FRONT LEVER CALISTHENICS MOTIVATION 2018 (From Weakling to BEAST)

The front lever is one of the hardest skills to achieve in calisthenics. In my opinion, it is harder than the human flag, planche, back lever and most other advanced calisthenics skills. It requires a tremendous amount of core strength, lat strength, arm strength, and lower back strength.

To achieve a straight front lever, you must engage your core (abs and lower back), squeeze the bar as tightly as possible (to fully activate your forearms and biceps), thrust your hips up and squeeze your glutes. Although "squeezing your glutes" doesn't sound like it would help hold a front lever, clenching your glutes will actually enable you to hold the front lever straighter and longer because it helps to strengthen your core during the movement.

One thing that helped me hold the front lever for longer was visualising a steel rod running through my body whilst I held the front lever. Not only did this help to keep my body straighter, but I was also able to hold each front lever progression for longer because I imagined my body was reinforced with steel.

Over the years, I have realised that the typical "front lever progressions" everyone talks about on YouTube are important, but they MUST be supplemented with other exercises too. I think a lot of people believe that they will be able to make progress with their front lever with the standard front lever progressions alone, however the truth is if you don't back those front lever exercises up with other exercises (such as pull ups, muscle ups, inverted row pull ups, etc), you will plateau and make no progress. Simply training static movements (like the tuck front lever for 15 seconds for 3 sets) will not get you anywhere. You must also train other front lever-oriented exercises, like front lever negatives, tucked front lever pull ups, explosive pull ups, dragon flags, etc.

Practising dragon flags in particular was the thing that REALLY accelerated my progress. I began to realise that I wasn't making any progress with my front lever because I was lacking core strength. I started practising dragon flags on the floor first, and then over the months built up enough strength to do it on a vertical bar. By the time I could hold it on a vertical bar, my core strength had increased so much that progressing with the front lever became much easier.

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Instrumental by @Gr3glorius