms, and a hold. On the floor the hands take the place of the rings.

It is a static hold, so the sets are timed in seconds, not counted in reps. In that study the gymnasts held the ring version, and the two hold variations of it, for 2 seconds each.¹

What the three studies measured

All three are small studies of elite gymnasts, and in the two with a reported training load they trained about 24 hours a week or more,^2,3 so what they found describes elite gymnasts, not what a beginner's body will do.

What it works, according to the muscle-activity study

In the seven gymnasts, the hold itself drew a larger signal than each of five conditioning exercises in several muscles:¹

• Chest (pectoralis major). Lower in all five conditioning exercises, by 37 to 56 percent.
• Upper back (transverse trapezius). Lower in four of the five, by 70 to 83 percent.
• Biceps. Lower in four of the five, by 38 to 80 percent. In the version with the feet supported on a step, it didn't differ significantly from the hold.
• Serratus anterior (the muscle under the armpit that wraps the shoulder blade to the ribs). Lower than the hold in the band exercise, by 44 percent. In the feet-supported hold it was at 79.8 percent of the full hold.
• Lats. No significant differences across the six exercises.

This is muscle activity in one session, not muscle growth. The authors conclude that the conditioning exercises behave differently from the hold and should be used for different jobs in training.¹ One of the five was a ring hold with the feet resting on a step.

How much strength it took, and what that does and doesn't mean

In the 19 gymnasts, the strength they could produce on a conditioning test, lying on a bench on a computer-controlled machine, was related to how heavy a load they could hold in the support scale for 5 seconds: the squared correlation was 0.59 for the concentric test (lifting) and 0.42 for the eccentric test (lowering slowly).² The authors then used the relationship to work out the minimum strength needed to hold the element at the gymnast's own body weight: about 60 percent of body weight on the concentric test and about 87 percent on the eccentric test.²

Read that carefully. It is a lab calibration in elite men on a machine you don't have, not a standard for a floor planche, and the authors say such benchmarks may help coaches and athletes systematize the training.² It does say one useful thing in plain terms: strength on a related test explained part of ring performance, not all of it.

The third study looked at training. The eight gymnasts did four weeks of slow-lowering training on a machine. The frequency patterns of their muscle signal in holds (a fatigue-related measure) were recorded one week before and one and three weeks after, and changed in ways the authors say matched a performance gain that was measured in a separate paper.³ It was a very small sample, which the authors acknowledge limits the statistics, and the training used a computer-controlled machine, so it doesn't give you a program.

A practical progression

None of the studies tested how to teach a planche, so this is practical coaching, not a finding. A common order, easiest first:

1. Straight-arm plank and a hollow body hold, steady for 30 seconds each.
2. Planche lean: from a push-up position with your arms straight, lean your shoulders forward past your hands and hold, feet still on the floor. Start with 5 to 10 seconds.
3. Tuck planche: knees tucked into your chest, hips level with your shoulders, feet off the floor, arms straight. Try short holds of 3 to 5 seconds, on a floor or two sturdy parallel supports.
4. Advanced tuck: the same, with your back flat and your hips pushed out until your thighs are no longer pressed against your chest.
5. Straddle, then full: legs wide, then together. Each step is a large jump in difficulty, so stay on a step until the holds are clean.

The ring study gives one more idea worth borrowing, as a practical reading and not a finding: it tested a version with the feet on a step, which is a way to practise a straight-arm horizontal line while the legs share the load.¹

Before you start

Practical checks, again not findings: you can do push-ups for sets of 10 or more with a stiff body, you can hold a plank on locked arms, and you can do a few dips. If something hurts while you practise, stop; I'm a fitness coach, not a doctor, so that's a question for a doctor or a physical therapist.

How to practise it in a week

As a practical start: two or three days a week, early in the session while you're fresh, five to eight short holds of the step you're on, with a minute or two's rest between. Stop each hold while it's still clean, before your hips drop or your arms bend. On days you lift, it fits before pressing, and it counts as a skill session more than a strength session.

Common questions

How long does it take to learn a planche?

None of the three studies measured how long it takes to learn one: they tested gymnasts who could already hold the element, and one four-week training block in eight of them.³ Any timeline on this page would be a guess, so there isn't one.

Is the floor planche the same as the ring one?

The body line is the same. The studies cited here measured the ring version, so their muscle numbers may not carry over to the floor, where the hands rest on a solid surface rather than hanging rings.

Is a planche push-up the same skill?

It adds a press to the hold, and none of the studies cited here measured it. This page covers the hold and the steps toward it.

Planche or front lever?

The planche is a push; the front lever is a pull, hanging below a bar. Both are straight-arm holds with the body horizontal, and both are skill goals, not requirements for building a strong upper body.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

A skill like this is slow practice, and the hard part is fitting it into a week that also has lifting in it. Coaching is the version where your workouts live in the Trainerize app, built around the days you have, with a weekly call that looks at the week you just had and sets up the next one. Coaching for strength explains how it works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: this week, time how long you can hold a planche lean with straight arms, and write the number down.