For all acrobatics and hand balancing you need strong abs. The stronger the abs the better.
In this new article you’ll find out one of my favorite ab exercises and four progressive levels to do it in.
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Second Day at Gymnastics
Yesterday was my second day back at gymnastics.
I have to admit it’s a lot of fun. Join the class and do a series of drills across the floors. Different kinds of cartwheels. Handstands. Handstand roll out. Handstand rollout to standing. And so on.
The different people there have different strengths and weaknesses in these drills. Some are easy. Some are not, but you try anyway, and even if you fail in many cases you are getting better.
After the various warmup drills we were free to work on what we wanted to.
I didn’t do any back handsprings the previous time so I figured that was a good place to start. It’s nice to come back to gymnastics rather than starting from scratch. Much easier this time around.
A few preliminary drills, a spot on one back handspring and then I was doing them by myself. Couldn’t quite get the ideal form I was trying for but I was getting back to my feet. Will have to work on those more for sure.
Back to Back Flips
This is why training in a gymnastics center is so great. One of the drills involved stacking a whole bunch of pads, including a wedge shaped pad at the top. This was close to shoulder height. The objective was to jump up and back. As soon as you touched the pads, or even before, you would tuck and roll back (the wedge helping you to do so). This allows you to work the jump and tuck while eliminating the entire second half of the move.
Wish I had taken a picture. Where else are you going to be able to do this?
I get a spot on my first real back tuck. It’s done off of raised mats onto a pad. Success. I find often times a single spot is all that is needed, not so much to help in the move, but to calm your mind, and allow you to do it without fear. After that you’re good to go. Just replicate the same action.
Gradually I lowered the mats until it was even. Then I did away with the mats and pads altogether and did a back flip on the floor. Back in action.
Seeing as I easily did these before I knew it wouldn’t be much trouble. Just had to get back into it step by step as I describe in this article on back flips. This time the steps were a lot quicker then when I first learned.
In a few sessions I’ll have all my skills back (and even be better in some ways.) I look forward to the new skills I’ll be learning how to do and sharing that all with you.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Handstand on a Guitar
Rudi Macaggi a performing acrobat and comedian demonstrates his hand balancing ability by doing a one arm handstand on a guitar.
Don’t try this at home without many years of practice. You could hurt yourself and the guitar!
Handstand Pushup Plateau
Another question came in recently regarding breaking through handstand pushup plateaus.
I’m now able to balance about 15 seconds at best, but I do see progress.
Focusing my weight on that first row of knuckles helps a lot. I also started doing more forearm stands as a balancing drill which have helped.
… On another note, I have been plateaued at about 10 handstand pushups max (but not all the way down). This is against a wall and going down to touch a yoga block about six or eight inches off the ground. If I go all the way until my head hits the ground, I can get just one rep. I’ve been at this level for a couple months. Any suggestions to break through the plateau?
Thanks,
Dean
An isometric handstand pushup
From the book in Chapter 11 – Common Problems:
Use the exercises in the beginning of Chapter 6, such as negatives, isometrics and others. Using these moves especially to work harder and to work on sticking points will make you stronger. As long as you can do just a little bit more than last time you are improving. Sometimes improvements come fast. Sometimes they are slow.
If those do not work try switching up your routine. Often just going from normal HSPU’s to Reverse HSPU’s will work wonders. Or change your set and rep scheme. If you’ve been doing 5 sets of 5 try 8 sets of 2 or vice versa. Or maybe you should break from the HSPU’s altogether and use weights for a while.
So there you have it. There are four ways you can change up what you’re doing to make faster progress. Not to mention in the book you’ll find a lot more regarding positioning of handstand pushups that can make a HUGE difference.
Good Luck and Good Handstanding,
Logan Christopher
AHA Moments
Bad time to start my hand balance everyday challenge. I go to gymnastics and end up sore for 4 or 5 days afterwards. Then off a whim I end up in a 6 mile road race. This too leaves me sore.
And it’s not like I can’t hold a handstand. It’s just that right now getting up into the handstand is a problem. While the majority of my training does not cause soreness this past week has been in stark contrast to that.
That left me with one move I’ve been working on regularly, a one arm half planche or lever. No kick-up required, in fact you start off right there on the ground.
I think with any move you need to spend enough time doing it, sometimes getting it right, sometimes failing to do anything right. After you’ve done this for awhile you gain two things.
1. The ability to discern your proper position that works for you to make the move successful.
For this move, this starts with where to position your elbow in your abdomen. While I’ve experimented with moving it around, at this point I can feel when I have it in the right place.
2. The ability to make small changes that make a big difference.
After having the arm position right I then would start balancing. After a couple go’s at it I realized that by shifting the same leg as the arm I’m on (left leg for left arm) slightly more out to the side I could balance better.
As was stated previously this in in a straddled version on the one arm half planche. Its working well for that but when I move onto legs together I’ll need to find a new way to shift that weight.
These are the ‘AHA’ moments that only come through practice. When something clicks and you are suddenly better able to do these moves. In many cases you can only discover these for yourself through regular practice.
So far so good in this challenge.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Making Progress and Questions
This one came in today.
Hey Logan, I’ve only been trying to do a handstand for just under a week and with your website i am already able to hold a handstand for more than 10 seconds! (seems like forever to me) I’m going to keep on trying and maybe ill be able to do more advanced moves soon. thanks a bunch -Ryan
Excellent progress Ryan. Keep going and keep me updated on your progress.
And from a couple days ago from Samuel…
hello logan:
i have very good news!. i am practicing but is just that i’m kind of lazy for returning e-mails and leave comments on your web.. but i am getting better… i saw the video that you sent me the ”quick-start” it was GREAT!!.. i loved the video.. and i practice with the first four skills that you mentioned
1.wall handstand: this one i can do it perfectly and even more than a minute
2. frogstand: i can do it.. but is difficult to hold the position for a minute.. i wish you could give me some help with this
3.headstand: is difficult even doing it on the wall.. the head hurts me a lot every time i do this one.. i can’t even last 10 seconds
4. forearmstand: this one i’m doing it well.. on the wall.. but when i try to do it off the wall.. it results to be very difficult.. i can’t hold it even for 5 secondswish you could help me with these problems … and is very good to know that you care
I’ll start off by saying it’s hard for me to comment without more details but I’ll give it a go.
1. Great job on the handstand.
2. How far along you coming? If you’re hitting a time you can’t get past after you get there go to your feet for a second or two then get right back in the frogstand. Do this a couple times and it’ll build you endurance.
Another key point is to really work the fingertip and wrist control. Focus on that.
3. Are you doing it on a hard floor? Whatever the case, get more cushions. Put enough padding so that it doesn’t hurt. Overtime as you get use to it you’ll be able to minimize the padding you need.
4. The forearm stand can be tricky. You can try doing it with the one toe touch method I teach for the handstand except using the wall in this move. That should help.
That should help you to get started.
Alright, I’m off to practice some more myself.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Earlier today I was working with a new tool that’s fun and helpful. I’ll have more details on that in a week or two.
Entcho Hand Balancing
This is one of my favorite hand balancing videos by Entcho Keryazov from Bulgaria. Simply amazing.
I stumbled across this awhile ago, and many people have pointed it out to me, but this is the first time I’ve featured it here.
Some of my personal favorites:
- The back lever at 1:00
- Hopping from one hand handstand to another at 1:59
- Handstand on the stacked blocks and throwing them away at 3:14
- The smooth muscle up on the stands at 4:24
- No to mention his dismount and how he comes across as knowing just how good he is.
I don’t know about you but I’m inspired to practice right now.
30 Day Challenge – Part 2
Feeling the soreness from attending gymnastics I still had to balance, per my 30 day challenge. Even kicking up into a handstand was difficult due to my hamstrings, particularly my right one, being sore.
I kept the practice short. Even though my upper body wasn’t quite as sore it was not running at 100%. I did a few handstands including several on a paid of pushup handles.
The p-bars I use...a pair of stone locks
This has been improving recently. I’m getting better at feeling the balance. Still all over the place, moving around to keep balance but I can stay on that one hand and nothing else for about 5 seconds somewhat consistently now.
Besides this one move I just messed around with a couple others. As it was a busy day it wasn’t a very long practice.
The next day was more of the same.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
First Day Back
It’s the first time I’ve attended a gymnastics class in around two years, maybe longer.
I expect that I’ll be able to get back into it quickly, at least for the most part. I don’t plan to rush things.
On this first day back, we start up on the trampoline. After a few regular bounces and getting use to it I launch into a front flip. Over spun it. Land on my knees. But it was on a trampoline so no harm done. I repeat the process, mostly over spinning it. Eventually I get it down. If you know you’re over spinning every time simply spin less.
Onto some floor exercises. A few basic warmups. I get dizzy from rolling and cartwheels. Then round offs. Those come back as easily as if I’d been doing them regularly. Not perfect but in decent form.
The instructor calls for a front handspring. I think back to what leg I normally go off of. Once I have that no more thoughts. I just run forward plant my hands and land easily on my feet. Once again not perfect but decent. A few more and I’m getting even springier.
We move onto the tumble-trak. A front handspring into a front flip. Here comes a problem. My strong suit in the past was never stringing moves together. I try this again and again but don’t quite get it. I can hit the front handspring but I often hesitate when going for the flip resulting in a landing not on my feet.
Trampolines are great to build your acrobatic skills.
I start with some basic lead-up drills like rolling over then bouncing over. I feel like my body has lost all control. Like all coordination leaves when I’m upside down. I keep working and I gain the coordination back.
Alright those drills are easy. With a spot on my first backflip I make it easily. From there its easy. Back flips, front flips. I work on them all going back and forth between them. Enjoying the freedom. Enjoying the rush of going upside down. Enjoying being back in gymnastics.
I’ve made the mistake of neglecting much use of the trampoline in the past but will not be making the same mistake this time around. You can read more about that and all kinds of trampoline moves here.
We mess around with some handstand stuff, specifically on press handstands and call it a night.
It was fun. I am definitely re-hooked. I also paid the price.
I knew it would happen. Anytime you engage in a new vigorous physical activity, or one you haven’t done in some time, you will end up sore the next few days. You may not think bouncing on a trampoline or springy floor use much muscle but you’d be wrong. My legs, every inch of them, were sore to the point that walking was a bit awkward.
Despite that I’ll be back soon. And I will also be practicing on my own each day.
Good Luck and Good Gymnastics,
Logan Christopher
P.S. This is day two of the 30 Day Challenge. So far so good. How about you?
30 Day Challenge
It’s been awhile since I wrote you. I’ve been busy on two other projects (https://www.radianthealthtoday.com and https://www.superhumantraining.com) which accounts for much of the limited communication.
The other reason is that I haven’t been practicing my skills. Makes it hard to write about when you’re not actively doing them. 🙁
But now’s its time for that to change. I’m setting myself a 30 day challenge in two ways.
1. Practice some amount of hand balancing every single day.
It doesn’t have to be a large chunk of time but I will be hand standing in one sort or another each and every day.
My question to you is have you been practicing? And how consistent are you? If you’d like feel free to join me.
That leads to the second part of my challenge…
2. Post something on the site every single day.
Often times this may just be a short update on what I practiced and anything I learned from the practice that day.
Other days it may be an inspirational video if I have no words to write.
Sometimes it’ll be more.
In fact, to give myself a jump start and get me more fired up to pursue these goals I’ve starting attending a gymnastics class once again.
And this led to the first piece up here now, Back to Gymnastics.
You are welcome to join me in this 30 day challenge, not just in practicing but in posting in here the comments each day (or when ever you choose).
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
