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Tuck Planche Push-Up Negative

Negatives are how you build the pressing strength for a planche push-up before you can do a full rep. From a tuck or advanced-tuck planche you bend the elbows and lower as slowly as possible, fighting the collapse the whole way. It overloads the anterior delts and serratus in the deepest, hardest range. Progress by moving from a tight tuck to an advanced tuck as the eccentric gets stronger.

Equipment
Body Weight
Body part
Chest, Shoulder
Type
Strength
Browse by movement
Horizontal Press
Muscles worked
Target
Deltoid Anterior, Pectoralis Major Sternocostal
Secondary
Triceps Brachii Long Head, Trapezius Lower, Abdominal External Oblique
Tertiary
Triceps Brachii Lateral Head, Lower Rectus Abdominals

How to do it

  1. 1

    Set up on parallettes or the floor and lift into a tuck planche with knees drawn toward the chest.

  2. 2

    Maintain protracted shoulders and a strong forward lean over the hands.

  3. 3

    Bend the elbows slowly, resisting gravity as the chest lowers toward the hands.

  4. 4

    Fight to keep the hips from dropping so the body stays parallel throughout the descent.

  5. 5

    Lower all the way until the shoulders pass the hands, then reset from the floor.

  6. 6

    Aim for a five to eight second descent on each rep.

Tips

  • Open the tuck slightly toward an advanced tuck only once you can control a full slow negative.
  • Keep the elbows pointing back, not out, to spare the shoulder joint.
  • If you crash down, shorten the range and build the lockout portion first.

Variations

Common mistakes

  • The forward lean retreats the moment the elbows bend, so the shoulders end up behind the hands and the rep becomes an ordinary tuck push-up with nothing planche about it.
  • Descents get timed by feel and come out at two or three seconds every time. Count them out loud or film a set; five to eight seconds is a very different exercise from three.
  • Wrists take a punishing amount of extension when the hands are flat on the floor under a forward lean. Parallettes or push-up handles cut that angle down and are worth using from the start.
  • The shoulder blades pinch together as the descent gets hard, which is the opposite of the protracted, rounded-upper-back shape the position depends on.
  • The toes unfold and reach for the floor in the last third of the lower, and the rep finishes as a push-up with a foot down. End the negative where the tuck still holds.
  • Reps get stacked like a normal set; three to five negatives in a session is a lot of work at this intensity, and the fifth is usually where the crash happens.

Frequently asked

How many tuck planche push-up negatives should I do, and what should I own first?
Four or five sets of one negative, or two while they stay clean, with two to three minutes between attempts, twice a week. Count the seconds and log them: 5 to 8 seconds of controlled descent is the target and adding a second is the progression. Before starting you should hold a tuck planche for 10 to 15 calm seconds and own a solid pseudo-planche push-up, because this loads the same shape with more of your weight further out in front.
How do I make the tuck planche push-up negative easier or harder?
Easier: tuck the knees tighter to the chest, start the descent from a shallower lean, or lower only a few inches before resting the feet down. A band looped under the hips from an overhead anchor takes weight off without changing the shape. Harder: open the hips toward an advanced tuck, slow the descent past eight seconds, or raise the hands on parallettes so the chest can travel below them. Letting the shoulders pass further in front of the hands is the change that makes it most planche-specific.
What is the tuck planche push-up negative for, and who should skip it?
It builds the pressing strength for a planche push-up in the range where you are strongest, which is how most people ever get a first rep, so it suits calisthenics athletes already training planche holds. Skip it without a controlled tuck planche hold, since there is no position to lower from, and skip it while the wrists or the front of the shoulder are sore, because the lean loads both harder than any push-up. It is not a general chest exercise: the joint stress per unit of muscle is far too high.

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