My stalder negative

I've been talking about it for a bit, but I wanted to check if it was actually done right.

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Sorry about the bad camera angle. Given the size of my workspace and portability of the camera, it was either get the top half or the bottom half. I figured the bottom was more important.

What do you mean by "doable, but not trainable" on the video? That looked pretty good to me, but I ain't even close to that

phrak said:

What do you mean by "doable, but not trainable" on the video? That looked pretty good to me, but I ain't even close to that

Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was that I can't do that every single time. A good amount of the attempts I make, I can make it to a straddle L, but my feet either brush the ground or I sort of fall into it. It's just not consistent enough to think of those as anything more than just "playing around."

How'd you train up to that and what are you doing to get further if you're not directly training it? I'm very interested, as this is actually an end goal of mine (compression and lack of a good straddle L are my main opponents)

I trained the press part at the beginning of the video by doing a whole lot of cast wall walks and HS wall runs. I have a feeling that the bottom part would have come sooner if I had a better planche, but hey, that's what I get for putting it off for so long. :oops:

For the straddle L, flexibility was a huge part of it. I spent the better part of a year in university stretching my straddle on the floor and training the actual sit with bent legs on a pair of cinder blocks. While sitting or actually trying to get the pancake, I tried to lift my legs up to the ceiling, starting from the hip to strengthen the flexors. Cramped like a mother, I can tell you.

Other than that, just try and do really slow negatives. Best of luck!

Looks cool to me although I'm no authority. Nice work

Erik said:

flexibility was a huge part of it. I spent the better part of a year in university stretching my straddle on the floor

What is your pancake stretch like now? chest to floor?

Do you think the straddle flexibility has helped a lot press to HS from standing or did you do other more focused pressing work?

Thanks for posting.

ed.f said:

Looks cool to me although I'm no authority. Nice work

Erik said:

flexibility was a huge part of it. I spent the better part of a year in university stretching my straddle on the floor

What is your pancake stretch like now? chest to floor?

Do you think the straddle flexibility has helped a lot press to HS from standing or did you do other more focused pressing work?

Thanks for posting.

Used to be better, but getting pretty close to chest to floor.

I think what helped me more was being flexible enough to fold myself in half rather than widen my straddle, but both are pretty important. Shoulder flexibility is also pretty important, and as you can see from the video, mine is...not good.

Erik,

Very good effort. The following are several areas for you to refine:

- Do not lift the head out of alignment in between your arms during your press. With your head in the correct position you should be able to both see your thumbs and keep your arms in line with your ears.

- "Curl" your back up into the press, one vetebrae at a time. Done correctly this will feel as though you are pulling your head under your hips even though the head is remaining stationary and it is the hips that are moving.

- These cues will also help to fix the other issue which is your slightly closed shoulder position during the ascent. Notice that this is a domino effect; the head is out thus the shoulders are closed and the back arches to compensate.

- Additional bodyline work needs to be done to completely flatten the back and rib cage in the handstand position. Remember that almost right is still wrong. Make it a priority to achieve a completely flat straight handstand. Outside of aesthetics, an excellent handstand position greatly decreases your learning curve in regards to handstand work.

- The same caveats regarding body position apply during the negative.

- Excellent straddle L position. 8)

Your negative stalder press from a stand is ready to begin training for reps. If you find that consecutive reps are too demanding, considering using a rest pause structure where you perform one rep rest for a few breaths and then perform another rep. Once you have completed your target number of reps, 2-3 reps per set should be adequate at this time, rest 3-5 minutes before commencing your next set.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

An exercise that I found very helpful was pressing from a straddle L into a standing position for reps. Sometimes I would press into a standing position and then from there press into a handstand. I actually only did negative stalder presses after I was able to do a stalder press.

The "straight and flat" handstand is definitely going to become high on my list of priorities, as well as better body line.

Unfortunately, I don't know too many ways to improve position in the upper body or ways to stretch the shoulders (outside of what I have in the syllabus from last May's seminar).

Today I tried doing a bit of myofascial release with a lacrosse ball in the anterior deltoid and right around the scapula. Almost cried. :shock: I'd really like to make sure that what I'm doing is what I'm supposed to be doing, though. My handstand in the video wasn't one where I was focused on being in a good position, but when I am it's not too far off from that (my head is in more, that's the big difference). What sort of stuff should I really be focusing on to help fix my bad position?

Coach sometimes i can be a little dyslexic with instructions. Can you elaborate in any way what you mean by pull your head under your hips?

I always feel in my pressing attempts that i'm pulling my head in such a way that it's looking more toward the floor, but i have the feeling that's a mistake.

It means that during the ascent rather than letting your head and shoulders lean forward, you should be actively attempting to pull your head backward under your torso and hips for the duration of the press. The same positions apply for the descent as well.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thanks that makes sense to me.

I think I get it...thanks for the clarification!

Coach Sommer said:

It means that during the ascent rather than letting your head and shoulders lean forward, you should be actively attempting to pull your head backward under your torso and hips for the duration of the press. The same positions apply for the descent as well.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

just to clarify, your chin is tucked to your chest?

No, but the problem is the tendency to try to look 'up' and back, in other words to crank the neck back, which will cause the back to arch. What coach is talking about is that and the fact that the shoulders will move backwards towards the fingers (often called planching) so one needs to actively press the shoulders (or head which is attached) forward to prevent this leaning.

This head positioning all falls under "packing the neck."

With a packed neck, you should be able to look up by rolling your eyes as far up as they go and right there at your eyebrows you should see your thumbs and perhaps your knuckles. For some reason rolling the eyes up makes it much easier for me to really pack the neck.

It will FEEL like you are looking up, but the head is essentially straight and the cervical spine + upper T-spine is all in one straight, more or less uncurving line. If anything it is slightly into extension.

One thing I have noticed is that it helps a lot to try to press your hands together (with straight arms) WHILE pulling the arms back with your traps WHILE packing the neck. This actually makes it a lot easier to use the muscles correctly and happens to be an obvious pre-requisite to a straight arm HS press on the rings, since you have to keep the hands shoulder width while pressing and that involves inward pressure on the rings. I discovered this on accident yesterday.

There are also some drills on the wall, both in a handstand and standing on the feet, that help a lot with this activation. I will try to make a video of some of what I am doing and ask Coach what he thinks and if it is ok for public domain. Perhaps this weekend, but I don't know... very behind with school at the moment but all tests are Thursday and Friday so maybe there will be time.