Handstand Picture on Pg. 16 of BtGB

I am currently working on wall handstands (currently 6 inches from the wall, trying for coaches recommended 1-2 inches long-term goal), and have a question regarding how wide apart my hands should be and where my head should be

I have included a picture below from page 16 of BtGB and another picture from Jordan's Warmup DVD....is this the correct width my hands should be, meaning in relation to my shoulders? I was actually practicing using quite narrower.

Also, Coach has said the following elsewhere:

"While in the handstand, you should picture your hand as having three sections: the palm, the fingers and the heel of the hand. When on balance, you should feel your weight comfortably placed in the center of your palm with your shoulders directly over your hands....."

and

"My preference is for the head to be neutral (neither forward nor backward) while keeping the ears in line with the upper arms. You should be able to see your thumbs; not with a clear view due to an elevated chin but by glancing upward with your eyes and peering through your eyebrows. This is in addition to having the ribs pulled in, the shoulders completely open, the scapula in and upper back flat, the lower back flat and the hips the rolled under."

Based on these statements, are the pictures below correct for me to follow with regards to width of hands and placement of head? :?: :?:

Thanks

It is nothing inherently wrong about the hand placements shown in those pictures, but if you are building up to more advanced handbalancing, I would definitely recommend having the hands closer together. The exact width is really personal preference, and in gymnastics, where you never spend any significant amout of time on 1 arm at a time(though numerous transfer movements require momentary support on 1 arm) it is not of extreme importance.

If you are interested in building towards 1 arm handstands, it will however be good to work with a narrower placement. Shoulder width is the general rule. The reason is that you then require minimal shifting of weight sideways to get the weight over 1 arm.

Regarding the head I would say that the most important is that you see the floor underneath you but not letting the position of your head compromise the position of the shoulders and back. If the trapezius are properly shrugged and shoulders are open, this is usually not a big problem.

A basic in handbalancing is actually to learn to isolate and move your head in a handstand without it affecting your position. In a straight handstand, the exercise is to learn to look at your toes without changing anything else. This is a very interesting exercise because it requires a higher degree of proprioception AND it forces you to open the shoulders and flatten the back to be able to look at your toes properly. Interstingly enough, in this position, you can also see the mistakes you are making. If you cannot see your toes, it means you are arching, and you will also very easily see if you are piking the position.

Thank you lots for the quick reply and the in-depth clarification.

What exactly is the scapula position supposed to be?

(1) Elevated & protracted

(2) Elevated & retracted

(3) Elevated & neutral

Gymnastics style is elevated and protracted.

Equilibre style is a little less elevated.

I would say equilibre style is very elevated. You never let your scapula drop, as you want to be in as high and aligned position as possible. The trapezuis is the main muscle that keeps the shoulder in position when doing a 1 arm handstand, so a powerful push through them is neccessary also on 2 arms. Im taught by an old russian handbalancer and with him, and all the other coaches I have met, it is always about staying strongly elevated and protracted.

I agree that those pictures use a slightly wider stance than is most efficient for balancing, but both practitioners are probably used to ring and pbar HS, which will have a slightly wider hand placement.

The rest is interesting as I originally learned using the Russian style with strongly elevated shoulders.

After a good time using this method, I was told by some experienced handbalancers to start relaxing my traps and dropping my shoulders a bit. At first this blew my mind, as it was a completely foreign concept to me. Everything I had known and experienced up until then involved extended trap and shoulder. This new technique was difficult for me to implement but now that I've had some experience with it I love it. This and learning to relax the fingers and balance more from the palms completely changed the way I balance.

I still engage my shoulders, just not all the way out. To me this method requires more energy as it raises one's COG and takes more muscle to hold. I also think about pushing up more when shifting weight to my left arm as I am weaker in that shoulder and it tends to sink a bit too much sometimes. Extended shoulders in the HS usually does appear more aesthetically pleasing though.

Of course neither way is right or wrong. Hand balance is a personal journey and we all have different experiences to lead us forward. I would never tell a beginner to relax their fingers or drop their shoulders; I am actually pretty adamant about engaged shoulders and strong finger pressure with people not yet familiar with the sensation of balance.

I woulds say that the moral of the story is to keep an open mind.

One of the gyms I coach at, a 16-year old former gymnast coach trainee not knowing who I am was "spotting" me on a handstand and mentioned for me to get my head in. Well of course he is not familiar with all the theories, he is just regurgitating what I'm sure his coach told him. Even though it may be viewed wrong by gymnastics technique, I pull my head out a little because it makes it easier for me to balance. I can balance with my head in all the positions but head out takes the least effort. I still make sure to keep open shoulder angle and straight body.

Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts.

I misquoted this out of context. Yuri's post is along the lines of what I had meant :oops:

With most novices to two arm handstands I won't even mention shoulder elevation until they've gotten a hang of body line since that's enough to think about. When I do bring it up I it I tell them fully extended gymnast style, but once they graduate into an intermediate proficiency (freebalancing 60 seconds decent line) I tell them it's optional.

It is completely right that balancing is very up to personal preference. I am actually very much against creating a dogmatic way of teaching and working. Bodies are organic, and different and any way of doing it is possible. The russians are notorious on their technique, and since I work with a coach every day, that is what I follow. For me, the trapezius is where it all happens. I feel as if I have a tennisball on each side of the neck when i do handstands. For me, actually pushing high allows me to place the balance more in the middle of the palm so that I can relax my fingers more. Also, certain 1 arm positions, especially figa(the one when the legs are piked above the body) and its variations are very very difficult without a high push in the shoulder.

I also think it is important to note that proper extension through the traps is not neccesarily about pushing absolutely at 100% of your capacity. I would say that I extend as much as I can, without creating unneccessary strain, and im probably pushing 90-95% at all times.

Tsoonami, I completely agree with not adding too much to think about for novices. I usually mention the importance of the trapezius, but a lot of people give too much detail information at a too early stage, creating more confusion than anything else. First, most people need to build up some strength and awareness of being upside down, before given extra tasks to perform.

Handbalancer said:

It is completely right that balancing is very up to personal preference. I am actually very much against creating a dogmatic way of teaching and working. Bodies are organic, and different and any way of doing it is possible.

So I've been researching handbalancing for a little bit and have become more and more interested in this, and am planning on taking some classes at a local circus school (when the current session ends, around the end of Feb).

I find this very interesting. It seems like you're saying it's better to practice your own way, rather than trying to strictly follow some guidelines?

Also, do you have any pointers for someone beginning handbalancing at a later age (I will be 30 this year)?

hopefully this doesn't derail the OP but: auxiliary wrist and trap-3 conditioning

What I mean is that there are a lot of ways to work with this, and one is not neccesarily "better" than another. I was a bboy, having completely crappy handstand if looked upon from a gymnastics or handbalancing perspective, and my first 1 arms were twisted and unconsistent. However, since I had some strength and most importantly the sensation of how to balance it went rather quickly to progress with handbalancing. Both the coaches I have had were sceptic towards whether I had what is required to become a professional with this, and now, 3 years later I am doing 1 arm presses and several minutes of changing 1 arms.

Also, if you look at bboys, there are some amazing balancers out there, who work with completely different principles. Their balancing is based on other things than alignment and specific technique, but there are people who can do things that makes my jaw drop to the floor. Even so, I do think that the gymnastic/handbalancing technique is superior in the sense that it has a system, and that there are some skills that are almost completely out of reach without the proper training and technique.

I do think that if you want to train seriously and build up to advanced balancing skills, it is definitely better to get coaching. A person who knows what you should do, and how you should work is priceless, especially for beginners. Then again, there is good and bad coaching, which is another enourmous topic.

I started handbalancing at 23, and I know professionals who started closer to their 30, so you can definitely go somewhere. What is important is that you build up strenght and awareness on your arms to develop the sensation of balancing. Also work on the general aligment drills(stomack to wall is excellent). In the beginning phase, and actually for most people, a kind of greasing the groove method works very well with handstands. Since you cant do quality work for an entire workout because you tire fast, it is great to do many short sessions during a day. Combining this with some serious sessions a week is a good way to go. Also, remember to go slowly and build up your capacity, and do prehab for wrists and shoulders.

This became a lot of text, but i hope it clarified a little.

Handbalancer said:

A basic in handbalancing is actually to learn to isolate and move your head in a handstand without it affecting your position. In a straight handstand, the exercise is to learn to look at your toes without changing anything else. This is a very interesting exercise because it requires a higher degree of proprioception AND it forces you to open the shoulders and flatten the back to be able to look at your toes properly. Interstingly enough, in this position, you can also see the mistakes you are making. If you cannot see your toes, it means you are arching, and you will also very easily see if you are piking the position.

For those of us where open shoulders is still an issue, would you recommend doing this to the degree we're able? If my long-term goal is 1-arm work, what do you suggest focusing on as I am working to improve my flexibility? The closed shoulder angle makes it aesthetically lacking, but I can reliably manipulate my legs in space into straddle, diamond, half diamond + other leg straight, as front split as my legs go, and a mild side straddle. Should I simply continue playing with these and transitioning between them along with mastering head movement until my shoulders open more from stretching?

I would definitely recommend doing training the head isolations as long as you can hold a decent handstand. With "decent" i do not mean form wise, but that you are reasonably comfortable on your arms, and that you are able to stay for around 30 seconds more or less consistently. Of course form is important, and the better it is, the easier it will be doing this, but I have seen tremendous progress in the students in my school who did not have good alignment, from working this exercise.

You need to shrug the shoulders maximally, while still being relaxed enough to move the head without causing movement anywhere in your body. Also it is important to keep the weight slightly on your fingers, because it will be harder to correct underbalance.

It is a pretty difficult exercise and it does take time to get it. If you do not have someone to spot you on this, I would recommend using a camera to see how it looks. When you manage, notice what happens to the shoulder and chest area. It might aslo be good to start with just learning to move the head from looking at the floor, to looking at teh wall first to get used to moving the head and disconnecting the balance from the visual cues from your eyes.

As for 1 arm training, how long can you stay in a handstand, and can you press on straight arms? Leg movement is a really big one, so keep on working that to build up control in the shoulders and core. The most neccesary thing to learn however is the hip/leg placement for the 1 arm. This is directly linked to leg movement, as what you want to do(from a straddle) is move the legs over so they become diagonally aligned over the arm you want to balance on. The easiest way to explain this is:

If you are going to balance on your RIGHT arm, your RIGHT leg needs to go down towards the floor a little. This will make your LEFT go a bit up so they become diagonal. This is the EXACT opposite of what your hips do when you do handstand walking. The movement done in handstand walking is more anatomically intuituve to do, but for balancing it just makes you fall if you do not haev very very good control. I definitely recommend working in a straddle at first. Many say they feel better aligned with legs together, and that I can understand, BUT it will take you another 1-2 years of training i you want to get that before straddle. Building up teh sensation of balancing from only 1 point is what you want to learn, and then you add complexity as you get better.

There are a lot of other things to mention as well, but this is kind of the very basic of it. The best in the beginning to learn the leg/hip aligment(film yourself and compare) and learn to stay in that position ON 2 ARMS. Most people get excited and lift the other, do it wrong and get 0,3 seconds of TUT in the position they want to work in. Learn to stay there on 2 for 20 seconds, then learn on 1 arm and finger support, then 1 arm.

This became rather long, but i hope it helps a bit!

This is gold, handbalancer. Thank you for the info.

Mikael's posts are some of the best on the forum.

Cole Dano said:

Mikael's posts are some of the best on the forum.

This!

I want him, Yuri, and Ace to talk about handstands in a thread. Anything about them in general. They all put out such great info.

PHILIP said:

Cole Dano said:

Mikael's posts are some of the best on the forum.

This!

I want him, Yuri, and Ace to talk about handstands in a thread. Anything about them in general. They all put out such great info.

+1

haha, just come to Vegas and ask me in person.

Alex unfortunately no longer lives here, hopefully I can get Mikael to come visit sometime.

It is much easier for me to talk about it stream of consciousness style than to type out my thoughts in the forum

Mikael: lot of stuff you have told me already, but i just now understand them really when i read them.. :oops:

very big thank you from me also!!

yuri said:

haha, just come to Vegas and ask me in person.

Alex unfortunately no longer lives here, hopefully I can get Mikael to come visit sometime.

It is much easier for me to talk about it stream of consciousness style than to type out my thoughts in the forum

Definitely working on it, Yuri!

Why is a retracted scapula bad during handstands?

RatioFitness said:

Why is a retracted scapula bad during handstands?

Not a horrible thing and some people can do a one arm handstand with it completely retracted. But it takes your shoulders out the equation a bit making it harder to correct an under balance.

PHILIP said:

RatioFitness said:

Why is a retracted scapula bad during handstands?

Not a horrible thing and some people can do a one arm handstand with it completely retracted. But it takes your shoulders out the equation a bit making it harder to correct an under balance.

It seems like hand balancers have retracted scapulas though, because they're back are so flat.

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