Tag Archives | one arm lever

Is a One Arm Handstand Pushup Possible?

I got this message from Mark in response to the recent post on the one arm handstand pushup.

He makes a really good point, that if people were doing the move, it would be somewhere on video, and everyone in the hand balancing world would achieve it.

Sorry to be a cynic Logan,

But I have this sort of thing happen before, where someone who’s not familiar with hand-balancing tell me they have seen something like the one-handed handstand pushup you mentioned your friend telling you about. You might find they are doing something which is still hard, but which you have seen many times before but which could be mistaken by an amateur. I think you really need to see this sort of thing for yourself either through video footage or with your own eyes.

Either that it’s something that only light bodied 5-7 year olds can do and who lose the skill as their strength to weight ratio (invariably drops) as they get older.

As far as I know there is no footage of the move you are talking about yet on youtube. Every handbalancer would know it was something major if they saw it and it would fly round to the rest of us (I imagine) before too long. The person would gain extreme recognition and respect from the community (I imagine) instantaneously.

I am not saying it’s not out there or not possible, but not yet at any rate….

There was a moment in the following video @2.24 where Caiyong did something which I thought was impossible.

That transition has to be one of the most difficult strength moves in the world. I’ve seen that move before, a one arm pressup from the one arm lever, but never with as little explosiveness and in that strict of style.

Cai Yong is an amazing hand balancer. So perhaps the true one arm handstand pushup isn’t possible (yet) but this that doesn’t mean you can’t build unbelievable strength through hand balancing and do other equally jaw-dropping moves.

Tumbling Illustrated
Tumbling Illustrated on Amazon
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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.

Trampoline Handbook
Trampoline Handbook on Amazon

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.

one arm lever

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

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