Handstand Critique

[Daniel Hines]

Hey all,

I recorded some handstands for a friend and decided it would be a good idea to get some tips from the pro's. Any advice is welcome, especially in regards to body line and balancing ( or even keeping a clean room :roll: ) would be very appreciated. Sorry about the crappy quality of the video.

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[Blairbob]

I'm not sure if it's the pants or if he's just not squeezing his butt enough as I think I see a lordotic arch because he's not rolling his hips under (aka squeezing his butt).

[Neal Winkler]

I watched the first half of the video.

You don't seem to be able to accumulate hardly any time off the wall. I would work more on your wall handstands. That is, bring your wrists 0-2in from the wall and hold for time. Try to have nothing but you toes touching.

As blairbob said, you don't look like you are tight. No butt squeezing, and even your knees look loose.

[jl5555]

I agree, get closer to the wall and tension up. It's difficult to tell from the video but it seems you're not pulling your scapulae out. You're able to get your arms close to your ears which indicates good shoulder flexibility but you need to engage the muscles there. You should feel like you're "pressing" your ribs towards your spine and rolling your shoulders out, around, up. You need to feel as though you are truly stretching out, growing tall on your hands, pressing the floor away.

[Daniel Hines]

Thanks for the advice so far.

There definitely is some arch (though it's much better than it used to be). I do need to keep more tension in my glutes, but I think part of the problem is hip/back flexibility. I've noticed in my martial arts practice that my back and hip flexors are really tight, and that keeps me from correct posture, though it's getting better. Up until now, I've only been able to get at best 3-4 inches from the wall, but I think now that I'm getting a little more flexible in the chest, i might be able to get 2 inches. The advice about pressing my ribs towards my spine is interesting; I'd never thought of it like that before.

Thanks again. I'll try to keep all this in mind while upside down...

[Joshua Naterman]

Floor bridge work will help loosen up your hip flexors, and the cat/dog(cat/cow, whatever you want to call it) stretch will help with the lower back tightness. Those work great for me, anyways

[jl5555]

If you feel you need to enhance your torso flexibility I'm a big fan of Ido's rotation into bridge against the wall. When I do a few sets of these I can absolutely feel it as my shoulders, back, chest, neck opens up. And as you go set to set you can see the progess as your hands go lower and lower on the wall behind you. Really quite amazing...