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Single Arm Pike Press-Up by Roilan

By admin on September 30, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, One Hand, Presses & Pushup

Roilan Hernandez is a professional Cuban born hand balancer who now lives and performs in the USA. He is one of a few hand balancers capable of performing the single elbow lever press to single arm handstand, single finger stand and similar incredible feats of strength.

In the video above Rolian shows terrific skill and strength with the single arm pike press followed by a pop-up at the end.

Simply amazing!

How to do the One Hand Handstand by Professor Orlick

Hand Balancing Made Easy is an awesome book for anyone looking to learn the ropes of the art of hand balancing. Get it here.

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Old School Hand Balancing

By admin on September 25, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, One Hand, Presses & Pushup, Walking & Jumping

Little John Seidel is one of the best old-school hand balancers. In the video below you can see 24 year-old John jumping on one hand, performing various handstand presses, balancing on a stick and much more, before ending the show with an amazing one hand spin at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris. They certainly don’t make them like that anymore.

John is truly an incredible athlete who is still doing handstands today at the age of 76! Don’t believe me? Check out the picture below from his Facebook page.

Click here to master your handstand, step by step!

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Tumbling and Balancing in 1950’s

By admin on September 18, 2014 in Acrobatics, Hand Balancing, Handstands, Tumbling, Walking & Jumping

Here are three awesome videos from the 1950’s. They were all uploaded by Russ Hany, so make sure to check out his channel here as he has more videos from that era.

The first one is from 1950 with people performing a couple of basic tumbling moves like backward, forward and side rolls. There are also two guys walking on their hands.

The next video from 1952 features pretty impressive acrobalance duo/trio.

And here’s another one with some very cool moves, like the tiger bend, handsprings, rolls, somersaults and much more. From 1953.

Not everyone wants to learn how to perform all these moves. But you should at least have basic tumbling skills and be able to role, perform backwards somersault and cartwheel. Click here and learn the basics!

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10 Minute Handstand – Guest Post by Yuval Ayalon

By admin on September 9, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, One Hand

The 10 minutes handstand thing – DONE!

“Just do it man” (Sascha Bachman)
I guess that’s all I really needed to hear…

A few months ago I took upon myself to finally tackle this 10 min endurance challenge….

I was introduced to the “high numbers” through Andrey Moraru who reached an impressive 26min long hold back in this school days in Ukraine. I then met the legendary Denis Tolstov (through Andrey) who held a hand stand for 1 hour long!!! back in the “Good old” Kiev circus school days. The up and coming circus artist Sacha Bachman recently completed 45 min on his hands before graduating from the Montreal national circus school. There are of course countless and nameless Chinese kids who do this stuff before breakfast but lets not go there…

OK back to my personal challenge.
As you recall, my approach was to break those 10 minutes into 3-4 segments and slowly decrease the resting time in between. For the last couple of months I have been doing these sessions 2-3 times per week in the end of practice and have been slowly been increasing the length of my holds and also decreasing the resting periods in between. My Endurance sessions looked and progressed as follows:

The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing

4 x 2:30 (60 sec rest in between sets)
4 x 2:30 (30 sec rest)
3 x 3:20 (60 sec rest)
3 x 3:30 (40 sec rest)
5:00 (1 min rest) + 2 x 2:30 (30 sec rest)
6:00 (1 min rest) + 2 x 2:00 (30 sec rest)

*I also added long holds against the wall inspired by John Sapinosso and the Ido portal team, and reached a 20 min wall assisted hold which was a great addition to my preparation.

So this is where I was last week before a random chat with Sascha Bachman, who basically told me to forget a little about the progressions…, “Just go for it” and approach it more as a psychological /mental challenge rather than a physical one.

Today happened to be a nice day so I went outside to practice. I was a little short on time, so I decided to go for some technique work and then an endurance session… Although I had the 10 min on the back of my mind, I still didn’t really decide to go for it… 6 minutes into it I started to think, why not…, one minute at a time, one arm handstand at a time… And there I was, at the 10 minutes mark with some fatigue but not something to write home about…

So what’s next? Time will tell…

You can find Yuval Ayalon on Facebook and Youtube.

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Advanced Frogstand for Planche Progression

By admin on September 2, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, Planche

Learning how to do a frogstand is a must for anyone who wants to master the handstand. If you can’t hold a basic frogstand for at least a minute or so, you have no business trying to perform a free standing handstand.

Mike Fitch from Global Bodyweight Training shows a couple of great frogstand variations for building your way up to the planche.

In advanced frogstand, you’re putting the knees on the inside of your fully extended elbows, whereas in the regular frogstand the knees are resting on the outside of bent elbows – making the exercise much easier. This frogstand variation will help you strengthen the entire body, but it’s particularly good for improving wrist flexibility and balance.

After you get in a starting advanced frogstand position, flex your elbows slowly and lean forward to lock yourself in a more stable position. From there you’ll begin with alternating hip extensions while shifting the weight from one leg to another to stay in balance. Keep your abs tight at all times. Make sure to watch the entire video for detailed explanation of this advanced frogstand variation.

If you want more detailed instructions from Mike Fitch, check out his Hand Balancing for the Bodyweight Athlete DVD here.

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Elbow Extension in Relation to Handstands

By admin on August 28, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands

Here is a great video on elbow extension in relation to hand balancing by Yuri Marmerstein. If you can’t lock out your elbow while in a handstand, this video will give you everything you need to fix this somewhat rare issue. This may not be a big problem in the beginning of your hand balancing training, but once you progress and try to achieve something like the one hand handstand, it might prove to be a bigger issue than you thought initially.

Some people simply have a psychological barrier which prevents them from fully extending their elbows in a handstand. On the other hand, some literally cannot straighten their arms fully, whether due to tension in biceps or some other physical factor. Yuri Marmerstein shows two different workouts you can do at your home to work on this issue gradually in order to fix it permanently.

Also make sure to check out The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing by Professor Paulinetti and Robert Jones, which is a great resource for anyone who’s into hand balancing.

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Impressive Hand Walking

By admin on August 26, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, Walking & Jumping

Walking on hands is a fairly tough exercises which requires tons of balance and core strength to perform as shown in the video below.

Before you try to walk on your hands I highly recommend you to learn how to do a handstand first. Once you are able to stand on your hands for at least ten seconds, you can safely proceed to learning how to walk on your hands. Prof. Orlick’s Walking and Jumping on the Hands is one of the best resources available on that subject, so make sure to check it out.

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Unbelievable Strength Workout by Simon Ata

By admin on August 19, 2014 in Bboy, Gymnastics, Handstands, One Hand, Planche, Presses & Pushup, Walking & Jumping

Simon “Simonster” Ata is a professional break-dancer from Melbourne, Australia. In this video he performs an insane bodyweight workout which he uses to stay incredibly strong and maintain ripped physique. Here are just some of the moves performed by Simonster in a single workout:

Various presses
One leg backflips
Clapping Planche pushups
Handstand to planche pushup
Kip ups
Jumping on one hand
One hand press
Windmills

In addition to Simon’s extraordinary skills, this video shot at the Hanger 4 Mixed Martial Arts Studio in Melbourne was professionally edited, so it’s not surprising it went viral so quickly. Definitely a must watch!

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Hand Balancing Training Variations

By admin on August 5, 2014 in Hand Balancing, Handstands, Head Balancing, One Hand, Presses & Pushup, Walking & Jumping

When it comes to handstands and hand balancing in general, there are many ways to train and progress. In this video we have a chance to see quite difficult hand balancing moves by Pablo Molina.

Starting with a straight handstand, Pablo goes on to walk on hands and perform various hand balancing moves, including press handstand and even unsupported headstand; but he also shows some amazing one arm handstand variations and handstand pushups on hand balancing stands, which make balancing easier and increase the number of stunts you can perform. Check them out here.

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Johnny Sapinoso Got Some Moves

By admin on July 28, 2014 in Bars, Flexibility & Contortion, Gymnastics, Hand Balancing, Handstands, One Hand, Planche, Presses & Pushup, Rings

In this video from Johnny Sapinoso we can see a number of very demanding workouts and feats, like:

Front and back flips
Cool moves on a bent bar
One arm pullups on gymnastic rings
Planche on rings and bars
Planche pushups
Amazing partner acrobatics (including a handstand)
One arm handstand at the end of the video

Johnny Sapinoso has been training since the age of 5. But you certainly can achieve some of the feats listed above much quicker. If you are interested in learning how to do a one hand handstand, a back flip or just want to get started with lever training, then make sure to check out this page.

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