Straddle Press To Handstand For Critique

I just recently did my first straddle press to HS. poor flexibility was preventing me from doing it.

So after some extensive work on my flexibility I am now finally able to bend my hip (with flat back) just over 90 degrees.

Still far from perfect, but at least it enables me to do the press. Though with an awful lot of pressure on my shoulders due to the heavy planching. Another thing I noticed is my head position during the HS. I should probably get it into a more neutral position.

So any tips /critique would be much appreciated.

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Wow, that looks awesome, greg! Sure the lean is exaggerated but great control! I too am working on my flexibility to attain the presses and hopefully i'll be where you are in a few months :-)

Congrats! Very impressive! I'm sure you'll clean that up in no time. Its looking awesome already though.

Just an idea, it may be easier to fully compress on a nice slow negative if you straddle your legs fully before you begin to lower. But again thats just a thought, I haven't got any first hand experience...yet :twisted:

yea man, slow negative is the way to go. especially since you already have the balance

you break at the shoulders first then the hip making the energy expenditure of this movement very great for you. Work very slow negatives and try to maintain the arms at vertical. at first you will begin your open straddle then stop at the point where you have to rotate your hips in to go further. mark this point because it is important

as your legs begin to come forward your hips will move slightly back over your head to compensate for the balance if you keep your shoulders open. try to maintain this and fold your legs as best as you can leaning forward in the shoulder(if you absolutely must) as late as possible.

Svend said:

Wow, that looks awesome, greg! Sure the lean is exaggerated but great control! I too am working on my flexibility to attain the presses and hopefully i'll be where you are in a few months :-)

Yeah, focus on flexbility. It will pay off. But it takes so much patience.

Finnbar said:

Just an idea, it may be easier to fully compress on a nice slow negative if you straddle your legs fully before you begin to lower. But again thats just a thought, I haven't got any first hand experience...yet :twisted:

Will try that. But gain, my active (in)flexibility is very poor. When standing side leg lifts I get get barely to 45 degrees for each leg without bending hip.

yuri said:

yea man, slow negative is the way to go. especially since you already have the balance

you break at the shoulders first then the hip making the energy expenditure of this movement very great for you. Work very slow negatives and try to maintain the arms at vertical. at first you will begin your open straddle then stop at the point where you have to rotate your hips in to go further. mark this point because it is important

Marked as important.

yuri said:

as your legs begin to come forward your hips will move slightly back over your head to compensate for the balance if you keep your shoulders open. try to maintain this and fold your legs as best as you can leaning forward in the shoulder(if you absolutely must) as late as possible.

That is an interesting point. This (moving the hips slightly back over your head to compensate for the balance) will take me some time to get used to.

Thanks for the valuable advice.

Looks perfect to me, just need to point your toes

gymgreg said:

Svend said:

Wow, that looks awesome, greg! Sure the lean is exaggerated but great control! I too am working on my flexibility to attain the presses and hopefully i'll be where you are in a few months :-)

Yeah, focus on flexbility. It will pay off. But it takes so much patience.

Finnbar said:

Just an idea, it may be easier to fully compress on a nice slow negative if you straddle your legs fully before you begin to lower. But again thats just a thought, I haven't got any first hand experience...yet :twisted:

Will try that. But gain, my active (in)flexibility is very poor. When standing side leg lifts I get get barely to 45 degrees for each leg without bending hip.

yuri said:

yea man, slow negative is the way to go. especially since you already have the balance

you break at the shoulders first then the hip making the energy expenditure of this movement very great for you. Work very slow negatives and try to maintain the arms at vertical. at first you will begin your open straddle then stop at the point where you have to rotate your hips in to go further. mark this point because it is important

Marked as important.

yuri said:

as your legs begin to come forward your hips will move slightly back over your head to compensate for the balance if you keep your shoulders open. try to maintain this and fold your legs as best as you can leaning forward in the shoulder(if you absolutely must) as late as possible.

That is an interesting point. This (moving the hips slightly back over your head to compensate for the balance) will take me some time to get used to.

Thanks for the valuable advice.

It may not be a big change depending on how massive your lower body is, but the goal is to keep the arms vertical to maintain efficiency of the movement. In order to do this you have to make compensations.

No worries, I had to go through the progressions of leaning way too much also as I'm stronger than I am flexible as well. Keep at it and keep working your flexibility, then the progress will come and you'll be doing pike and stalder presses

Yep, stalder/endo presses are the long term goal. Those look like an awesome conditioning exercise once you can do them for reps.

I think most people here will already have seen the following clip of a little girl doing 115 stalder presses (though some with bent arms). It just blows me away.

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Man, that's some crazy girl power right there!

You already know this but I figure it is worth repeating: You are making the skill 2x as hard by not getting your hips over your shoulder when you press. Unless you fix your technique going on to pike presses is going to be incredibly hard.

AlexX said:

You already know this but I figure it is worth repeating: You are making the skill 2x as hard by not getting your hips over your shoulder when you press. Unless you fix your technique going on to pike presses is going to be incredibly hard.

Yep, so true. I need a better pancake stretch to fully compress my body so I don't have to counter all that weight by compromising technique.

Looks pretty good. But as Yuri said you can work on minimizing the forwards lean. The best way to do this is through a combination of both active and passive flexibility in your hips as well as working slow negatives while REALLY focusing on rolling down your back, almost vertebrae by vertebrae when the legs go down. You should feel your abs cramping under the compression work. This compression is both a strength and active flex thing which is very important for press hs. Opening the shoulders even more also always helps, so keep working your flex there as well. Remember also to push DOWN into the floor as hard as you can when you want to press up. This press into the floor makes you activate the trapezuis as much as possible, which will stack more of your body weight on top of your shoulders, which in turn makes less forward lean necessary.

Thanks so much Handbalancer. Those are some nice insights into what it should feel like.

The discrepancy between my passive flexibility (which is poor to begin with) and active flexibility is enormous. I will definitely be working hard on that part.

Handbalancer said:

rolling down your back, almost vertebrae by vertebrae when the legs go down

Handbalancer said:

Remember also to push DOWN into the floor as hard as you can when you want to press up. This press into the floor makes you activate the trapezuis as much as possible, which will stack more of your body weight on top of your shoulders, which in turn makes less forward lean necessary.

Thanks again for those coaching points.

PS: If you ever thought of doing a workshop in Berlin, sign me up for it.

gymgreg said:

PS: If you ever thought of doing a workshop in Berlin, sign me up for it.

Seconded

Or maybe a bit more towards southern Germany?

palmcron said:

Seconded

Or maybe a bit more towards southern Germany?

Well, I was just throwing out the idea and don't want to put any pressure on Handbalancer.

Berlin in the summer is pretty awesome. It's cheap. You can easily reach it from everywhere. There are lots of people here, so it would be probably be pretty easy to get enough attendees.

Just curious, what work have you been doing to improve your flexibility?

About a month ago, I had come to the same realisation that being lazy with my flexibility is really going to bite me by making movements a lot more difficult than they should be (or almost impossible). So I've been working on it a fair bit, and am very eager to learn about what other people have been doing. (c:

I got me a copy of "Stretching Scientifically" by Thomas Kurz and followed the described program.

Typing out the whole program would pretty much be typing out the whole book. I highly recommend getting a copy yourself. This will be such a little investment which will lead to you progressing to a new level.

+ it's a quick little read.

Snippet from my notes on isometric stretching from the book:

• Isometric stretching
  [*:3n1zd1yg]pick one isometric stretch per muscle group and repeat it two to five times, using as many tensions per rep as it takes to reach the limit
  [*:3n1zd1yg]4 times per week , 10 to 15 minutes sessions, tension 5 to 6 seconds, last tension for 30 seconds or longer, repeat each exercise 3 to 5 times
  [*:3n1zd1yg]combine isometric stretches with dynamic strength exercises (lifting weights), using the same muscles
  if stagnating, concentrate on strength gains, fexlibility will follow

• Three methods of isometric stretching
  [*:3n1zd1yg]first method: stretch the muscles (not maximally) and wait several seconds until the mechanism regulating their length and tension readjusts, then increase the stretch and wait again.... when you cannot stretch any more, apply short strong tensions, followed by quick relaxations and immediate stretches (withing first second of relaxation). hold last tension for up to 30 seconds
  [*:3n1zd1yg]second method: stretch as much as you can, hold this stretched and tensed postion until you get muscle spasms, then decrease the stretch, then increase it, tense it...., last tensions should be held for up to 5 minutes
  [*:3n1zd1yg]third method: stretch to near maximum, then tense for 3 to 5 seconds, then relax, and within first second stretch again, stretch further until until you cannot increase the stretch, hold last tension for up to 30 seconds. rest a minute, repeat the same stretch. do 3 to 5 reps of a whole stretch per workout.
  use isometric stretches 3 to 4 times per week
  gradually increase the time of the last tension to about 30 seconds
  concentrate on strength gains in the stretched muscle. when you cannot increase the stretch, concentrate on tensing harder, longer or both. in time this will translate into a greater stretch. to increase tensions, use weights or splits without arm support
  keep breathing naturally

Of course there is much more to consider when applying the different techniques (static active, static passive,relaxed etc.., when to stretch, how to prepare). Like how to prepare for the different stretching methods, when to stretch, what to do in the morning etc. etc...

gymgreg said:

I got me a copy of "Stretching Scientifically" by Thomas Kurz and followed the described program.

Typing out the whole program would pretty much be typing out the whole book. I highly recommend getting a copy yourself. This will be such a little investment which will lead to you progressing to a new level.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely see if I can order this. Also, appreciate your snippets that you took the time to type out.

Also a great accumulation of information from "Stretching Scientifically" and "Sport Stretch" (also a good book, and pretty cheap) can be found here: http://www.trickstutorials.com/content/flx3.