Correcting Asymmetric Handstand

Hello Everyone,

I'm having a heck of a time troubleshooting a big handstand asymmetry problem. Thank in advance for looking, and especially if you have any suggestions on how to correct it.

I've included videos, photos, and my commentaries below. Thanks!

Asymmetric Handstand on Parallel Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXUZER5560

On Parallel Bars


Same image rotated 180 degrees (to make it easier to see)


This position *feels* straight, but obviously isn't.

Here are the things I notice:

1. Left Shoulder sticks out to the side more than the right. Needs to be pulled in.
2. Right elbow is facing the camera more than the left (externally rotated more than left arm).
3. Shoulders / Arms are overall slightly more to camera right.
4. Hips / Pelvis are badly uneven, causing legs to fall over.

I've tried correcting by fulling elevating my scapulae, and trying to keep the rotation of my arms equal, but for some reason, when I pull the hips over into what looks straight on camera, it feels as though ALL of my bodyweight is on my right arm.

I've ruled out uneven arm lengths or leg lengths as being the culprit. (Album of posture photos here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/113916532157665914766/albums/5761575506378586801?banner=pwa&authkey=CPLn4fuT2f-0jQE

I do, however, have a slightly elevated right hip in my normal standing posture. It can be seen here:




I'm having lots of trouble getting it straight, even against a wall. The worst part is, that *nothing* feels straight except what's video-recorded and photographed above. Moving forward, I obviously need to recalibrate my feeling of straightness and get it symmetrical.

Thanks for looking, and any helpful comments or advice.

- Andrew

If you train alone, one way to correct an asymmetry like this is to actively try to pull your legs to the other side. It's going to feel completely wrong for a bit, but chances are that when you try to make your HS tilt the opposite direction you actually meet in the middle.

The other method would be to have someone spot you in the straight handstand so you get the idea of what it feels like

Also seems there's something very weird in his shoulders, like one is more flexible or stronger or something. You should check a list of shoulder mobility tests like the ones physiotherapists has (sorry, I don't have one), and you should probably force a straight position like Yuri said and practice shrugs in handstand. You could also try to align facing a pole of some sort. If you mark down your ideal hand position on the ground before going into a handstand, then you can probably improve your symmetry by aligning your body on the pole (even feet, right in the middle of the hips and chest) and checking your arms and shoulders position. It's not garanteed it'll work, but it's worth a shot!

Thanks guys for your responses.

Actively pulling my legs to the opposite sides seems to destroy my shoulder position, and makes it feel like I'm putting 75% of my weight on my right arm.

I basically train alone, so my options are to do the handstand where my head is facing a tall mirror while in the handstand, which isn't quite precise enough, as I've taken video of myself in this position, and it's not really straight, even when it looks like it in the mirror.

I will definitely try the pole idea. That seems like a very good way to force straightness on my own. As for shoulder evenness - my left one is very slightly more flexible, and the right one is slightly stronger. It seems more of an issue of habit than anything though, because the difference is negligible when performing dumbbell presses and barbell overhead presses, which both look straight in the mirror when performing them.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll update this post as I find viable solutions, so it may help anyone else with a similar problem.

You could also try doing it in a doorway, facing into the jamb, or at an outward facing corner.

It looks to me like there might be an asymmetry in the skeletal structure of your upper back/ shoulder girdle (as opposed to a muscular or postural imbalance) Any chance you have scoliosis?

You're definitely bent at the waist a good deal, but like you said, if you were to pull your legs into line almost all of your weight would be on your right arm.

What i want to tell you to do is shift your shoulders to the left, push up more through your right shoulder and then shift your legs to the right... But im quite certain that those corrections won't help you. It looks like you are already pushing up further through your right shoulder than the left.

I'd like to try and help you more, if you took video of yourself in a handstand shifting your shoulder girdle to the left and right it might help in diagnosing the issue.

I'll take a video of shifting my shoulder girdle to the left and to the right tonight. Hopefully that will help.

I don't think I have scoliosis, or skeletal asymmetry, judging by these 2 photos I took yesterday:

As for the doorway jam - I just figured that out earlier today. It's a beautiful solution, and an ideal one, because it allows me to do handstand against it with both parallettes and on the floor.

azey - I'm struggling with the exact same issue right now with my handstand work. I'm even biased to the same side. I've only recently begun to try to correct it, but what I've found is:

1) taking video of shifting back and fourth both on the shoulders and then at the hips helped me see that I can have vertical alignment, but my body just doesn't realize when it is aligned due to muscular imbalances in my shoulder girdle (I think)

2) my right elbow, by being stubbornly stuck "bent" is probably causing some of my misalignment/muscle imbalance. I'm working on some elbow mobility to straighten & correct this, which will hopefully help.

3) It's probably easier to fix than you think. Look at the improvement I made in the following video just by shifting around, reviewing the video and trying to bend in the other direction at my hips:

Note the difference between the first HS and the one at ~1:48:

TEJoG7B8P8I

Hope that helps.

Hey Guys,

I'm following up on my original post. I'm making great progress in my lateral straightening of my handstand, and would like to share a video taken of my handstand today and what my corrective strategies have been over the last few months:

1. I stopped doing direct handstand work for 4 months. No freestanding handstands, nor against a wall. My videos showed that I simply didn't feel where "centered" was, I didn't want to further ingrain a bad habit.

2. Determined that I had a mild functional scoliosis, but no structural scoliosis. Spent a lot of time stretching QL muscles on both side, focusing on making range of motion equal on both sides. Lots of Side Bridges to strengthen Obliques on both sides, again focusing on making sure each side is even.

3. Practicing in front of a mirror, with centered even lighting, the correct handstand position, making sure that everything is totally symmetrical. THIS WAS/IS THE MOST HELPFUL PART. Making sure that I shrug both shoulders evenly, and focusing on having the hips and shoulder lines perfectly level. Periodically closing my eyes and trying to memorize the straight position has been very helpful.

I will progress to doing 5 sets of 60 second holds in front of the mirror, after which I will do it with light dumbbells that will progress in weight.

4. I have begun doing direct handstand work again, but focus on never doing asymmetric motions, like pirouetting off to my preferred side and kicking up with the same leg each time. I now try to exclusively use donkey kicks to kick up, so the muscles of my back fire evenly when pulling up into the handstand, and pirouetting off to the less familiar side. This has helped in straightening my handstand as well.

I hope this helps anyone who has a similar problem.

What is actually straight still feels crooked, but I can fairly successfully recall the correct position, so over time I believe I will adjust and perceive it as straight.

As Coach Sommer mentioned in another thread, it turned out to be nothing more than a bad habit, which is a huge relief for me! I'll keep charging ahead in straightening it, especially now that Handstand 1 is out. Anyone who hasn't bought it yet - I highly recommend it - it's an absolute goldmine of information!

Best,

Andrew

Very nice Andrew, not many athletes have the courage to stop and fix what doesn't work - kudos to you! B)

Thanks for sharing what you learned!

HS1 is much better than I thought it would be, and takes you much further... and I had high expectations.

Good work on straightening out! Now it's time to slowly get those hands closer together

when i did the course of personal training here in italy was presented us a case of study about a guy with your posture problem. maybe a little form of scoliosis concerned with unbalanced muscles. i can notice from your left shoulders/arm that is  a little bit forward respect to the other and of course one hip appears to be tilted on one direction. in the biggest part of the cases the muscular scoliosis reflects this particular things. what i don't know if it is muscular or is a congenital problem.

and the beginning my handstand was not symmetrich but i didn't have the scoliosis, simply i was doing every type of oah skills (in breakdance) with one arms that was more tight then the other. simply i correct it using a mirror and doing something like a head-in handstand to correct myself...

I'm following up on my previous progress. I've been following Handstand 1 for several months now, and neglected my handstand symmetry work. It seems that my handstand symmetry has regressed (bad postural habits). Here a couple videos that show the issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q664iVFnPh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm9wrtTOt0A

It looks as though my left shoulder shrugs more, and my right lower back muscles are tight and pull the right hip higher. The problem is definitely less pronounce when I'm facing the camera (there is a mirror right behind it), but my sense of symmetry/balance without the mirror is atrocious.

I'm wondering if anyone has any additional tips on how to fix this problem (aside from attending Coach's Seminar, which I will do as soon as I can afford it!)? I can't afford to see a PT right now, so it's got to be a solution I can implement myself.

Thanks so much guys. I'd really like to take care of this properly so it doesn't interfere anymore!

Andrew

P.S. Coach, if you could spare a few moments to comment on your experience working with functional scoliosis in developing the handstand I would truly appreciate it!

I had the same problem. I had to go back to square 1 practically. I went and trained handstands ONLY while looking into a mirror. Took me a couple months of 2 sessions a week to get to hold a HS for 10seconds while looking into a mirror. However, my alignment is much better.

When it comes to this stuff, people jump to scoliosis and such right away. More likely, you are just favoring. Tighten up ALL your muscles and point the feet and look into a mirror the whole time, and shrug both shoulders maximally. Every time I did that, it went away.

I talked to some local gymnasts who said that issue was mostly not contacting enough and getting used to that position as well.

It sucks, but for a long time you will want to revert back if you are not paying attention. It will take a long long time. Make every session in front of the mirror if you can.

-Pro

Thanks for your feedback Prometheus. I'm resetting to square 1 (again), but this time I intend on really fixing the problem. I've confirmed that I have a functional scoliosis problem of very mild degree. In front of a mirror I can control the straightness of my torso if I am standing upright (like an overhead press), but handstands are crooked in front of the mirror no matter what I do. I just don't feel how to get them straight. I've tried maximally contracting everything as you suggested, but unfortunately they just come out super crooked  .

The good news is that I can fairly reliably get headstands and forearm headstands to be straight, so I will work on symmetry in these positions before moving up to handstands.

For the scoliosis, the video below looks promising, and I will be doing his advice daily (3 sets of the stretches he showed, 3 sets of the exercises he showed):

Otherwise I'm training F1 and H1, and will stay at the early stages of H1 until I have mastery and symmetry without having to rely on a mirror.

Also, I'll pay a visit to a local gymnastics school to see what advice I can get from the instructors there. I'll report back here once I do.

Any updates on this? How are things going for you? Curious as I have a similar problem..

 

Hey there! Unfortunately, I haven't followed up on addressing my functional scoliosis, as all manner of work and career related changes have gotten in the way (I went an intensive programming bootcamp this year which left NO time to deal with this).

I will be following up on this issue once my career and financial issues settle down (early 2015), and will let you know how it goes.

As for my current hand-balancing work -  my sense of center is a little better, but I still don't trust myself to do any significant amount of training without a mirror to make sure everything is even. I'm currently working on HS1, but I'm stuck on PE2 due to mobility issues.

Any updates here? Got the same problem.

Scoliosis must be addressed and managed in function of the cause of the problem. if it is congenital there are no chances to improve it, if is muscular then it could be managed. an X-ray exam and physio advice is needed before having opinions.

I am having the same issue, where I lean to one side while in a handstand position.  I'm not an expert, but it is reasonable to me why I could be the leaning to my left side the way I am because I am right-handed.  I was tested for scoliosis as a kid and while it could have developed I played a lot of baseball growing up so it makes sense to me that my right arm and shoulder (and left side in general) would be stronger and more mobile.  I filmed myself doing the standard shoulder dislocate and I noticed the same thing - the bar leans to my weaker left side.  If anyone has any advice on how to troubleshoot I would love to hear it.  It seems to me that a lot of people out there would have a similar problem.  

For now what I am going to try are doing a lot of oblique crunches (PE2 from side lever I believe) to strengthen my weak side obliques and then try to find a way to isolate the shoulder dislocate to allow me to get more work on my weaker side.  Tim Ferriss also had a chapter in The 4-Hour Body on Prehab featuring Gray Cook where he talked about Functional Movement Screening (FMS) to help with these types of issues, so I will try that out as well.  I think this sounds like a very common issue and I am surprised there is not more on the forum about it.

Being right handed it is not relevant, it is simply a matter of asymmetrical fascia tension in between sections of opposite sides.

On 1/20/2017 at 8:05 AM, Alessandro Mainente said:

Being right handed it is not relevant, it is simply a matter of asymmetrical fascia tension in between sections of opposite sides.

Sure, but could that not be caused by the repetitive use of one side over the the other?

Hi Nicholas, 

Alex is right, asymmetrical fascia tension is created between sides.

The body works like a zig zig pattern, if you are right handed many of your left back and shoulder muscles work to support your right arm vs. versa.  I do believe chronic holding patterns can lead up to over use. Personally I have experienced a bit of this after many years of doing Massage Therapy. Being right hand dominate built more muscles on the left side of my back creating a bit more tightness. When kicking up to handstand I have also felt my body pulling to the left, the side with the stronger and tighter muscles. With more stretching and oblique strengthening I have felt a big difference in my handstand line. 

Gymnastics strength training lets imbalances be easily noticed. 

21 hours ago, Nicholas Blanchard said:

Sure, but could that not be caused by the repetitive use of one side over the the other?

not necessarily, in some cases yes in other not. for example repetitive overhead movements with the dominant side increase the hypertrophy of the supraspinatus tendon limiting its same mobility in the major of cases while all this repeated range of motion holds the anterior capsule healthy. on the other side on the not-dominant side happens exactly the opposite.