HBP 17 - Struggling to get out of the Headstand

Hi all,

I am working HBP 16 freestanding and I am just trying the odd rep of HBP 17. I am having great difficulty getting out of the headstand. Can anyone suggest an approach to building the strength/technique to initiate the upward push? 

Thanks in advance

Difficult to explain, but IME you need two elements, strength and technique.

Technique: make sure you tighten up your core and legs before initiating the push, so that you're pushing a rigid structure, not boiled spaghetti. Its also a good idea to pretension your shoulders and triceps a couple of seconds before lift off, so you're ready to explode out of the headstand. Finally, just before pushing, begin to lean your legs and torso slightly towards your elbows, to move the load from the head over to your hands. When you sense that you are balancing on your hands, you push up.

Strength: one HeSPU is about as hard as 4-5 wall HeSPU. If you're unable to do sets of five, the freestanding version is going to very difficult to you.

A spectator or seeing a video of yourself from the side can also help a fair bit-- obviously you need to push around your centre of gravity to get up there You may find that initially you are trying to press from an improbable angle.

try it facing the wall by supporting the feet at the beginning and gradually move them out from the wall as you move closer to vertical position.

Do to a shoulder issue I had to stop doing these for some time. I'm just getting back into them again even though I focus on free standing negatives at the moment. The other day I was lucky to have a training partner who spotted me. I felt that this was invaluable and was pissed that I haven't done them with a spotter before. Just let the spotter help you as little as possible but still enough so you get up to HS and can balance. You can also try to start from a HS instead of a Headstand. I feel that this is easier.

If you don't have a spotter do them close to a wall and make sure you finish the rep in a balanced HS.

Thanks guys. I will try them facing the wall until the strength is built.

I recommend just brushing the ground when doing HeSPU. That way you do not tilt your head and maintain full body tension, which is essential. The key to balancing properly and being able to use full strength is tightening up the core as hard as you can, coupled with proper breathing, i.e. breath in when descending and out when pressing. Protraction also broadens the base of support. Good luck. I've been doing these a few months now and its bloody hard to get mastery

If I cannot hold a freestanding handstand for longer than 5seconds does this mean a free-standing HeSPU will be out of my reach?  

Is it easier to balance when coming down with bent arms?  I've tried it a couple of times just slightly away from the wall and it seemed that with a bit f practice it might be possible......

I'm still working 10sec negatives against the wall this week on 4 x 3r, it has taken some time for me to build these up to 10 secs.

DonGray said:

If I cannot hold a freestanding handstand for longer than 5seconds does this mean a free-standing HeSPU will be out of my reach?  

 

Is it easier to balance when coming down with bent arms?  I've tried it a couple of times just slightly away from the wall and it seemed that with a bit f practice it might be possible......

 

I'm still working 10sec negatives against the wall this week on 4 x 3r, it has taken some time for me to build these up to 10 secs.

From the wall, get into a freestanding handstand and then do the negative.This helped me with learning the balance part.

Hmm, I can't imagine doing these without having a fairly solid hollow handstand for at least 30 secs...

Develop a solid handstand before you even think about doing free HSPU for reps...

I would have thought that is obvious.