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One Arm Handstand Twisting

By admin on September 14, 2012 in One Hand

This great question came in from Dan regarding twisting out of position in the one arm handstand. As this is something I myself have experienced I figured its a common problem among one hand handstand training.

Thank you for the handstand program that you sent to me recently. I was hoping you might be able to give me a little more information about the one handed handstand. I am able to hold myself up using one hand and one finger but once a take the hand away my body begins to twists. Do you have any suggestions on how to stop this twisting? I have been working on it for a while now and the twisting does not seem to dissipate. I know that all of the instructions provided say to turn the hand you are standing on to a 45 degree angle but the twisting seems to get worse when I do this. Any info you can pass along would be appreciated.

Jim Bathurst of Beast Skills has been training the one hand handstand a lot lately, and going through much the same things. I’ve taken some small snippets from recent articles that focus specifically on the turning out of position in the one hand handstand.

I was told that the balance should still be more focused on front and back. Do not twist or move sideways too much, as that’s for the more advanced handbalancers. I have always twisted slightly as I shifted over to my supporting hand. I also twist out of my one arm handstand often, so perhaps this is to blame?

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While some can hold this arched one arm handstand…many more people will have problems and twist out of the one arm handstand (myself included). Not to mention that aesthetically speaking, it’s not as pleasant as a straighter body position.

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This deficiency in shoulder mobility was a main cause of why I twisted out of my one arm handstands all the time. Getting yourself into a straight line is much more efficient in the one armer, and you don’t have to fight yourself.

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When shifting onto the supporting arm, notice that I focus on dropping the outside leg. There is no counter-shift back to the left (which twists the body).

Read more here.

It seems to be believed that attaining a perfectly straight handstand goes a long way towards preventing this twisting. Of course, you must be able to maintain the optimal shoulder position. But back in the day many hand balancers did achieve the one arm handstand with a curved handstand too, so it is possible.

I highly suggest you read Jim’s articles for more details. Most people rush to attain a one arm handstand, and even more than balance, this skill will build your patience.

To stop twisting you must not do anything that makes your body need to twist out of the position. This is more easily said then done, but with training taking it real slow you can feel the difference.

Need more on this amazing move? Then check out How to do the One Hand Handstand.

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How to Do a Handstand Pushup

By Sharon on September 13, 2012 in Presses & Pushup

We’ve all seen them. They looked real cool and impressive. Here are some ideas on how to do a handstand pushup.

The first thing to do is to warm up your shoulder muscles. You can do this by simply shrugging your shoulders several times. Continue by making your arms into wings and flapping them up and down. A final exercise is to swing your arms in a circular motion around the shoulder socket. These will get your shoulders in the correct condition. Once you are warmed up, you are ready to begin the handstand pushups.

Beginners who want to know how to do a handstand pushup should use a wall or spotter for support. Start by placing your hands about a foot from the wall. While locking your arms, kick your feet up and over until you are touching the wall. Once you are in the vertical position, slowly lower your body down to the floor. It is a good idea to put a towel or pillow under your head to avoid injury or banging your head on the floor. Lower your body to the floor as far as you can go. Make sure you do this slowly. A fast movement will not train your muscles properly. Do as many reps as you can. If you kick out of a handstand after each repetition, you will help train your muscles to prepare for the weight load when you do your handstand pushups.

If you have done a handstand pushup before, you can try a more challenging approach by getting into a headstand position and raising your legs up to your elbows. From here, you can lift your legs vertically to form the handstand shape. Another good strategy is to simply walk over onto your hands while your arms are fully extended above your shoulders. You just lean forward and walk your legs up to the upright position. From there, you can press down and up. If you’re looking for a real challenge, try doing a handstand pushup with your legs at a 90 degree angle. Be careful not to put too much stress on the shoulders. They are easily torn.

Once you know how to do a handstand pushup, you will be hooked.

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Handstand Workout

By admin on September 10, 2012 in Handstands, Presses & Pushup

The handstand workout that you do will completely depend on your skill level and what you’re looking to accomplish.

One that I did in the past was a circuit with seven exercises.

1 – Wall handstand
2 – Hamstring flexibility
3 – Frogstand to Headstand
4 – Straddle Lift
5 – Shoulder Flexibility
6 – Abdominal Compression
7 – Elbow Flexibility

Each exercise was done for about 30 seconds then you move onto the next one. This is a great beginner workout for handstands and also include flexibility work that is so important for all hand balancing.

Here is another example from a woman who does handstand professionally.

This handstand workout includes:

1 – Straddle Presses
2 – Pike Presses
3 – Shoulder Weave towards Planche
4 – Handstand Shoulder Taps
5 – Straddle Presses with less range of motion
6 – Aerial

It was just one set of each exercise until fatigued here.

As mentioned what you’re working on and do in your workout will completely depend on your skill level and what you’re training for. Be sure to look around the website for more information that will give you plenty of handstand workout ideas.

For many more ideas on handstand workouts and exercises I recommend you pick up Handbalancing Made Easy.

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Handstand Balance Training

By admin on September 7, 2012 in Handstands

If you’re looking to improve you balance in the handstand this will be a great article for you.

I’m going to split it up into two subjects. One, is if you’re training to gain the balance just for the handstand itself, that is to be able to hold it stable for a length of time.

The second area is improving your balance by working on more difficult positions and moving between them.

Training Your Balance for the Handstand

In the first case I highly recommend you work on lead up stunts first. My Secrets of the Handstand Quick Start System shows you step by step what you need to do to achieve a 30 second handstand.

By working on moves like the frogstand, headstand, and forearm stand you’ll build up the ability you need. Then you transfer that to balancing right off the wall and finally out in the open.

Training your balance in these easier skills will get you to the handstand faster then just going straight for the handstand. This idea also carries over into the next place to go.

Intermediate and Advanced Handstand Balance Training

Once you have that stable handstand you can begin to move forward. Unfortunately when people learn the handstand (and even before it) they often look at the more difficult moves to go for next. Things like walking up and down stairs, doing presses or the one armer.

Instead the best place to really improve your balance is by sticking with the handstand and changing your position slightly. This video will give you a few ideas to try.

Work on changing your back bend. Work on changing your leg position. Change your arm position or your head. All these are more difficult than the normal handstand position and thus are the best place to go for balance training.

How to do the One Hand Handstand by Professor Orlick

If you’re looking for a whole lot more information I highly suggest picking up Hand Balancing Made Easy which has about 80 different handstand variations.

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How To Do a Handstand and Stay Up

By Sharon on September 6, 2012 in Handstands, Yoga

Most of us dreaded gym class in school. One of the hardest tasks was learning how to do a handstand and stay up. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be on the US Olympic Gymnastics team to perform a steady handstand. It takes patience, practice and good technique.

This video shows getting up into a handstand from a yoga perspective. I’d approach it differently but there are some good tips here.

If you have never attempted a handstand before, have a friend hold your legs as you kick up into a handstand. You can also practice against a wall. Whichever route you choose, make sure to follow the same guidelines below on how to do a handstand and stay up:

Place your hands on the floor in front of you. Make sure they are about shoulder width apart. If you get too wide, you will fall and not have a good balance.
Another tip is to spread your fingers out to make a wider base. It is essential that you lock your elbows once you begin the handstand. This is crucial for a good platform.
Begin by placing your hands on the floor in front of you with your elbows locked.
Place your dominant leg forward and kick up into a handstand with your weaker leg.

You may need to practice doing a few kicks to get the right balance. If you are worried about falling over, try to use a softer surface to practice your handstand on. Grass is good to start. Once you are able to get yourself up into a vertical position, look at your hands to keep yourself balanced. Avoid moving your head around and keep your legs locked together. It is a good practice to point your toes to the sky. This helps your balance and presents a nicer image. Allowing your legs to dangle over your head is not a good technique because it could throw you off balance and it doesn’t look good. Use your palms for balance. If you start to fall forward, push with your fingers. If you find yourself falling backwards, push on your palm heels for balance. Staying up in the correct shape requires a lot of strength, which can be achieved through practice.

Finally, watch the video and take notes on things that you should not do if you want to stay up when doing a handstand. Like most things, it will take time and practice to know how to do a handstand and stay up.

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How to do a Headstand Yoga

By Sharon on September 4, 2012 in Head Balancing, Yoga

Sirsasana is another name for the Yoga Headstand, which is a challenging posture within the inversion category. Other inversions include postures such as the handstand, the forearm balance and the shoulder stand. There’s a wide array of benefits to be had from learning how to do a headstand in yoga, but one should never attempt a headstand without taking the time to properly learn the correct alignment and setup for this particular yoga pose.

Preparation and Alignment

To get prepped and aligned for the headstand, get into your hands and knees.

Lower onto your elbows, making sure your elbows are under your shoulders and your knees are under your hips. Bring your hands together, and interlace your fingers, making sure to tuck under your outer most pinky.
Lower the crown of your head down and place it on the floor, cup your head with your interlaced fingers.
As if you were coming into the downward facing dog position, bring your hips up over your shoulders by walking up towards your head.

The Full Headstand

Now that you’re prepped and aligned, you are most on your way to learning how to do a headstand yoga. All that is left is to go into the full headstand.

Bring your knees and bring them in towards your chest while lifting both of your feet into the air.
Allow yourself to stabilize, and then straighten your legs. Do your best to bring both of your legs up at the same time.
Push up into the balls of your feet and turn your thighs inwards just slightly.
Push down deep into your forearms.

You should try to hold the pose for at least 10 breaths count. Congratulations, you just learned how to do a headstand yoga! To get yourself out of this pose safely, just slowly lower each leg one at a time on to the floor.

The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing

Benefits and Risks

There are both physical and mental rewards to the yoga headstand. You’ll find that this pose will increase strength in your arms and legs, as well as positive effects on your pituitary glands and lungs. Some claims state that the headstand pose can alleviate stress and depression, by changing your outward perspective of things. It is a fact that the act of acting against the gravity helps with the cleansing of our intestines. However, if you should suffer from high or low blood pressure, a heart condition, or back/neck injuries, you should not attempt this pose. People without sufficient upper body strength can also compress their spine and damage their body in doing this pose. Make sure that you are totally prepared and capable before attempting the yoga headstand.

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Straight Arm Strength

By admin on August 30, 2012 in Presses & Pushup

If you’re into hand balancing you MUST build strength in a way that is not done with weight lifting, or almost any other form of exercise.

That is Straight Arm Strength.

I’ve been working a lot on this exact thing lately.

My friends at Gold Medal Bodies just put up a great video I think you should see.

Go here to watch it.

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Handstand Drills

By admin on August 22, 2012 in Handstands

There are a whole lot of different handstand drills you’ll need to do depending on what you’re working on. In this article we’ll focus on specific drills that will help you to hold a better and more stable handstand position.

If you’re looking for different handstand drills just look around on the site. Check out the articles section or look at the specific categories you’re interested in in the sidebar.

Wall Handstand

Kick-up or pressup against a wall and hold the position. Keep on working to increase your time

Reverse Wall Handstand

In the reverse handstand your chest will be facing the wall, instead of your back. Most people will find this position works the straight body handstand much better.

Headstand

The headstand can be used to train the body position and balancing, while giving the hands, arms and shoulders a rest.

Handstand Position Lying on the Floor

Simply lying on the floor and getting into a hollow position like you would for the handstand will get you use to getting into this position. Try it both on the stomach and on your back.

Kickup

This is not commonly practiced yet is a crucial part of the handstand. How you get into the handstand is almost as important as being able to hold it. This is because if you can’t kick up with the same amount of force each time, you won’t get into that sweet spot where you can even begin to balance with the hands.

Walking Across the Wall

Get into a handstand against the wall. This can be in the normal or reverse handstand position. Then walk from left to right and right to left while maintaining a strong handstand position.

Handstand Pushups

If you want to build strength, handstand pushups will do it. In the handstand bend your arms to lower down, then press back up. This can be made progressive for any strength level.

Handstand Shrugs

Once you’re in a handstand position you’ll want to shrug your shoulders up towards the ears. This is the normal position but in this exercise you unshrug and shrug again for reps. this helps to develop and build shoulder and scapula strength and control.

Flexibility Drills

The handstand takes a good amount of flexibility. Some particular areas you’ll want to focus on are the shoulders and elbows. In addition for other skills you’ll need hamstring and hip flexibility too.

If you’re looking to improve you handstand then doing a circuit of these, and other drills, will get you better.

For more ideas this video shows a number of gymnastic handstand drills done with small kids.

As you can see some, of these drills require another person, but many can be done yourself. The key point, when working on this straight body position is to make sure you’re there. This is done with a coach, or else at least setup a camera so you can check your position. Often times you’ll find you think you’re in the right position, but find that you’re not.

Too many people move onto more advanced skills without spending enough time on these basic handstand drills that form the foundation you must have if you want to go onto harder skills. (And yes I’ve made this mistake in the past as well.)

If you’re looking for a specific step-by-step system to achieve a freestanding handstand (and not necessarily in gymnastic style) check out the Secrets of the Handstand System.

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Handstand Benefits

By admin on August 21, 2012 in Handstands

There are many handstand benefits. For this article we’ll be splitting it up into doing the handstand against the wall and doing the handstand freestanding. I make no claims that this is an exhaustive list.

The reverse handstand, one version of the wall handstand.

Wall Handstand Benefits

Builds a beginner level coordination and balance – When you’re starting out a handstand can be tricky even though the wall is supporting you. When you get use to the position it will be easy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t give you coordination and balance that other people don’t have.
Great as a lead-up stunt to handstand pushups or freestanding handstands – Want to work up to harder stunts? You have to start here, and if you move past it too fast you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Teaches you proper body positioning for the handstand – No better way to work on that position you need then against the wall.
Shows you how to support your bodyweight on your hands – The handstand itself doesn’t take a whole lot of muscular strength. That’s because you rely more on your bone structure, but you have to learn how to use it properly.
Can be used to build shoulder flexibility – Especially if you’re going after a straight handstand you’re going to have to open up those shoulders. That can be done in the handstand itself.
Get the benefits of inversion – Inversion comes with a number of benefits according to the yogic tradition. Not only is it fun to spend time on your hands but its good for your health too.

Sig Klein doing a Freestand Handstand

Benefits of Freestanding Handstands

All of the above plus…
Builds a more advanced level coordination and balance – Unless you start as a child you’ll find that learning to stand on your hands is quite difficult. The balance required is big, compared to against a wall, not compared to a one hand handstand. For a lot more details on how to make it progressive check out my Secrets of the Handstand System.
The foundation needed for all other hand balancing movements – Don’t try to move onto handstand presses or walking on your hands without first building a good base. I recommend at least a 30 second hold in one stationary spot.
An impressive skill few people can do – To me the handstand is nothing, but when I’m out practicing people are always wowed by it. It’s served as a great conversation started in many cases, and you’re sure to get lots of friendly comments like “That’s awesome!” from being capable of doing this skill.
Strengthens the wrists and fingers – You need to learn how to balance with your hands and fingers. Those are the prime movers in keeping you in balance and they’ll become stronger (and more flexible) because of it.

So there we have it. At least ten different handstand benefits you can easily gain from practicing these skills. Want even more? Here are more benefits from hand balancing in general.

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Handstand Pushup Benefits

By admin on August 20, 2012 in Presses & Pushup

Handstand pushup benefits are many. Some might even call it one of the greatest exercises ever invented.

Strengthens the triceps, shoulders and chest
Strengthens many stabilizer muscles
Requires coordination and balance
Can be an effective muscle builder
Provides the benefits of inversion
Its an impressive skill few people can do
Can be handled very progressively

HSPU Benefits

Handstand pushups strengthens the triceps, shoulders and chest

The triceps are the muscles on the backs of the upper arms. They are used in extending the arm at the elbow. The shoulders or deltoid muscles are used in raising the arm overhead. The chest or pectoral muscles primarily bring the arms forward. Depending on how much arch is used in your handstand pushups, you can use these muscles more or less.

With different variations of these exercises you’ll emphasize or downplay these muscles to different degrees. But these aren’t the only muscles in use…

Strengthens many stabilizer muscles

In order to keep your body overhead you need more then just the prime movers to be firing. For example, the lats, the big muscles on the back, will be used to stabilize your body in air. In fact, a number of people have reported their pullup numbers going up just from doing handstand pushups.

Part of the reason for this is covered in the next point…

Requires coordination and balance

The handstand pushup requires more coordination and balance then handling a similar weight in the military press for instance. While this isn’t to say that a barbell doesn’t take any coordination or balance, any handstand position simply takes more. Just remember the first time you kicked up into a handstand against a wall. Chances are you weren’t quite sure where your body was in space. And this is doing a handstand against the wall, not even in the open.

So while the balance isn’t a huge part of this move, it is in there. There are many people that can push a barbell equal to their weight overhead but don’t have the coordination necessary to do handstand pushups.

Can be an effective muscle builder

Handstand pushups are a good exercise to build muscle. When done for higher reps, you can certainly add size to your shoulders and arms especially. They may not equal a barbell in gaining mass for one simple reason. As you’re adding muscle you’re gaining weight, and that is going to make this exercise harder, as opposed to any weight lifting exercise.

Full Range Handstand Pushup

Handstands provides the benefits of inversion

Inversions are known to provide a number of benefits by themselves. This can be something simple like a headstand but handstand pushups certainly count. These benefits include reversing the flow of gravity, which can relax the muscles (not likely in this exercise) but also to add in circulation.

Its an impressive skill few people can do

This may be the most important benefit of handstand pushups. When you can do these effortlessly you are in a class above most people. This skill can be made much harder in a number of ways too, which will make it even more impressive, like doing full range handstand pushups, one arm handstand pushups, or doing them freestanding.

If you’re looking to impress your friends, family or a member of the opposite sex 🙂 it’s worth a shot to improve your handstand pushups.

Can be handled very progressively

Unfortunately many people believe that the handstand pushup is just one exercise with not much variation in it. This is far from the truth. Did you know that just changing the position of your arms can dramatically change the difficulty of this exercise? The same is true with your head position too.

There are also other methods like doing partials that can make this exercise suitable for just about every level. For a whole lot more on progressing with handstand pushups click here.

We’ve covered seven different handstand pushup benefits here and there are even more. But you won’t get any of them if you don’t DO the exercise. If you’re not doing handstand pushups already start adding them to your routine. If you are, I’d love to get your comments about them below.

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