Moving handstand at the beggining of the workout?

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

Well, i have been very concerned about it, as i have been working handstand since a lot of months, and i think that just haven't improved as i wanted to...

my actual progress is this:

r0hKIoT6h3g

the order i do handstands in my training is the following

warm up: mobility + a Static positions circuit

sets of back levers

sets of front lever

sets of frogstand

Handstand 10 min aprox

FBE's

Actually i'm working out this way 4 times a week.

What i want it to take it to free handstand, but i dunno...

1. do you think i should build more volume with stomach against the wall, or should i directly begin to practise freestanding?

2. do you think i'll have more improvements if i do handstands just after my warmup and before beginning with levers? or it doesn't matter?

Thanks in advidce!

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

Really thanks for answering =)

now the deal is how to begin with freestanding, kicking up with one or two legs, or how should i begin??

[jl5555]

Are you doing any wall runs?

[Joshua Naterman]

I wouldn't do a whole lot of freestanding work until you have fully open shoulders, and I wouldn't ever take HeSPU ROM beyond that which you really feel the upper traps taking a very large load. I am quickly finding out that this is ridiculously hard.

As soon as you start to arch you lose a good handstand and it is almost impossible to get it back in the same set, meaning that you will be training an arched handstand instead of a straight handstand.

Now, if you CAN do a straight handstand and you CHOOSE to do arched sets, I don't think there is anything wrong with that, the more movement variation the better. However, if you can NOT do a straight handstand your time will be better spent on mastering that first, because it is WAAAAAY harder and will contribute more to overall strength. Arched HS and HSPU are really kind of like bodyweight incline presses.

TO get a really straight handstand on the wall you will want to look up through your eyebrows. This feels weird because you are rolling your eyes all the way up, and pulling the neck BACK instead of tilting the head up. There will be very slight head tilt, but most of the motion will be in the neck and upper T-spine. This will be very hard and you may feel some popping at first. If you're already doing this, great! However, this is not what I see. You need to have the ribs off the wall, it's almost like doing a situp while packing the neck. A difficult movement pattern to learn at first.

You will probably need to start further away from the wall by 8-12 inches at first, but who knows? Experiment and see. You'll know when you find the position because all of a sudden it will be ridiculously hard to hold at first.

[Cole Dano]

Yes to what Josh says if you want to build a good gymnastic HS.

The shape is really critical in the beginning. I'm a great example of someone who wasn't taught good shape. My HS is a mess because I have had to spend a great deal of time trying to unlearn all the bad habits I had. It would have been better to have learned it right from the start.

In fact your HS looks like mine, which is NOT a compliment. Your mid section is totally disconnected. Walk out to about a 45 degree angle from the wall and work on the hollowing. You can even do this standing and leaning into the wall at about 45 degrees. This fairly automatically turns on the midsection.

Needless to say Hollow Body work is of the utmost importance.

edit: don't take any of the advice on this thread the wrong way. It's a very hard thing to teach yourself to do, and at lest for me has been one of the more challenging projects I've undertaken. And yet for a gymnast this is just the basics.

[Nic Branson]

What I see to add on here, is you getting into a position against the wall to get into a handstand but never actually transitioning into one. Your weight is being supported in all the wrong places. Body needs to be stacked on itself from wrist to toes. Got good advice in this thread. Might do a headstand and get a good body line then pay attention to how your midsection feels, then take that feeling and work into it for your HS.

[Mikko Saks]

free standing is more a matter of balance and not strength.

I think balance = strength.

[Joshua Naterman]

Mikko, I don't think that is a good discussion to have.

What is important is pretty much what Cole said to do... I have been doing this myself, and have figured out a way to use this as a straight arm pressing element focused on proper shoulder and trap recruitment/strength/endurance. I find that I get different benefits from different angles, but the 45-ish zone is where I spend most of my time. This is really, really strenuous right now but it is paying off. One week of work and I can already feel a difference in the way I can straighten out and open the shoulders in a handstand.

Edit: I think I should add, in case anyone is wondering, that 10-15 seconds of a much more proper wall handstand with hands around 12-16 inches from the wall absolutely destroys me. It is unreal how much harder this is, a very humbling experience for me!

To put that in context, I have hit several very solid 30-40s freestanding handstands without taking any steps with locked elbows in the past 2 weeks. It should make tons of sense when I say that those handstands, while decent, are clearly NOT in the right position yet. If they were, I probably wouldn't even be able to hold the freestanding handstand for 10 seconds at the moment. As it is, I'm not strong enough in the right places to even get INTO a proper position freestanding, but I can feel that slowly improving. The work on the wall is what is making the difference.

[Cole Dano]

That said most of the skilled handbalancers I've spoken to will say the proper position is actually also the most efficient to hold a solid HS in. This has been my experience as well, on the occasions when i've been getting decent body line. In fact the wall HS at the stage both Slizz and I are talking about is much harder but it really helps to train the body line like few things do.

Slizz the good news is you may actually be doing better than you think with your freestanding.

[Joshua Naterman]

That said most of the skilled handbalancers I've spoken to will say the proper position is actually also the most efficient to hold a solid HS in. This has been my experience as well, on the occasions when i've been getting decent body line. In fact the wall HS at the stage both Slizz and I are talking about is much harder but it really helps to train the body line like few things do.

Slizz the good news is you may actually be doing better than you think with your freestanding.

HA! Maybe, maybe. That would be nice!

I do believe that to be true, once you have the strength and mobility to actually get into the position! As my position gets better, it really does become "easier" to hold the HS and yet when I come down I feel my traps more and more. Very strange. Not unexpected or anything, it makes plenty of sense to me and is what I expected to feel, but it is still a very strange sensation.

[jl5555]

One trick that I think is good for the advanced beginner to encourage HS progress is to bring the legs to a tuck position and hold that while in HS. Of course this is done back-to-wall but it changes the dynamic somewhat so you can feel your upper back more and thus pay more attention to opening your shoulders. It also can help to flatten the lower back and take the sway out of the back.

I found also that doing this as part of my HS practice seems to increase endurance. At the beginner stage of HS you know that feeling of collapsing through your shoulders as you haven't built the proper muscle tension to hold the shoulders open, after a certain amount of practice against the wall with the legs extended you get comfortable holding the position. By tucking the legs it seems to take you back a step and you can feel that collapsing sensation again. I'm not sure why that is. But it forces you to reexamine the position of your shoulders.

The next part of the progression, of course, is to bring the legs up and down tucked which helps prepare the core and the nerve connections for the eventual press handstand.

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

I had NEVER done wall runs before, i though i had to begin with them, i incorporated them in my hs workout...

how many time/reps should i do ??