Valentin 'OTZ' Blanc's Planche Training Style Explained
Summary
TLDRThe video explains how athlete Valentine Blanc trains to achieve incredible planche strength. He focuses on three key areas: training style, programming, and diet. The core training involves combinations, linking static and dynamic movements, which challenges his body to adapt. Blanc trains in cycles, shifting between high volume with low intensity and high intensity with cleaner form. He emphasizes the 'SAID principle,' which states that the body adapts to specific challenges. The video also covers his mindset, unique diet (eating once a day), and prehab routines to maintain mobility and avoid injuries, offering insights into how to train for optimal bodyweight strength.
Takeaways
- 💪 Valentine Blanc focuses on three main areas for his strength training: training style, programming, and diet.
- 🤸♂️ Valentine’s training archetype centers on combinations of static and dynamic calisthenic skills.
- 📚 The SAID principle is key to Valentine’s approach – the body adapts to whatever it is challenged with, leading to progress in strength and endurance.
- 🏋️♂️ Instead of training in isolated sets with rests, Valentine uses long, continuous combination sets to build strength and endurance simultaneously.
- 🔄 Valentine cycles between high-volume, low-intensity training phases and low-volume, high-intensity phases to balance muscle growth and strength gains.
- 📏 Valentine equates form to intensity, with good form being harder to maintain at higher intensities.
- 🔗 The training progression involves long sets with reduced form, followed by shorter sets with higher form and intensity, cycling between these phases.
- 🤕 Valentine values mobility and injury prevention, incorporating prehab and conditioning to avoid injuries.
- 🥗 Valentine trains while staying lean and focuses heavily on his diet, eating just once a day to maintain his body weight for optimal strength-to-weight ratio.
- 🧘♂️ Valentine’s training is highly focused on pushing movements like planche, but he maintains balance by including some pulling exercises for overall strength symmetry.
Q & A
What are the three main focuses of Valentine Blanc's training?
-Valentine Blanc focuses on his training style archetype, his training programming, and his diet (including prehab and conditioning) to achieve his plant strength.
What is Valentine's training archetype?
-Valentine's training archetype is 'combinations,' where he focuses on linking static and dynamic exercises into continuous sets.
What principle does Valentine use to guide his training approach?
-Valentine follows the 'SAID principle,' which states that the body adapts to the specific demands placed on it. In his case, training specifically for combinations improves his performance in combinations.
How does Valentine manage volume and intensity in his training?
-Valentine trains in cycles, alternating between high volume with lower intensity (to build endurance and muscle) and low volume with higher intensity (to improve strength and form).
How does Valentine define intensity in his training?
-Valentine defines intensity in terms of form, where 'form equals lever plus control equals intensity.' Higher intensity is achieved with more difficult leverages and greater control over movements.
How does Valentine adjust his training to handle high volume without compromising form?
-Valentine reduces the intensity, which in his case means sacrificing perfect form slightly, in order to perform longer sets. Over time, he cycles back to shorter sets with improved form.
Why does Valentine focus primarily on pushing movements?
-Valentine mainly trains push movements, like the planche and presses, to perfect these skills, although he balances this with some pulling exercises to maintain overall strength and balance.
What does Valentine do to avoid injuries during his intense training?
-Valentine prioritizes an hour of stretching and prehab (preventative rehab) work every day to ensure mobility and avoid injury, a lesson learned after sustaining injuries from overtraining.
What is the role of diet in Valentine’s training regime?
-Valentine follows a strict diet, eating only once a day, to maintain his lean physique and bodyweight, which is crucial for bodyweight athletes like him to perform optimally in calisthenics.
How does Valentine differ from traditional gymnasts in his training approach?
-Unlike gymnasts who focus on static skill transitions, Valentine incorporates a mixture of dynamic and static movements in his combinations, using both isometric and eccentric contractions, which sets him apart from the more structured training approach of gymnasts.
Outlines
🏋️♂️ The Key to Valentine Blanc’s Unbelievable Plant Strength
The video opens with a focus on Valentine Blanc's impressive plant strength, outlining three key aspects of his training approach. These include his training style, programming, and diet. The main content will dive into the first two aspects, while the final part will discuss his diet and conditioning. Valentine Blanc's unique approach involves focusing on specific archetypes of calisthenics training, particularly combinations, which set him apart from others in the field.
🔄 Training for Combinations: Valentine’s Unique Approach
Valentine Blanc specializes in training for combinations, linking one exercise to another. His training reflects the 'SAID principle,' which highlights that the body adapts to the specific challenges it faces. Blanc trains for combinations rather than static exercises and preps for competitions by performing sets of these combinations. This training philosophy emphasizes linking static and dynamic movements, which results in better overall strength and endurance. Blanc believes that true strength comes from the ability to seamlessly move from one exercise to another.
📊 Programming for Strength: Volume and Intensity Cycles
Valentine Blanc's training programming revolves around managing volume, intensity, and form. He cycles between high-volume, lower-intensity phases and lower-volume, high-intensity phases. A unique aspect of his method is using form as an indicator of intensity, where 'form equals intensity.' His approach involves alternating between long sets with less perfect form to build endurance, and shorter sets with cleaner form to enhance strength. This cyclical approach gradually leads to extended, clean combinations over time.
⚖️ Balancing Push and Pull Movements
Although Valentine primarily focuses on pushing movements like planches and presses, he balances his training with some pulling movements to maintain overall strength. He emphasizes the importance of mobility and prehab conditioning to avoid injuries, based on lessons learned from overtraining early in his career. Today, he incorporates stretching and mobility exercises into his routine, much like gymnasts, though his training differs from theirs by focusing more on dynamic combinations than static movements.
🥗 The Role of Diet and Supplementation in Performance
Valentine Blanc emphasizes diet as a crucial factor for bodyweight athletes, particularly in maintaining strength relative to body weight. Blanc only eats once a day to stay lean, which helps him optimize his strength-to-weight ratio. The video also promotes ethical supplement brands, encouraging athletes to consider products that support both health and the environment. The focus is on staying as lean and light as possible, which is essential for bodyweight exercises.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Training Archetype
💡Combinations
💡S.A.I.D. Principle
💡Volume and Intensity
💡Form
💡Lever and Control
💡Prehab
💡Strength and Endurance
💡Hypertrophy Phase
💡Bodyweight Training
Highlights
Valentine Blanc trains for unbelievable planche strength by focusing on three key areas: training style, training programming, and diet.
Valentine Blanc’s training archetype focuses on combinations, linking static and dynamic movements seamlessly.
The key to his success is specific training using the 'SAID principle'—your body adapts to the specific challenges you present it with, such as strength or endurance.
Valentine trains specifically for combinations, building strength and endurance by moving from static skills to dynamic movements without rest.
His training differs from static sets followed by rest periods. Instead, he performs continuous combination sets, mimicking the intensity of a competition.
Valentine emphasizes training cycles: first focusing on high volume with low intensity (hypertrophy), and then low volume with high intensity (strength training).
Valentine’s concept of intensity is linked to form. He uses the equation 'Form = Lever + Control = Intensity' to explain that good form increases intensity.
He alternates between long, high-volume sets with lower form and short, low-volume sets with perfect form, gradually improving both over time.
Valentine focuses mainly on push movements, which allows him to perfect advanced pushing exercises like the planche, while balancing this with some pull movements for overall strength.
Mobility and injury prevention are key for Valentine. After training three times a day and facing injuries, he now incorporates an hour of stretching daily to avoid future problems.
Although there are similarities with gymnast training, Valentine’s approach is more dynamic, combining both static and dynamic elements in his routines.
Valentine’s diet is critical to his performance. He eats only once per day, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a lean body for bodyweight athletes.
Valentine stresses that bodyweight athletes should closely monitor their diet to maintain an optimal weight-to-strength ratio.
Valentine uses form as a measure of intensity and consistently cycles between focusing on volume and form to progressively improve his combinations over time.
Valentine’s training program incorporates prehab and conditioning to prevent injuries and maintain a balanced physique.
Transcripts
welcome back jack athlete straight into
it i'm going to explain how valentine
blanc trains for unbelievable plant
strength there are three main things
valentine focuses on to get his god
level plant strength and both you and i
probably don't do them the first two are
the main things he focuses on and will
be the main content in this video and
those two things are his training style
archetype and his training programming
the third and final part of this video
will be the third thing that he focuses
on which will be his diet his pre-ab and
conditioning and how he trains
differently to gymnast valentine also
sent me an equation to help me
understand his training style which i'll
explain also so if you do want to find
out exactly what exercises exactly what
the programming is you know how many
times a day etc you will have to buy
their program which you will be able to
find on their social media platforms so
you guys have probably noticed there's
different archetypes of calisthenics
training you have freestyle you have
sets and reps you have statics you have
weighted calisthenics all of these are
very different in how you train for them
but from looking at these clips of
valentine what would you say his
archetype is for me i would say it's
combinations and when you think about it
what he did to get really good at this
archetype is pretty simple he trained
specifically for combinations and i'll
explain exactly what that looks like but
this is also exactly what he preaches in
his programs his combinations if you
watch my last video on calisthenics
strength principles and if you haven't
you really should if you're training for
calisthenics but in this video i explain
what the said principle is and and now
i'm going to explain how valentine uses
his principle to his advantage
if you don't remember what the said
principle is or haven't watched the last
video yet then here's a quick reminder
so what this principle means explain
very simply is whatever you challenge
your body with your body will get better
at so if you challenge your body with
running your body will adapt and get
better at running if you challenge your
body with swimming your body will get
better at swimming if you challenge your
body with strength training then your
body will get better at strength
training by gaining more strength and
this is what valentine has baked into
his training from very early strength
and endurance which equals combinations
this is how he trains he trains
specifically for combinations so his
body gets better at combinations it's
very quite simple when you think about
it so instead of training like you and i
who are probably doing static sets then
resting then doing another static set
then resting then after that going to
dynamics then resting instead valentine
is training like he's prepping for a
competition constantly he's doing sets
and sets of combinations
so this could be one static skill into a
dynamic school into another static into
a dynamic school and then he keeps going
and these are combination sets then he
rests so that whole combination was one
set then he repeats this is one of the
things that makes the difference and
just like the said principle states if
you challenge your body with
combinations your body will get better
and adapt to combinations but let me be
very clear this doesn't mean he's always
training very hard and very long
combinations i'll explain this more in
the next section of the video when i
talk about his programming but this is
where i quickly want to explain a bit
about his mindset and why he trains this
way because this will really predict
whether you should train this way as
well so this is him in an interview
explaining why he trains with such
combinations and why he loves the plan
blanche is uh is not just skill you know
is like all complete category you know
and if you want to perform perfectly uh
every element with every variation
in all different
possible senses uh then um no for me you
know planche and balance is a sport and
uh the rest is the rest you know so as
you can see he sees strength as being
able to do one thing into another into
another into another into another so
linking strength and endurance that's
pure strength to him in these bodyweight
movements so guys if this is your goal
as well you want to be able to do
combinations you might as well start at
your level once you've done the
foundational level of strength which he
also recommends in his program there's a
foundational level of strength you have
to be at before you start learning the
planche then when you get to the planche
you can start working on combinations
which is just linking an exercise to
another exercise you don't have to be
expert level to do this so that's one
way but if also you want to perfect your
static skills this is kind of more what
i want to do i want to do combinations
as well but i want to perfect my static
skills so instead i work on perfecting
my static skills individually and then
once i have them down and the form i
want i bring them together and then the
combinations so that's another way of
doing it so it's different approaches
i'm yet to know which one's better one
might be better than the other but only
time will tell and maybe sometime i'll
make a video on this so we've
established his training archetype which
is combinations how he does this which
is specific training using the said
principles so he trained specifically
for combinations to get better at
combinations and we've explained why he
does this because he sees this as the
epitome of strength but now in the
second portion of the video we're going
to get into the juicy stuff his training
programming which is going to explain
how he manages volume intensity and form
and how they relate to each other now i
asked him in dms how he's able to manage
volume and intensity to learn these
really hard skills and combinations and
this is what he said
if you want to be able to perform a
simple and short effort
in clean form
though the way is to produce
medium form how high volume
then convert it into something clean
now to sum that up if you didn't catch
that what he was saying is pretty much
what i was saying in the calisthenic
strength video you pretty much want to
train in cycles one cycle you have high
volume and then medium to low intensity
this is your hypertrophy phase then once
you've done that you've trained high
volume then you go to low volume higher
intensity so this is your new
adaptations which is strength training
but what he does differently is form his
intensity so when you're changing the
intensity you're actually changing the
form here's what he said about this
first you grow volume then you convert
into something clean then you grow
volume again and you convert into
something guys this is literally what
i'm saying in the calisthenics strength
principle video you want to train high
volume gain muscle adapt to the high
volume then convert this into straight
now again the only difference here is
valentine uses form as intensity and you
might be wondering okay why is form
intensity but let's listen to see what
he says about this
then volume low intensity form is
intensity
to explain his point a bit more clearly
he sent me an equation this was form
equals lever plus control equals
intensity
so what this means is form is dependent
on the lever and your control and this
also equals intensity so form equals
intensity but it's dependent on the
lever and your control so in the full
planche you have less leverage this
means it's going to be harder to perform
with good form which means it's higher
intensity but in the tuck planche you
have much more leverage because the
lever is shorter which means the
intensity is lower which allows much
better form and now from my
understanding the control part is more
than neural adaptions so are you
activating the right muscles and have
control over the movement the more you
can control the movement the easier the
form will be and that will adjust the
intensity so how does valentine use this
so first he trains really long sets but
to do this he has to reduce the form
because form equals intensity to do high
volume you need to reduce the intensity
so and to him intensity is form so he
has to do the longest sets with a bit
less form then after training like this
he goes to more strength training so he
does shorter sets or shorter
combinations so that's less volume but
he increases the form so he makes the
form almost perfect but for slightly
shorter combinations then he keeps
repeating this he goes back to higher
volume longer set but reducing the form
and then converts this again to clean
form but shorter combinations i hope
that makes sense and then over time he
keeps repeating this and it adds up to
very long sets where it's clean form but
this takes months maybe years
this is what valentine also agrees with
the key is volume of work if you do
things one by one you will get the
result
of the intensity and the volume of your
work now to conclude this section you
might have the final question okay how
much high volume should i do like how
long should my sets be or how long
should my combinations be when i'm
starting out learning in this way now
let valentine answer that do the maximum
end shut up
okay so now we've gone over his training
archetype which is combinations and why
he trains this way and then we've also
gone over what he does to train this way
which is his training programming but
now we're gonna go over the final part
of the video which is gonna be the extra
stuff he kind of does because when you
get to this elite level the little
things really add up so we're gonna talk
about those things now okay so really
quickly i think valentine nowadays only
really trains push i think he does a few
pulling movements just to keep a nice
balance so he has strength in both areas
but i think his main focus is push so of
course this gives him more time to focus
and perfect his pushing movements if
you're doing push-pull legs you know
overhead press squat deadlift planche
etc it's going to be really hard to
perfect every movement but for valentine
he focuses only on planche multis
presses one arm planche stuff like that
all pushing movements so it makes it a
little bit easier to program however i'm
pretty sure he still does pulling
movements because he's a guy that's
always about balance so i'm pretty sure
he bounces out his push by still doing a
bit of pull just to make sure his body
is balanced
another thing he focuses on to help with
balance is his prehab and his
conditioning so he talks about this in
another interview where he used to train
three times a day for a year and he made
a lot of progress but then he got six
months of injuries as a result so i
think nowadays he does an hour of
stretching a day before he even trained
now i'm never injured because i know how
to don't be how to do my conditioning
and stay safe you know so he takes his
mobility really seriously and this is
something that's similar to gymnasts
they take into account their flexibility
and mobility so during this video you
might have seen some similarities in how
he trains and how gymnast trains but he
says he trains very differently to a
gymnast different or completely yeah
yeah
yeah yeah because uh gymnastics doing a
lot of preparation is really organized
you know uh it's because they are
beginning so young you know and uh they
are planet everything they do
uh we are really not doing it in the
same way and what you're saying here is
kind of true if we're talking about ring
gymnasts they go from static skill
transition to static skill to transition
to static skill but valentine is more
about combinations that can be dynamic
as well as static so he go he's going
from static to dynamic to another
transition to static to dynamic mixing
up so instead of a lot of isometric
contractions he's getting a lot of
different contractions isometric
eccentric all of that so another thing
is his mindset so combinations as we
said it's strength and endurance put
together so some days you're not going
to have the strength or some days you're
not going to have the endurance and he
takes this into account and the last
thing i want to talk about is his diet
because you know diet is so important
for gymnasts and for body weight
athletes because the strength we need is
relative to our body weight so how much
we weigh is really going to depend on
how strong we are so we need our diet in
check so our weight doesn't fluctuate a
lot and we're as lean as we can be if
you watch my gymnast video you know all
about that and something i will say is
valentine he eats only once per day so
what you need to take from this is you
need to watch your diet because it's
really important for us bodyweight
athletes because staying as lean as we
can and as light as we can is really
important and if you're like me trying
to cut body fat so you get a bit lighter
and a bit stronger as a result well then
some things that will help is going to
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for your calisthenics training as well
but in any case if you missed the last
video on the calisthenic strength
principles that even valentine blanc
uses then click here because the experts
and calisthenics aliens you guys idolize
they use these principles to their
advantage
[Music]
you
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