Top handbalancers' head positions

Hello everyone!

This is something I've been wondering for a long time about and I beg someone of you to shed some light.

Whenever I watch a video of a top handbalancer, I often notice, how far back they can take their head. They often look very clearly into the ground like in a typical banana handstand, but their alignment is perfect. I wonder, how they do this, because whenever I try and go from this "peek throgh the gap between your eyebrows to barely see your thumbs"-head position to a position with clear vision of my hands, my shoulder angle closes and I fall back out of my handstand if I don't arch my back.

So I wonder, how do they keep their shoulders in flexion while sticking the head this far out?

Is this just a matter of neck flexibility?

Any input is very welcome!

For reference, this is a picture of Andrii Bondarenko that I found:

Handbalancers always look at the floor like andrii does in that picture. The head position should not affect the shoulders once the handstand is stable and well placed. It has nothing to do with neck flexibility. The various head positions handbalancers use have a variety of purposes, but the only one you would ever use when balancing on 1 arm is the one he has in that picture unless you would want to make it a lot more difficult.

Thanks a lot for the answers, that was insightful! Just tried getting into that position on the wall and it wasn't a problem.

So I guess the 'peek through the eyebrow gap'-hint is just helpful in the beginning to get good alignment, but once you have a straight handstand, you should get comfortable with the extended head position for you normal handstand to make it easier to balance. 

I disagree.  Do not perform handstands with an extended head position.  

It is simple matter to perform handstands with a neutral chin and using the peripheral vision to watch the finger tips.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Having a little extended neck (not overly extended since that may kick in the arthrokinetic reflex) does provide a greater amount of sensory feedback of hand positioning for a greater excitatory signal to your muscles. In a handstand that will help with energy economy by lessening the voluntary muscular contraction needed to stay in the handstand shape. Furthermore, having extended neck facilitates having "eyes up" which again facilitates flexor muscle inhibition and extensor muscle excitation in relation to what I wrote above.

I do not see any significant advantage bio-mechanically in terms of having a neutral chin rather than extended neck.

On those grounds I do not understand why we should not extend our neck to some degree.

just in terms of a quick google images search, it appears to me that most handbalancers use a neck extended position, and most gymnasts use a neutral or even tucked chin position.  I suspect in the gymnasts this is because the handstand is a transition to other positions, like rolls, etc. whereas in handbalancers it is not.  Forgive my naivete in answering this question, for I am most certainly no expert in this arena; but, that is what I glean from looking at pictures, since we have a fabulous gymanstics coach saying one thing, and a fabulous handbalancer saying another.  

For regular 2 arms, the head position is more or less irrelevant once you have built up a reasonable amount of control. I assume it is used in gymnastics more since the handstand is functioning to build a very strong base for tumbling, the aparatus, body tension etc and the straight 2 arm handstand is more or less the only position used.

For 1 arm balancing you need full vision of the floor though. All handbalancers and acrobatic gymnasts i know of do this when they are doing complex balances. Working with the head in would simply increase the time needed to learn 1 arm a lot, and it makes the balance much less stable. If your goal is to learn a regular handstand you could go with either head position, while if you would want to move on towards 1 arm i would strongly suggest to use at least get comfortable with both head positions. Either way, the head position should not affect the rest of your handstand line, regardless of its position.