Feet in the straps, pike your hips to the ceiling.
Keep your legs straight and drive the pike from your abs, not momentum.
The pike flips plank logic on its head, instead of resisting movement your abs create it, hauling your hips toward the ceiling while your feet drag the straps in beneath you. Legs stay straight so the entire fold comes from the core, and the stacked-shoulder position adds a serious stability demand up top as the angle steepens. It earns its place as one of the hardest strap core moves going, a natural progression from suspended planks and knee tucks once those stop being scary.
Considerably. Keeping the legs straight forces the fold to come purely from your abs and hip flexibility, with none of the leverage relief bent knees provide. Own tucks before attempting pikes.
As high as you can lift them with straight legs and control, ideally approaching an inverted V with shoulders stacked over hands. Height earned with bent knees or a rushed swing does not count.
As your hips rise your shoulders take on more of your bodyweight at an increasingly vertical angle. That is part of the exercise, but if it is the limiting factor, build shoulder stability with suspended planks first.
