Hand Stand FKP/PE1 90 degrees bend

Focus Point: The goal is to bend the knuckles a full 90 degrees. 

Q: Does this mean until that goal is achieved I stay on FKP/PE1? My knuckles bent only to about 30 degrees or so. This could take a while to achieve, if it is even possible. 

Raja

Yes. Why would you skip forward when all the following progressions require the same amount of bend from the fingers? It's not going to hinder you from doing the HS work so be patient. I wasn't much better when I was introduced to FKP a couple of years back and nowadays strangely, after being consistent almost on a daily basis (too much Lui Marco), 90 degrees is readily available.

Niklas03 said:

Yes. Why would you skip forward when all the following progressions require the same amount of bend from the fingers? It's not going to hinder you from doing the HS work so be patient. I wasn't much better when I was introduced to FKP a couple of years back and nowadays strangely, after being consistent almost on a daily basis (too much Lui Marco), 90 degrees is readily available.

Thank you for your reply. I was not sure whether by the end of HS 1 a person would need to have 90 degree bend or right at the first PE1. I have no problem taking my time. 

I'm bringing up this old thread again instead of posting a new one. 

I can bend my stiff fingers to perhaps a 10 -20 degree angle. No where close to 90 degrees 
However, by just standing in front of the wall as shown in PE1 I don't feel I can get good pressure on my fingers, so it seems that doing the PE2 och 3 version would be a good idea in order to put enough pressure into the stretch. 

Do you think the risk for injury is too great by doing so? 

Another question on the same subject. 
In the demo videos the athlete stretches his fingers very quickly (just lifting the hands up a little, and the directly back down). 
Would it be wise to hold the stretch longer? like we do with stretches in FS, MS and TB for example. 

Thank you

There isn't any danger as long as it feels like there is a 'pleasant' stretch through the hand and not a jamming of the knuckles.

Wehn you are actually doing the stretch look for the best angle to work from you can find and hole it for a while. You can hold this for a good minute no problem and your forearms will most likely start thanking you afterwards. 

I'd just follow the program. I honestly don't remember where I started but after the going through all 12 weeks I had 90 degrees with no issue. After the first cycle I think you will see your fingers really loosen up once you get used to it. 

I just wanted to piggyback this discussion - I have never had any extension in my MCP joints. This is with 15 years of martial arts involving stretching and even forced extensions (which means that they are very effective on me). With this in mind, would you still expect improvement? I am happy to try, but concerned that it is physiologically impossible. I am fairly flexible in every other joint, just not these ones!

At least some improvement yes, and even if there is little to no improvement for some time, this stretch is still worth it, just stick with it.

Fair enough, thanks.

On 1/27/2016 at 11:45 AM, Cole Dano said:

You can hold this for a good minute no problem and your forearms will most likely start thanking you afterwards. 

On 2/29/2016 at 1:35 PM, Cole Dano said:

...this stretch is still worth it, just stick with it.

I picked up a bit of what I thought was tendinitis in my inner right elbow a couple of months ago while working SE10 three times a week. I tried everything to shake it off - resting, reduced volume, rice buckets, those novel hand movements that Handbalancer posted. In the end, I caught this thread and long >30s FKP holds cleared it up in a week. I'd got lazy on the quality of the wrist exercises once I'd mastered them and I was rushing through them at 1x10r so I'd definitely agree with Cole. Stay with it - even when you get the ROM you'll still be doing them so there's no rush. Let time do the work for you!

BTW thanks Cole!