I put up another article at Breaking Muscle and this time it’s about building your way up to the back lever.
How to Build Up to the Back Lever
The back lever is a challenging and impressive exercise. It’s one of the lower level exercises performed on the rings in gymnastics, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Besides looking awesome, the back lever has many benefits. It’s a whole-body exercise with emphasis on the back and core. It also requires some strength and flexibility in the shoulders and arms, and in a typically untrained position. Variations of the back lever are widely done in the bodyweight and calisthenics movement. So, the aim of this article is to lay out a progression that can help you achieve this exercise.
As a bodyweight exercise, the main aspect of the back lever difficulty is due to the leverage involved. With your body held out horizontally, your core must support everything to stay in line, as your arms work to support your entire bodyweight. And since no one is going to start with the full movement, we’ll use the principle of leverage to create easier variations.