OAH Questions and form critique

[Yaad Mohammad]

Hey guys, I started working seriously on my one handed handstand this week and worked everyday about 30 minutes on it, I really want to nail it. I focus a lot on form and thought I could use some critique on my current progress.

 

 

I myself notice that my arm is not completely perpendicular to the ground, anyone have tips on how to do this? Apart from that I can't see any problems in form, but that's me, I bet you guys can spot million of problems.

[Mikael Kristiansen]

From what I see here I cant judge wether or not you are ready for 1 arm hs. Difficult to see your form but i get the feeling you are not aligned enough and arching a bit. How is your handstand control(straight, straddle, tuck, pike, looking at your toes, moving between leg positions freely) and can you rep straddle or pike presses(not planching it, i know you are a strong plancher) with decent form? Also, can you walk on your hands and walk up and down blocks? Being able to touch your toes on each side in straddle by leaning over sideways is also a basic exercise which you should do.

 

If not, I suggest you spend the biggest share of your balancing on getting safe on the above. Technically in this clip you are obviously twisting since you fall the way you do, other than that I would need to see different angles to see whats going on and at where you are in your handstand progress. Remember that 1 arm is a very time consuming skill and I have seen a lot of people who are working on it who are not ready for it. To make a, perhaps a bit rough, comparison, those exercises I mentioned relate to 1 arm hs in the same way stomach to wall hs relates to 2 arm freestanding.

[Yaad Mohammad]

From what I see here I cant judge wether or not you are ready for 1 arm hs. Difficult to see your form but i get the feeling you are not aligned enough and arching a bit. How is your handstand control(straight, straddle, tuck, pike, looking at your toes, moving between leg positions freely) and can you rep straddle or pike presses(not planching it, i know you are a strong plancher) with decent form? Also, can you walk on your hands and walk up and down blocks? Being able to touch your toes on each side in straddle by leaning over sideways is also a basic exercise which you should do.

If not, I suggest you spend the biggest share of your balancing on getting safe on the above. Technically in this clip you are obviously twisting since you fall the way you do, other than that I would need to see different angles to see whats going on and at where you are in your handstand progress. Remember that 1 arm is a very time consuming skill and I have seen a lot of people who are working on it who are not ready for it. To make a, perhaps a bit rough, comparison, those exercises I mentioned relate to 1 arm hs in the same way stomach to wall hs relates to 2 arm freestanding.

Hey thank you for your answer! My handstand is far from perfect, I'm simply not flexible enough in my shoulders yet, but I've started training that seriously too right now. I have never repped pike presses before and I rarely do pike presses. Switching leg position is not that hard but looking at my toes is quite difficult! I can walk on my hands, I can also do pirouettes but I have never tried walking up blocks, never had any blocks to do that. The straddle touch stretch is really useful, thank you, I'm clearly not flexible enough!

Also I decided to record quickly some attempts at what you said, my pike flexibility is really bad and I notice I pike a lot in a handstand, guess I need a lot of work on that, here is the video:

[Mikael Kristiansen]

Here there is more than enough information. You need to work on your shoulder mobility and regular hs work for now. By all means play with 1 arm stuff here and there, but keep your focus on cleaning up your 2 arm work. Here is a perfect example of how your handstand reflects your press hs. If I had seen your hs I would not have needed to see your press to know how it was and your shoulders are probably stopping you more than your pike flex. Still good that you can pike up, but for now you will need to work on getting better placement. You want to be FREE on 2 arms, making a mess on purpose and bringing it back to perfect shape should be easy.

 

Your protraction is strong, as expected from your planche ability and that helps you to hold your hs even though your shoulders are not allowing you 180 degrees flexion. However you will be forced to work more from your delts and less from your posterior chain with the angle you currently have, something which will make 1 arm very hard for you at this point.(bboy style balance with shoulder out and flaged works better when you have such a hs)

[Yaad Mohammad]

Here there is more than enough information. You need to work on your shoulder mobility and regular hs work for now. By all means play with 1 arm stuff here and there, but keep your focus on cleaning up your 2 arm work. Here is a perfect example of how your handstand reflects your press hs. If I had seen your hs I would not have needed to see your press to know how it was and your shoulders are probably stopping you more than your pike flex. Still good that you can pike up, but for now you will need to work on getting better placement. You want to be FREE on 2 arms, making a mess on purpose and bringing it back to perfect shape should be easy.

 

Your protraction is strong, as expected from your planche ability and that helps you to hold your hs even though your shoulders are not allowing you 180 degrees flexion. However you will be forced to work more from your delts and less from your posterior chain with the angle you currently have, something which will make 1 arm very hard for you at this point.(bboy style balance with shoulder out and flaged works better when you have such a hs)

Thank you a lot! This is the answer I needed. So all in all, I need to work on getting my shoulders really open so that my overall 2 handed handstand becomes better and of course practice playing around in it. Great news, how long do you think it would take me to get a nice grip on this flexibility if I would work on it everyday?