Marko Petrunic Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 The title says it all - I am interested in correct scapula position in OAHS (elevated/depressed)? I believe scapulae should be elevated regarding vertical motion and neutral regarding horizontal motion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikael Kristiansen Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 Elevated and protracted. The protraction is what will enable you to suck in your ribs and chest, and is often mistunderstood. Protacting the shoulders in the actively elevated position requires good flexibility and strength. On 1 arm this is of course even harder, but also more important. Letting the ribs out on 1 arm easily makes you twist which is very hard to balance out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Petrunic Posted December 19, 2012 Author Share Posted December 19, 2012 Thank you for your explanation. I understand the benefits of protracted scapulae, but wouldn't that put the shoulder slightly in front of the wrist (regarding coronal/frontal plane)? As we know, proper form in regular HS is that all main joints are on the same coronal plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikael Kristiansen Posted December 19, 2012 Share Posted December 19, 2012 No, not if you get the ribs and sternum in and have fully open shoulders. And we are not talking full protraction as in a planche. This is something often misunderstood about handstands. Protraction makes you round your upper back, in turn also suck your sternum in and it makes it easier for your shoulders to externally rotate a slight bit which makes it easier to get the "shoulders cover your ears" placement. This slight rotation is extremely important for 1 arm handstands as it helps lock the shoulder in place so you will be able to stay on straight arm with the shoulder close to your head. All of this is difficult to explain and even harder to do without proper training and good shoulders, and its one of the reasons most handstands you see are with chest out and curved lower back. Lack of this protraction is also why most people lean a lot when they press handstand because they can not/are not strong enough to elevate and protract at the same time in the press position. In a press you want the the upper back to round, making the chest go in and get stacked on top of open shoulders. Then the press can come from the trapezius and scapular muscles, together with abdominal compression, rather than a lean forwards of the shoulders and the lower back arching the legs up. So naturally, a handstand learned with bad form will inevitably lead to a bad press because the foundation of shoulder/torso placement are the same. All of this sound really confusing, but when it comes to the practice, use the stomack to wall exercise to its fullest together with a camera to get an understanding of your placement if you do not have a teacher. The wall allows for quality position work before you have solid balance. Do not skip out on freestaniding either as you need to build the sensation on how to balance the handstand. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boofis Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Thanks so much for threads like this HB and Marko!I don't want to side track the thread, but I'm hoping it's only a quick answer question: Are there any specific stretches hand balancers do to prevent constant elevation of the scapula/shoulders?I've been doing alot of volume lately and have noticed my neutral position isn't as neutral when standing any more, it's slightly more elevated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Petrunic Posted December 20, 2012 Author Share Posted December 20, 2012 Thank you Mikael, that is some really insightful info. Just to clarify, by ''shoulder external rotation'' you really mean to externally rotate humerus at shoulder, right? I believe it is the same term as ''rotating the arms inward''. I encountered that concept in ''Championship gymnastics'' book and it helped me in understanding how to open my shoulders more. So, because all of that, in OAHS do you mean shoulders should be completely open while keeping slight scapular protraction? As for the presses, I agree. I am doing legs-close presses quite easily now and I agree with the coach when he says it is one of the most comprehensive elements. Of course, I am talking about regular, not OA presses, as I am still very far from those Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikael Kristiansen Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Yes, with external rotation, I mean external rotation of the humerus, and in practice it does rotate your arm in towards your head. Like I mentioned, a lot of this becomes counterintuitive and tricky to understand, but nevertheless important. On 1 arm the shoulder is completely the same as on 2 arms, except you have to elevate and protract more to deal with the higher load and "3 dimensional" balance(on 2 arms you will mostly have to deal with over or underbalance, while on 1 you can easily fall in all directions). This extra push in the shoulder allows you to center the shoulder more so the arm becomes a more efficient base of support.Open shoulder is mandatory if you do not want to flag or wobble more than neccesary. boofis: Not that I know of. I havent experienced much trouble from doing several hours of handstands a day, but it is of course important to work the shoulder joint in all ranges of motion to avoid scapular imbalances. Also, like with everything quick scaling up of work can be the perpetrator. In general SMR work is always your friend when working with any kind of scapula strength Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marko Petrunic Posted December 20, 2012 Author Share Posted December 20, 2012 Thank you for your explanation, it helps a lot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mats Trane Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Superwell explained! Thanks alot Mikael! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mats Trane Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Mikael, what are your thoughts about breathing while sucking in your sternum? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cu Fang Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 @handbalancerWhen we protracted the shoulder do we in hollow position?I found that when in hollow my upperback is round.But if not hollow the upper back is flat together with the lowerback ia flat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikael Kristiansen Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 The pulling in of the sternum shouldnt interfere with your breathing. It is more about hollowing the chest by protraction than sucking it in. Breathing in handstand is more or less the same as when standing on the feet once you adapt to it, though you might take smaller breaths to not expand your chest too much. Cufonggbu: yes you do hollow the chest. However with fully open shoulders and tucked pelvis the upper and lower back will keep a flat shape when seen from the side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cu Fang Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Hello handbalancer, I wanna ask you bout the protraction n hollow in HS ...im a bit confuse here Here is some hS from a member from forum.... Ian's HS has a round back means he hollow rite? Then compare to yuri's hs it seems he not hollow rite? Then the other has the same form as yuri....flat upper back....flat lwer back Mine is also look like yuri When i hollow like ian did, it become really really hard to balance I dont mean to contradict,just want perfection for mine. Thank you for answering Ian https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/gallery/image/106-newstuff068jpg/ Or https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/gallery/image/27-001/ Yuri https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/gallery/image/137-427031-10100968024977104-1742495797-n/ This one https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/gallery/image/96-handstand-1jpg/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cu Fang Posted January 15, 2013 Share Posted January 15, 2013 Im sorry....bad lining Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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