Handstand Three has been Released

Coach Sommer said:

It appears that GB Curriculum roadmap is going to require an adjustment; especially in terms of mobility and handstand work. This fine tuning will be an ongoing process.

It was never my intent that students would not start press handstand work until 2-3 years after they began GST. Once again, your guys' zombie like mobility is throwing a monkey wrench into the GB developmental path.

To start with, everyone needs to stretch more. A lot more. I had hoped that the GB Stretch courses would accelerate the correction of these basic mobility deficits, and they have in some cases; but not everyone has been taking full advantage of them.

For example in my own personal training, I currently strength train 3 days per week, yet I stretch 5-6 days per week; 3 days of full body limbering before the strength workouts and 2-3 days of 'hard stretching' on off days with the stretch courses.

If limbering up before a workout, during a workout with the integrated mobility and the stretch courses themselves are not the fundamental focus at your current level how are these deficits ever going to be corrected so that we can move on?

It also cannot be overstated that press handstands are essential for long term gains in GST. Without a press handstand everything in GST will later come to a grinding halt. There is no avoiding this.

I would also hope that it is obvious that effective press handstand work cannot take place without a reasonably proficient free handstand.

In my opinion both free handstand and press handstand gains have been far, far too slow for most GB students. It is a failure on my part that I have failed to be sufficiently explicit that handstand and press handstand are not party tricks to be worked on the side. But let me be clear now that handstand and press handstand work are essential for future GST progress and must receive the same degree of attention and focus as your Foundation work.

Do not however be overly harsh on yourselves. You are certainly not alone.

This summer while working with the GB Master Class and the GB World Team in Stroud, both groups composed of some of GB's best and most talented from around the planet, I had to be rather 'forthright' about their needing to remove their heads from their #$$@$, quit piddling around, and get these basic handstands and press handstands mastered. In fact the majority of their 2 days of training was spent on exactly that.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you for this post Coach!

I'm stretching with the stretfh courses since they came out, I have a flat pancake (belly and chest on the ground), a good pike and shoulder mobility and a 10 sec freestanding HS (hollow and straight line- Wesley Tan has helped me with this one hy guiding me on social media). In this case is it fine to start press handstand work in addition to H1?

I was talking with a friend at work and explaining I had my second workout that day (Stretch), he asked why I needed to spend so long stretching, so I started listing everything that's currently tight and a road block in my strength training.

Well, about all I didn't list was my eyebrows.

I feel like I'm working harder at mobility than anything else. Things have improved tremendously but I wish I knew how to get my flexibility to improve at the same rate as my strength.

Guitly. I have been placing Foundation way ahead in terms of priorty. After looking at H3 I now see why I need to change and put more emphasis on H1 and H2.

Coach Sommer said:

It appears that GB Curriculum roadmap is going to require an adjustment; especially in terms of mobility and handstand work.  This fine tuning will be an ongoing process.

 

It was never my intent that students would not start press handstand work until 2-3 years after they began GST.  Once again, your guys' zombie like mobility is throwing a monkey wrench into the GB developmental path.  

 

To start with, everyone needs to stretch more.  A lot more.  I had hoped that the GB Stretch courses would accelerate the correction of these basic mobility deficits, and they have in some cases; but not everyone has been taking full advantage of them.

 

For example in my own personal training, I currently strength train 3 days per week, yet I stretch 5-6 days per week; 3 days of full body limbering before the strength workouts and 2-3 days of 'hard stretching' on off days with the stretch courses.  

 

If limbering up before a workout, during a workout with the integrated mobility and the stretch courses themselves are not the fundamental focus at your current level how are these deficits ever going to be corrected so that we can move on?

 

It also cannot be overstated that press handstands are essential for long term gains in GST.  Without a press handstand everything in GST will later come to a grinding halt.  There is no avoiding this.  

 

I would also hope that it is obvious that effective press handstand work cannot take place without a reasonably proficient free handstand.  

 

In my opinion both free handstand and press handstand gains have been far, far too slow for most GB students.  It is a failure on my part that I have failed to be sufficiently explicit that handstand and press handstand are not party tricks to be worked on the side.  But let me be clear now that handstand and press handstand work are essential for future GST progress and must receive the same degree of attention and focus as your Foundation work.

 

Do not however be overly harsh on yourselves.  You are certainly not alone.

 

This summer while working with the GB Master Class and the GB World Team in Stroud, both groups composed of some of GB's best and most talented from around the planet, I had to be rather 'forthright' about their needing to remove their heads from their #$$@$, quit piddling around, and get these basic handstands and press handstands mastered.  In fact the majority of their 2 days of training was spent on exactly that.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

 I rarely post, but I must say I am hugely guilty of this. Hs 2 & 3 bought. Time to take HS work more seriously!

just 3 questions for coach.  In your opinion how long would you expect the general public to achieve or at leastbe working on the press to handstand(ball park maybe?).  second question is what do you do for your daily limbering? should we just do a set of all the im's we are up to in the series before we start our training every day?

 

cheers

Coach, thank you for your post. I really want to work on the Handstand series more, but my mobility is not up to par.  H1 PE2 iM is my bane, and I could not hope to do a dislocate with acceptable grip currently.  I imagine many people are in a similar boat, anchored in the progressions due to mobility.  (I have a great headstand, though!)

 

I currently feel somewhat conflicted.  On the one hand, I do not want to get injured by 'treating my mobility work like conditioning' and overdoing it, and yet you are saying that we as a whole are not stretching enough.  Are we to do more lower intensity mobility work on non-strength days?  I'm not sure what else I could do without pushing my mobility work too strenuously.

 

If I could also make a suggestion: someone asked about HS PE2 iM in the forum and Alessandro said HBP PE 15/iM would be 'our best friend for a while,' in his words.  He also recommended the table sequence from FL.  I knew about the latter but not the former.  Would it be possible to collect all such exercises into a single resource, perhaps on the wiki page?  A sort of, "Struggling with this iM?  Try X from HBP progressions, Y from Manna, etc etc."  I feel as if there a numerous hidden gems in the integrated mobility that we don't know of because we are stuck in the first level, and it would make planning potential limbering sessions to attack our weaknesses easier.

Excellent question, Sensei JP.

 

And the answer is already right in front of you in the example of my own weekly stretching routine.  Most of it is moderate level full body work supplemented by 2-3 'hard' stretches per week.  

 

Rather than treating stretching as the ugly stepchild of GST, it should be set up on a pedestal.  Once you begin consistent, nearly daily limbering/stretching you will be shocked at how much better the body feels and performs.  

 

Stretching heals the body and aids in recovery.  If getting strong is a major priority, then getting mobile should also be as it fast tracks those strength gains.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Lately after my HS workouts, I've been doing extra mobility, pairing extension with Dislocates. Feels great so far. While PEs tend to be linear, the iMs seem much more open. HBP iMs for instance has great stuff for someone at any level even past F1. I think it's important to look ahead, realize what your primary limiting factors are, and spend time on them. Everyone will be different, and it's hard to make one set limbering warm up routine for everyone. Guidelines on making your own would be useful though.

Coach Sommer said:

And the answer is already right in front of you in the example of my own weekly stretching routine. Most of it is moderate level full body work supplemented by 2-3 'hard' stretches per week.

...nearly daily limbering/stretching...

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

OK so what should be doing in terms of daily work. I know everyone is different but what would be a good place to start?

I REALLY want to make progress with my mobility and have been diligent with F, H and S courses. I'm running out of hours in the week though!

I completely agree with the idea of C. Sommer.

basically i'm following what he said.

if you take stretch series you will find that the full routine could be considered hard stretch while "testing" some poses could be considered limbering.

On 2 days a week i'm doing hard stretch.

On the other days I've found, along the stretch courses, poses that usually improve as my flexibility/mobility improves with both hard stretch and integrated mobility from foundations/handstand etc. explore these poses is considered from my body and perceived effort light stretch.

Explore or limbering is the only way to teach to our brain that the new rom it's not an isolated case but it is a necessity.

Is it correct that in order to start the Pe's of handstand three, one must of have finished f4?

Great to see my thinking lining up with Coach's. Lately my mobility work is a biggest part of my workouts taking more than half of it. I'd like to know if what I'm doing is a decent way to go about it though. So here I go:

 

Monday : Foundation day 1 - Stretch Middle split 

Tuesday: HS day - Stretch front leg split

Wednesday: Foundation day 2 - Stretch thoracic bridge

Thursday: HS day - All iM's from H1

Friday: Foundation day 2 - All iM from a specific progression for one of that day's progression.

 

For example, if day one is FL, sPL, HBP and RC. I'd do all iM's for one of those. and then the next week change it to another  one. It'll change weekly. It's basically for that little extra mobility work. The stretch courses at the beginning of the week is where the major stretching is.

 

How does this appear to everyone? Any thoughts? 

Seems like an easy way to get more in. I wonder whether this results in a couple weeks of working stuff you find easy before you rotate back to a difficult one, but its not as if you are dropping from regular workout its a good idea.

This is great. Super glad that I saw this post as I had completely skipped it for some reason.

 

Like many, I too am guilty as charged when it comes to dithering on the stretch series, and for a good bit of time I had just treated H1 worse than an ugly stepchild. But it's all good. Now I know better.

 

I'm definitely ordering H2 this week, and will have to figure out how to do the 5-6 days of limbering + stretching.

I'm a bit confused. With a decent pike and straddle, can my son work the PEs of H2 and H1 in tandem?

Yes he does! We now know the two courses are meant to be "corequisites"

GenericGymnast said:

I'm a bit confused. With a decent pike and straddle, can my son work the PEs of H2 and H1 in tandem?

To my understanding if he has mastered F1

So, to be clear, and repetitive, H1 can be started alongside F1. Once I finish F1 and am working in F2, I can start H2? Once I've gotten through the PE's of H1 and SE7 of H2, I can begin H3? Thus, I should not yet be working on H2 given my current progress is not up to F2, yes?

 

The roadmap says that for F1 its corequisites are H1, H2 and stretch courses; while for H2, it says its corequisites are H1, F2, and stretch courses and that its prerequisite is F1. A bit unclear to me. 

Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

So, to be clear, and repetitive, H1 can be started alongside F1. Once I finish F1 and am working in F2, I can start H2? Once I've gotten through the PE's of H1 and SE7 of H2, I can begin H3? Thus, I should not yet be working on H2 given my current progress is not up to F2, yes?

 

The roadmap says that for F1 its corequisites are H1, H2 and stretch courses; while for H2, it says its corequisites are H1, F2, and stretch courses and that its prerequisite is F1. A bit unclear to me. 

Daniel, having just purchased H2, I can tell you that you will easily be able to work on the first 5-6 exercises. At that point the mobility demands begin to ramp up, but that'll just underline the need for stretching.

Noted. I saw that the later elements in H2 are clearly beyond my current range, I figured I would just work on the earlier elements, (read: skills) until my straddle split and so forth were up to snuff to move on. I did the first element and didn't find it any more taxing than what I've come across so far.

Daniel Taylor-Shaut said:

So, to be clear, and repetitive, H1 can be started alongside F1. Once I finish F1 and am working in F2, I can start H2? Once I've gotten through the PE's of H1 and SE7 of H2, I can begin H3? Thus, I should not yet be working on H2 given my current progress is not up to F2, yes?

 

The roadmap says that for F1 its corequisites are H1, H2 and stretch courses; while for H2, it says its corequisites are H1, F2, and stretch courses and that its prerequisite is F1. A bit unclear to me. 

 

The main underlying current from Coach's comments, that I got, is that a fire has been lit under our asses.

   ​Who knows, maybe there will be some official updated road map in the future.  In the meantime, I think it is reasonable as a beginner to look at H2, and at the least, allow the elements to guide, or inspire, our supplemental limber/mobility practice.

Let's get to work!

Ryan

My understanding had been that the preparatory exercises for H2 could be worked alongside H1 from the beginning, regardless of where one is in the F-series. 

Guys how do you schedule your H2? In your F7 workout or after your H1 workout?

I thought that it was to be scheduled immediately after H1. 

Alexander Egebak said:

Guys how do you schedule your H2? In your F7 workout or after your H1 workout?

I do a 4 days/week schedule. 

Day A:  F5 (FL, sPL, SL, HBP, RC)

Bay B:  H1, H2, MN, SLS

 

This keeps my workouts roughly the same length and allows me to hit everything twice/week.