The restraining effect of the pericardium and surrounding tissues on the human heart is essential to reproduce physiological valve plane movement in simulations and can be modeled in different ways. In this study, we investigate five different approaches used in recent publications and apply them to the same whole heart geometry. Some approaches use Robin boundary conditions, others use a volumetric representation of the pericardium and solve a contact problem. These two strategies are combined with a smooth spatially varying scaling or a region-wise partitioning of the epicardial surface. In general, all simulations follow the same morphology regarding mitral valve displacement, tricuspid valve displacement and left ventricular twist. We show that – with the parameters used in the original papers – Robin boundary conditions are computationally more expensive and lead to smaller stroke volumes and less ventricular twist. Unrelated to this, simulations with a penalty scaling result in a less pronounced displacement of the tricuspid valve. In one of the investigated scenarios adipose tissue is modeled using a volumetric mesh and the Robin boundary conditions are applied on its outside surface. We conclude that this approach leads to similar results as a partitioning of the epicardial surface into two regions with different penalty parameters and therefore a volumetric representation of the adipose tissue is neither necessary nor practical.