Video Of Hand Balancer

Hi All,

We recently spend some time with an incredibly talented hand balancer.

Here is the final product.

A question I raise is that on the floor in gymnastics you never see a one handed handstand. What are the reasons for this? Surely it is far more impressive that a standard handstand. Is it because it take years of dedication to achieve a solid one hander?

Thanks for you time.

J

Because acquiring a one-arm HS takes a lot of time, and doesn't give a lot of points (if it's even in the code of points at all, I don't know). So gymnasts choose to spend that time on other elements so they get more points in total.

1 arm handstand is a long term project and requires a lot of very specific training. It does not give any significant amount of points and most 1 arm supported skills in gymnastics are transition movements(like on Pbar) where you do not need the ability to balance on 1 arm. Surely a 1 arm handstand could add to a gymnasts general skills, but the carryover is not big enough to prioritize it above other types of skill and strength training.

Exactly like Handbalancer wrote. Plus, I think it's only an element on the beam or something. I've seen old times gymnasts doing it on the floor or the parallel bars, but except girls at the beam, nobody ever does it anymore.

I loved that video

Yes, it is very work intensive. Gymnasts would have to take a lot away from their daily training in order to focus this skill. Plus that it is very awkward on a spring floor due to the give in the floor.

OAH is somewhere in the code of points for beam and PB I believe but it is not rated that high of difficulty despite how long it takes to learn.

An old olympic russian gymnast I used to work with said he struggled for 8 months trying to learn OAH for pbars. Eventually he replaced it by learning a swinging element much quicker that had a higher difficulty rating.

OAH is great for gymnasts to learn after they stop competing though