?Headstand Lean

I recently had a flare-up in my rotator cuff which made handstands more of a challenge (Straight arm overhead work sometimes makes it worse). To try and activate the shoulders more in headstand I stared leaning more towards onto my hands. Is this a recognised move with a name? Is it a safe move to try for someone who only normally does 20s handstands and 30s headstands (half of max).

I started planche leans recently which have helped my shoulder strength loads already you see, and worndered if you can do the same with headstands?

no name to my knowledge.

Don't see why it wouldn't be safe, the amount of lean would be proportional to your strength.

Look into Eric Cressey. He works a lot with these types of problems.

ericcressey.com

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_arti ... _conundrum

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_arti ... ers_part_i

I like those articles. Nice read.

I appreciate the effort to help but I did these types of dynamic rotator exercises for nearly a year with absolutely no or little improvement. People should be very careful about what information they find on websites. Have you tried and tested these methods for an injury or just read and remembered them? The only true exercises I've found work with tendon injuries are isometrics and heat treatment for an hour a day. And believe me after 18 months of physio I have tried and read EVERYTHING! That includes entire catalogues physiotherapy and orthopaedic medical textbooks, and they aren't small. Here is a site showing videos of the only types of rotator cuff resistance exercises I have found to work.

http://www.cyberpt.com/cptvid51.asp

These in combination with Coach Sommer's wall slides and shoulder dislocations work a treat. Other good exercises for the rotator I have found to work are isometric L-flys using a doorframe for resistance and headstand. Headstands in particular have been proven in reputable medical journals to improve tendonosis of rotator groups such as the supraspinitus.

My flare up was caused by me being daft and overzealous and actually testing out dynamic work again. Sorry to rant but don’t believe everything you read, especially in bodybuilding sites. Most are written by patronizing meatheads who are juiced up to the eyeballs, with the recuperative ability of mutants, so just about anything they do works... for them. A lot of the reps described in this article are designed for hypertrophy which for the supraspinitus can be a disaster, leading to constant friction of the tendon on the acromion structure. If you have a type 2 or 3 acromion this situation can be exacerbated even further by supraspinitus hypertrophy.

Friend,

It's a good thing Ido does not charge each time one of his videos are reposted.

I trust you'll notice the similarities between your video and these exercises, especially the static holds at the end.

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Rotator cuff injuries are no fun, so best of luck.

best,

jason

Been having shoulder issues on and off for over 5 years now.. "Traditional" exercises like

the ones in the Ido video doesn't work for me, if anything it makes it worse, so thank

you so much for the isometric exsercies longshanks, I will definitely try these.

As for the headstand part, I'll be starting a new ssc in 3 weeks, were in progressing in to

HeSPU...

Got it! HeS Reverse Leg Lift! I realise I wasn't piking the hips, doing that makes it a great exercise.

Awsum for the lower back if you just hold it at 90 degrees and seems to hit my shoulders more than my neck.

viking said:

"Traditional" exercises like the ones in the Ido video doesn't work for me...

As previously mentioned, isometrics are very good.

In addition, you may find that increasing the TUT (time under tension) during repetitions makes makes most of the traditional prehab movements much more effective. For example instead of performing a repetition at regular speed, try performing it with a 15-30 second descent and then a normal ascent.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Viking, if the exercises demonstrated in my video hurt, it is very likely you have a shoulder injury that should be treated.

I recommend getting some ART done on your shoulder by a good practitioner, if that does not help, I would go the path of getting an MRI and seeing what is exactly the problem.

The prehab work can help as a rehab tool sometimes, increasing blood flow, helping with adhesion breakdown, etc, but it is not magic.

Feel good,

Ido.

Thanks for the tips coach. I've been doing all the isometric work in the 15-30 second range so far. Haven't tried the slow negatives for physio before, I always thought it might make things worse to be honest. Had a quick scour of the web and seems to be a golden rule for achiles tendonosis on several reputable sites. I'll start mixing those versions into my routine 50:50 with iso's thanks and let you know how it goes.

Had a quick scour of the web and (slow negatives) seems to be a golden rule for achiles tendonosis on several reputable sites.

The recommendations for slow negatives are absolutely correct.

Heat is also very beneficial for tendonitis; if the location permits direct application.

Previously I had an athlete who struggled with achilles tendonitis for several years. Icing produced no results. Slow negatives provided a measure of relief as long as we were careful to strictly control the volume of his training. Then on an ultra marathoning site I came across their preference for heat in treating achilles tendonitis. Upon following this protocol, within one week, the tendonitis was resolved.

The treatment itself was simple. Take a reusable hot/cold pack. Drop it into a pot of boiling water. If memory serves, I believe that the time used to heat the pack for this particular athlete was two and a half minutes. Remove the hot/cold pack and check the temperature. If necessary, let the hot/cold pack cool until the heat is bearable. It should be very hot, but not enough to cause burning or extreme discomfort. Let the hot/cold pack remain in place until it cools. At first the treatments were several times a day for a week, then these tapered off to once per day and finally when and as needed.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Just out of curiousity what volume did you use with your athlete? Would you advise sticking to one level of resistance for a whole SSC? I was thinking 10sec negatives *10 for each leg 3 times a week to give rest days? I did the concentric part with both legs aswell to try not to overdo it.

I'm sorry to say that the negatives seemed to make my injuries worse. My shoulder in particular after some slow negative push-ups, it realy set my rotator cuff back months. Think I'll just have to stick to isometrics.

Longshanks said:

I'm sorry to say that the negatives seemed to make my injuries worse. My shoulder in particular after some slow negative push-ups,...

In this instance then, my suspicion is that either the pushups were simply too demanding strength-wise for this protocol with the seriousness of your injury and should have been scaled down to an easier exercise or you have a structural injury that may require more advanced medical care.

At this point, my recommendation is that you have the injury evaluated by a medical professional.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you Coach and Ido for replying to my comment. Didn't realize that would happen, so I haven't visited this

thread since.

Since I read this thread I started doing the isometric work together with heat and ice treatment, and it seemed to work. When the holidays came I got sloppy. My excuse is that I live away from home and when I return for the holidays it's like

a never ending marathon of visiting friends and family, but that really isn't an excuse..

Ido, I've already seen a doctor for it, early last fall, he gave me some voltaren a anti inflammatory substance, which supposedly is pretty heavy duty.. I took a break from training while on that, and at the end of the prescription, there wasn't any pain. At that time I had an MRI. The doctor ordered it to see if I had chronic tendentious. The MRI didn't show any signs of tendentious, and I'm guessing no structural issues either.

I bought a cd of the MRI scan and showed it to a friend who's a chiropractor and have taken some courses in "reading" MRI scans,

it was a long time ago though, so he said he couldn't be sure, but he said it looked fine.

He did an exam and hypothesized that my shoulder issues came from my shoulder girdle being extremely inflexible,

causing bad posture and a mechanical irritation of my biceps tendons.

Since then I've started streching my shoulder girdle. I've had some progress were flexibility is concerned, but I'm taking it slow, cause my shoulder problems are currently in a flux/ limbo, and overstraining it, will most certainly aggravate it. I know that from experience.

My humble and uneducated opinion after all this is leaning towards a tendentious conditon. I am however not fully convinced, because after taking time off, the issue reappears so quickly, and one session of overstraining can aggrevate the situation a lot. Does this fit the bill?

I'll look in to the ART recommendation, thank you Ido!

And thanks again for your answers. Much appreciated!

Just as a note, I completely take back everything I said about negatives flaring up injuries. I was obviously pitching my exercises at far to high a level in the past. Since scaling them down a lot and heating my joints post workout, I've noticed a massive difference just this week. Hopefully this trend will continue to complete recovery.

I have had shoulder issues for a long time, and I have finally figured out what it is. I have terrible Thoracic mobility! Until I did some serious self myofascial release about a week ago, I can't remember ever being able to straighten my upper back completely. It would LOOK straight, but I couldn't straighten the bones. Just as the lumbar can arch both ways to some degree, the entire T-spine should be able to do the same. If it can not, this will negatively affect scapular function since it is dysfunctional posture and will lead to dysfunctional movement throughout the shoulder. This is where my troubles have come from. All the other problems, while necessary to treat in their own right, were symptoms of a dysfunctional thoracic spine. Now that I am handling that, which is the root of all the problems, I will finally be free of these damn nagging shoulder issues.

Do yourself a favor and do the ART and learn about self myofascial release with tennis balls(or golf or baseballs if you like). Especially important is to take two of the same ball(new tennis balls will be perfect at first) and put them into a sock you no longer need. Force them down and stretch te sock over them as tightly as you can, so that they can not come apart at all, and tie the sock closed. That is the perfect tool to start working on your spinal erectors. It will hurt like hell, and it will end up being one of the keys to you fixing some of the postural issues that are the underlying root of the problems.

slizzardman said:

Do yourself a favor and do the ART and learn about self myofascial release with tennis balls(or golf or baseballs if you like).

I did put put the post up informing people about myofacial trigger points, so yea I've been doing this nearly every day for the past 2 years. I used to be a qualified Thai masseuse and just found it frustrating that you can only massage other people. That's when I came across the articles on Laurenfitness and the great book by Clair Davies. I glad it helped you so much. It has made a big difference to most of my injuries and I still do it mostly because it just stops DOMS in it's tracks. Unfortunately it has no effect on the supraspinitus (as proven by medical journals) due to the fact that the main body of the tendon resides underneath the Acromion bone.