Training Work for the Handstand

Hi

I have been pounding at this for quite some times now.

I have worked upside for a while now. I do not know the exact time but maybe 4 or 5 months. Some were consistent. I trailed off for a bit. Then I got back working at it again.

But the way I train I do not think I optimal. People say to just do more handstand. But what is the point if you ar doing it wrong and is not getting you anywhere near to the "real" handstand without the wall.

Many people say to just work on the handstand A LOT. But how? Would you do it every chance you get throuhgout the day. More like a greasing the groove type of thing. Or would you set up a training session for 30 minutes everyday.

And within those training session how would you practice? What kind of things would be optimal to do help build the handsatnd as much as possible.

I do the wall handsatnd with my back up the wall. The reason I do not do it my my chest against the wall is because:

1. If I fall I can not react fast enough to a roll out to save myself.

2. When I do fall I fall hard and will break something inside the floor probably sooner of later. I can not risk that.

I do not know how every one train or people like Ido train to get to that advanced mastery level which I really want. I know they have worked really long and hard and have helps from professionals and masters. I have yet to have any personal help. So I and asking now for some personal help and advice from like a minded comunity.

Are you having trouble balancing? Or do you feel as though your shoulder girdle is "collapsing" once you get into the handstand position against the wall? What is going on with your hands? Do you feel comfortable on your hands and wrists? Can you do a decent headstand?

Are you having trouble balancing?

Yes and no. Sometimes if I do out of luck only I can get into the perfect line and stay in balance without over balancing and hit the wall and hold that for a few seconds. And luck only because I do not know how to mimick that again.

But just a few seconds ago I did some digging around Ido's forum. He saids this quote:

while doing the kick ups or presses into handstand or any other lift for that matter, it is essential to keep tension in the body and against the floor. It sounds trivial, but this is the most common mistake I see: people tense up in the initial moment of the kick up and then relax, waiting to tense up again in the handstand. This is wrong and leads to too many mistakes if the initial push was not accurate. One should strive to maintain tension until reaching the handstand - in the whole body and mainly legs, abs, butt, stabilizied scapula and pressing through the hands into the floor.

That helps me out a little bit. But I still need to learn anf more info about body tension and control.

Or do you feel as though your shoulder girdle is "collapsing" once you get into the handstand position against the wall?

I do not really know where the shoulder girdle is at but when I get into the handstand with the wall spotting I am pretty much ok. After a while though my palms would fatigue.

What is going on with your hands?

I try to put the hands in a little over balance to keep my balance but most of the time I would end up with my feet falling to the wall which is not what I want. Maybe I am doing this wrong?

Do you feel comfortable on your hands and wrists?

Comfortable meaning I am used to it? Then yes. I have been on my hands for quite some times now.

Can you do a decent headstand?

I'm not sure what you meant. But for a HeSPU yes I can descent to a head stand but with wall support. At times I am be able to have my feet airborne momentarily though.

Roll out of the HS while lowering or don't go up into the stomach to wall HS so steep, say a foot from the wall. Get comfortable with that.

I believe, learning to balance in a frogstand contributed quite much to learning how to balance a handstand using the wrists.

You really should find a way (or room ) to do stomach-to-wall-HS. For me, cartwheels helped getting rid of the fear of falling over, as I cartwheel out of the handstand, if I overbalance.

For a frog stand I can do that. I can already do the adv. tucked planche.

How do I got about training for a handstand?

And within those training session how would you practice? What kind of things would be optimal to do help build the handsatnd as much as possible.

Wall handstands would be one of the which is what I had been doing.

Check out this thread for some help on the kick up: http://gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2947

It doesn't go through the stomach to wall HS, but that can be a good part of the progression to help get over any scapulae alignment issues and also with the rollout which, as blairbob pointed out, is very important.

Another course of action is if you just aren't "feeling" the back tension is to start in downward dog pose. Bend at the waist and extend the arms overhead place the hands on the floor. Walk the feet back until you form a triangle, depending on how tall you are and flexible, about 4-5 feet between your feet and hands. To create the tension in your back you push the floor away with your hands and arms. Your arms should be along your ears, shoulders pulling down and away. The trick to get into handstand from here is to maintain the alignment and "tension". Walk your feet in a bit keeping your legs straight, keep your back and arms aligned. Prep your legs to do a kickup. Your back, arms, shoulders should already be aligned, the kickup to handstand merely rotates the legs up around the hip axis. Remember to maintain the arm/shoulder/back alignment/tension.

Thank you so much for the advice! I feel that it has significantly helped improve my balance! Where do you get information like this?

My other problem is to kick correctly. I know the basicis to kicking. Swing the leg and bring the other with you. But I will either swing too hard and land on the wall or swing not enough and get just abrley veritical and I would have to strain very hard to stay in the position just a few seconds and then fall back down thinking I had down a handstand.

I also notice if I do get it a little vertical my shoulder is not extended so I am more like pushing hard with my arms, using the muscles to balance and stay up instead of using the structure and would eventualy give out and fall.

So how would I kick up without ruining my sholder extension at the pike starting positiong?

How can I kick up effectively without all the problems listed?

Titan said:

Thank you so much for the advice! I feel that it has significantly helped improve my balance! Where do you get information like this?

Just personal experience and reading a bit here of course.

I also notice if I do get it a little vertical my shoulder is not extended so I am more like pushing hard with my arms, using the muscles to balance and stay up instead of using the structure and would eventualy give out and fall.

So how would I kick up without ruining my sholder extension at the pike starting positiong?

You are using arm strength to compensate for poor shoulder alignment. Do exercises to open the shoulders so that your arms are along your ears when extended above your head. This can take time. Use the downward dog pose to learn to push the floor away with your hands. This will help.

How can I kick up effectively without all the problems listed?

Once you've solved the shoulder issue you can better address the kick issue. Kicking seems to be one of those things that takes time to get the right feel for sure. Remember that eventually you might like to eliminate kicking altogether and pike up! But in the mean time you'll just have to do it over and over. I find that if I'm not "feeling" it at all on a particular day that I will walk my feet in a bit and raise one leg as far as possible and then just kip up with the other leg. The raised leg is already close to vertical so bringing the other leg alongside in the HS has less over kick potential.

Instead of kicking up you can also try these 'swing ups' there are three shown (right at the beginning of the video) the tuck up, straddle up, and pike up. The protocol I use is to tuck up (or whatever) hold for 5 seconds and tuck down. You want to go down just like you went up and I do 3 sets of 6, if I dont get a solid hold or dont come down in a controlled manner for all 6 reps I add in 1 extra rep. So if you pike up you also want to pike down. Ido also shows some great drills you can use once you get a solid static handstand.

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Have fun!

really, the only way to get better at HS is to do more HS. A lot. A lot more than you think, I would say.

Blairbob said:

really, the only way to get better at HS is to do more HS. A lot. A lot more than you think, I would say.

And then do a few more! And end with wall handstand when you cant do a freestanding any more!

I was doing handstand runs last night and was playing a bit with the balance/alignment issues of the stomach-to-wall handstand. That position really helps you feel what it is like to push the floor away with your hands as you extend you feet as high up as possible creating that tension needed to hold a handstand. You have much better feel for the stretch as your torso and legs slide out along the wall.

I've gotten much better at entering the pose, kinda having fun with jumping my hands back and running my toes up the wall or walking my hands back and slithering up the wall. (I hope the gym does not mind my toe marks along the wall as there are no wall mounted mats.)

I also played a bit with hand position. I seem to naturally want to splay my hands out a bit in this position so that my fingers are pointed more externally and my wrists are pointed more to the centerline. This is definately the case when I'm actively "running" in the handstand. Is this bad?

I've been coming out of the S-to-W handstand by doing a slow negative press down to my head and rolling out. I make sure the elbows go the right way when I do that. The rollout is still sort of a bull in a china shop but I'm working on it. I'm about up to 2x45s; 6x30s; 6x20s; and the rest to round out 10 mins. Feels good but totally killer.

In a HS on FX I teach the part between the thumb and index finger points forward, not the fingers. So the thumb and index finger make a 30 degree angle and each are pointing in or out 15 degrees or so.