Wall Handstand

http://postimg.org/image/m76r09kpp/

How does it look? 

You need to get him to work his protraction more in this.

Hmm... I will take front view because I think he is protracting as much as he can. Thanks Cole! It makes sense though.

The back view would help. 

Hello, it seems he is activating his traps and elevating as much as he possibly can but this does not result in true protraction: 

To me it looks like his elbows are rotated and facecing wall (especialy left one (his right)). Elbows should face each other. Maybe this is reason he cant protract ?

EDIT: His scapula is sticking out to sides more then it should in pure shoulder flexion. Scapula usualy start to stick like that (and look huge) at point when one start to rotate his shoulders.

I just tried to rotate elbows to wall as he does in picture and my scapula immediately started to rotate. I find very hard to protract at this position.

Pafke said:

To me it looks like his elbows are rotated and facecing wall (especialy left one (his right)). Elbows should face each other. Maybe this is reason he cant protract ?

This. Looks to me like he's falling into the same trap I did of achieving 'false' flexion via internal rotation of the shoulders. Quick check for this-- test whether HS is equally good or better on paralettes/PBars as on the floor. Then start rebuilding positions with an emphasis on slight external rotation, and feel the traps kick in

Wow! That tip helped, thanks. How does it look now?

He also tried with a pair of weights as "pseudo-parallettes. How does it look?" 

Jon Douglas said:

This. Looks to me like he's falling into the same trap I did of achieving 'false' flexion via internal rotation of the shoulders. Quick check for this-- test whether HS is equally good or better on paralettes/PBars as on the floor. Then start rebuilding positions with an emphasis on slight external rotation, and feel the traps kick in

Jon, honestly I'm indebted to you. I think this cue has fixed his problem with some of the ims as well. Thanks SO MUCH

Looks more correct then last picture. ... Perfect elevation is at point where ears are touching shoulders so he is not elevating enough, im not sure about protraction. His elbows looks bented. His left palm looks like it is facing to side a little bit, it is easier to rotate scapula when fingers are facing to side so deffinitely avoid this.

Edit: On paralets his elbows are again starting to face wall and i think his scapula started to rotate again.

He has gone back to working PE1 and the earlier ones but even then he just can't get this correct flexion. I can't figure it out neither can he. thoughts? the athlete in video for IM1 seems to be not fully protracting, why is this if everyone is telling us to do full protraction?

There was some discusions where C. Sommer said that one should focus on pure shoulder flexion on pe1 im. Just dont let scapula rotate AT ALL and his elbows should face each other.

Try to put arms in front of you and on wall and then press chest down as much as you can, squeze abs and dont let scapula rotate at all. You should feel stretch on lats if so that is correct shoulder flexion.

Holding flexion like this is effortless but the iM is a total failure even with no weight. Thoughts?

1) As you are taking the role of coach, do you best to understand the position we are talking about, otherwise this will become a long lesson in frustration.

2) Positioning will be affected by the fact your son has a large carrying angle. Look at the photo of him with hands on the door, see how far his hands are behind him. For example in Wall HS, even with good positioning his hands may well be further from the wall than you expect. The only way he can physically get them to the wall at this stage is to rotate the wrong way.

The same for HS PE1>iM it's going to feel weird to him because the weight will end up behind his head with correct shoulder action.

When it comes to actually balancing in HS more than likely some compromises will be made, he very well may be able to 'get away with' having closed shoulders, but the demands on trap strength and serrates strength will be greater, so this needs attention.

Okay cole. Does the picture with hands on wall demonstrate open shoulders? How can I help him translate that to the IM1?