would you judge my presses, please?

Would you look at those presses and judge them?

I have not pressed or worked out in general for more than 3 months now as I was travelling and doing internships. I came back yesterday and getting back into training again.

I tried some presses today.
 

Any advices on my position?

IMO, I should lean less, compress more and work on my handstand alignment. Any specific things you can point out/give tips on?

Thank a lot in advance!

Very cool.

Zach Armijo said:

You do a beautiful job of rolling the hips over your hands before your start to lift you legs. 

 

Like you said, less lean would be IDEAL, but requires a considerable amount of control and trap strength. Something to keep refining over time. 

 

How many can you chain together without coming down? 

Oh thank you, I am working on less lean. One of my goals was to have no difference between pressing up and pressing down, as it is a lot easier to maintain compression in the up-phase.

Standing (toes touching ground) I can do around 15-18.  Standing (toes moving in front of the hands without touching the floor so compressing a lot) I can do around 10. 

From a real clear Straddle L position without cheating and losing form, I was pretty consistent with 4. This number really increased once I figured out how to open the shoulders early to reduce the weight on the shoulders! I could sometimes do a fifth one but shaky and bent arms. 

I am almost 23 years old and have never even heard of gymnastics until I was 21. I have been seriously pressing since around 1 year and 4 months. I still hope to achieve 10 clear straddle L presses in a row or at least get past the magic 5 consistently.

PS: I think I should have posted this in "Balance" - I am sorry, it was late

Annika said:

Oh thanks Zach, didn't expect that!

???

Zach Armijo said:

That is amazing progress and skill in only under two years of training! 

 

Just imagine where you will be in another year. Hell...even 3 years from now is considered short, and you will be leaps and bounds beyond where you are. 

Thanks a lot, really nice to hear that. GymnasticsBodies was/is such a big part of it. I do not want to think about where I would be if I hadn't started here!

wow you went beast mode there 2 years? That is very impressive especially if you didnt have mobility from other activities... Im hoping to get my stalder press this year, need more mobility :/

J0X said:

wow you went beast mode there 2 years? That is very impressive especially if you didnt have mobility from other activities... Im hoping to get my stalder press this year, need more mobility :/

haha, just did it over and over again But thank you! 

No, I never did any sport as a child besides school sports once a week, playing at the playground as a kid and partying as a teen

Although I am not super flexible naturally like some people are, I kind of develop quite quickly once I train for something.

What really helped me (besides Foundation) was really working the skill over and over again in all variations. Fast, slow, negative, against a wall, pike, straddle, tuck, on different surfaces, different grips,...and never bend your arms! When I started, I had no idea how it should feel to do a stalder press, how would it ever be possible to lift my hips up? How should this work?

But now I have an exact feeling of how the press works. It is not only strength and flexibility, it is also technique! The more often you do it, the better your muscle memory gets and your muscles and CNS are able to use more of the needed muscles than with less reps!

So just keep working on it, I hear so many people say they will never be able to do it, but one rep is really not that hard to achieve, just work for it!

Those presses are pretty flawless. Hips stack early and legs follow. You cant lean any less because you have to have equal weight on each side of your palm. You are compressing really well and have good flexibility. Keep adding reps and you will do 10 in no time.

The only thing i could say you can practice on these is to try to not get any more weight over your fingers as you press up compared to when you are in the straddle L or in handstand. Meaning you could essentially do the press with your fingers hanging passively off of a ledge. This will make you very sensitive of the placement at all times.

Handbalancer said:

Those presses are pretty flawless. Hips stack early and legs follow. You cant lean any less because you have to have equal weight on each side of your palm. You are compressing really well and have good flexibility. Keep adding reps and you will do 10 in no time.

 

The only thing i could say you can practice on these is to try to not get any more weight over your fingers as you press up compared to when you are in the straddle L or in handstand. Meaning you could essentially do the press with your fingers hanging passively off of a ledge. This will make you very sensitive of the placement at all times.

 

Thank you so much, really motivates me in keep practicing! May I ask you how many stalder presses I should do approximately every day? I currently train 6 days a week for about 2-3 hours (short warm-up, tumbling, handstand+presses, strength, flexibility) but would really do everything needed to add reps in the most efficient way

For most low level optional gymnasts, we generally used about 20 total reps varying the progression. Sometimes this might be split into early and at the end of training.

You might be able to do more if you are specialize in it. I have no idea off hand what kind of volume handbalancers typically do (I no longer talk to the aspiring one I had been). I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese handbalancers had to do something up to 50 and at least 20-30.

Since your max is 4, we'll say that worksets of 2-3 would be typical. 5-10 sets. Not necessarily every day. Alternating light (10ish)and regular days (20-30) or (maybe 2 days medium-heavy or D1-Heavy [30], D2-Medium [20], D3-Light [10]) 

Blairbob said:

For most low level optional gymnasts, we generally used about 20 total reps varying the progression. Sometimes this might be split into early and at the end of training.

You might be able to do more if you are specialize in it. I have no idea off hand what kind of volume handbalancers typically do (I no longer talk to the aspiring one I had been). I wouldn't be surprised if Chinese handbalancers had to do something up to 50 and at least 20-30.

Since your max is 4, we'll say that worksets of 2-3 would be typical. 5-10 sets. Not necessarily every day. Alternating light (10ish)and regular days (20-30) or (maybe 2 days medium-heavy or D1-Heavy [30], D2-Medium [20], D3-Light [10]) 

Thanks BlairBob! I do no want to specialize too much as I really like having a balanced body - but I definitely spend more time on presses and handstands as they are far more complex than other basic body weight skills and I also enjoy them a lot. 

Can you answer me a question?

I was REALLY weak in pushing strength before I started. I could do good push-ups, but no good dips or pull-ups. 

If you take PULL-UPS : DIPS : L to V LEG LIFTS : SiNGLE LEG SQUATS : STALDER PRESSES

how many reps of each should a well balanced gymnast be able to do? 10 reps of each with good form? 

Congratulations Kitlichen, you're prices look great.

it's a little discouraging to see some people progress so quickly. I'm guessing being smaller and more flexible just makes things much easier.

Could you share the link for your wrist support ?

Tnx

On 2.3.2016 at 9:42 AM, MEHMET BACIOGLU said:

Could you share the link for your wrist support ?

Tnx


Sure! They are called Tiger Paws and used in women's gymnastics mostly for vault. 

You can get them on many websites, but as I am from Austria I don't know what would website would be best for you to order. They are 50 USD.
They come with foam and plastic inserts (I only use the foam ones, plastic is really hard!) and you need to change them frequently depending on how much you use them, so make sure to buy some refills.

http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Paws-Colored-Wrist-Support/dp/B00FK374T2
http://www.tigerpawwristsupports.com/categories/Tiger-Paw-Wrist-Supports/

PS: I would really not wear them all the time and try to do as much as possible without them. I only wore them because I had injured my wrist a little while snowboarding. They really leave your wrists weak! Press Handstands do train your wrists wich is important. So maybe start off using them about half the time and then reducing it.
 

6 hours ago, Zach Armijo said:

Good point on the usage of them Kat.

eally 

I bought some a few years ago when I had a stress fracture in my wrist. They made floor work possible again, but I knew not to rely on them. I would do as much as I could without them until it started to get sore/uncomfortable (not painful), then put them on till I was done. I then just left them off and moved everything o P Bars which was 100% fine since the wrists were stacked.

Yeah, I think they can really help when you are injured (as long as it does not make the injury worse) or a beginner getting sore pretty fast, so you can train longer. But your goal should be going without them.

P-Bars aregreat IMO. They don't stress the wrists at all and you can balance on thempretty well. However, it is different on floor and I think both is important. I was only used to floor first, so trying presses on P-bars felt strange. But now I don't mind were I press. Just a matter of muscle memory I guess.

Maybe P-Bars or handstand blocks would be worth a try, MEHMET.
 

 

Ye

Thank you very much for the information. I will try handstand blocks and  P-Bars with lower height cause mines are plastic and not so stable when doing handstand.