Feb/090
Hand Placement in Handstands
Here’s an interesting question.
“I can only hold a handstand for about five seconds, with all fingers spread out, but when I bend in my right index finger I can hold for 15 seconds on up. What should I do?”
Matthew Romero
If you can hold it longer with your fingers bent then that’s probably what you should do. I’m not to sure why bending that single finger helps you so much but here’s a more general reason why you should bend the fingers.
Because balancing on the hands can be difficult to do you want to give yourself the widest base possible. This means you spread your fingers out. As in spacing your fingers and not keeping them together.
But you don’t want them fully extended. Keep your fingers slightly curled and this helps you to grip the ground harder. With more grip you can balance easier.
By using your hands in this way you’ll have more control and that means you stay up in a handstand longer.
On a different note, I’m going to be having a few important announcements in the next couple of weeks. Make sure you stay tuned.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If you need help getting started with your handstand check out my Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart guide.
Feb/090
Handstands When Your Wrists Hurt
A common problem many beginners have with handstands is that their wrists can’t take it.
I know the feeling. From a football injury back in high school my right wrist has never been the same. Its less flexible and even hurts when too much pressure is put on it in certain ways.
Actually working on handstands to regain that flexibility has helped a lot over the years. But recently, due to some other work its been flaring up again.
This means any handstands I do, I’m favoring and leaning to my left side which isn’t good. But there is a way to work around the problem.
And that is doing handstands on bars. Many objects will work; parallettes, pushup handles, kettlebells and more. As long as its stable you can do hand balancing on it.
At first you may have difficulty balancing since it changes the way your hands have to move, but with a little practice it’ll get easier, even more so than balancing on flat ground since you can grip it hard.
So if you have any wrist troubles hop on some bars to give your wrists much needed relief. Even if you don’t use these tools to change up the feel of your handstands.
And if you’re doing advanced moves where the wrist must bend even more, like in a planche or some presses, again the bars can be a big help.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. I write more about wrist issues in a special report you can find in the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.
Feb/090
More Handstand Q&A
Gonna dip into the mailbag today and answer a couple questions.
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I had a question that relate to both my bridging, and hand balancing. When I do either, the blood rushes to my head very soon, not letting me hold either very long. Is this normal? Will it go away after more time? Are there any special ways to get around this? I would like to be able to work on both more than I am able to now because of that. Thank you for you great websites and emails!
Thank you,
Justin
That’s just a sign of gravity doing its job. The human body is not normally use to being upside down so when you start out it can cause you to feel like your head is about to explode.
I would guess that this happens to most people in one degree or another. And it will get better with time just as you become accustom to the position.
In addition, here’s two things to try out. Holding your breath compounds this problem. Make sure you are breathing easily while you bridge or do handstands. It can be tough in the beginning but you need to breathe for best results.
Second you can do an exercise specifically to get yourself familiar with being upside down. Just go up into a headstand (against a wall or not) and hold for a long time. With practice you’ll be able to do this for minutes at a time. And then you’ll be able to deal with blood rushing to your head.
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Handstands are really frustrating to me. For a while now I’ve been having consistent 3 sec handstands and it hasn’t been improving. I’m also a bboy and my planches are better than my handstands, I can hold a planche-ish thing with my body horizontal and my back bent with my legs slightly at an angle. Kinda like this \_. Any tips?
Nate
I think the fact that you are strong from break dancing may actually be holding you back on the handstand. The handstand is really a balanced position. You don’t want to have to rely on your strength to hold you there, unlike the planche.
Professor Orlick use to say that it was easier to teach a little kid the handstand than a strong weightlifter because the kid would have to find the balance, while the weightlifter would try to use his strength. If you want to hear more from Prof. Orlick check out the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.
Its hard to say without some more details but give either of these techniques a try. If you are underbalancing, going toward that planche, push back upwards into the handstand. If you find yourself overbalancing correct yourself and get back to neutral.
But the main thing is to just keep working on it. Set a goal to hit 5 seconds and work on that. Really get a feel for the position. In time it will come.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Feb/090
Sig Klein Tribute
Sig Klein has to be one of my favorites of the old time strongman. He was just such a perfectly developed athlete. And he did it all from weightlifting, various feats of strength, to muscle control and more.
Not the least of which were his hand balancing abilities. In The True Art and Science of Hand Balancing Bob Jones compliments Sig on his planche, saying it’s the best he’s ever seen of a man of Klein’s size.
A few of Sigmund Klein’s favorite skills were the Tiger Bend and handstand press-ups, usually done between two chairs.
This video is a tribute to a few of the things he did.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Feb/090
Videotape Your Handstands and Acrobatics
“Whoa, that’s what I’m doing? No wonder I‘m not pulling it off”
It wasn’t the first time I said that phrase and it wouldn’t be the last.
Back in gymnastics I liked to bring in a digital camera to take video of myself performing moves. I’d leap upwards to do a back flip and land it real low.
After seeing the film I knew my takeoff was too far back and not straight up where it needed to be. Even though I THOUGHT I was jumping straight up.
Especially when you are starting out it can be difficult to tell what you are doing. You are concentrated on just completing a move without hurting yourself that you can’t tell exactly where you are in space.
But when you watch yourself from the outside you can see it with ease. You can see the little details of what you’re doing. And this makes it easy to correct most of the time.
I’ve used it a lot for acrobatic moves but it’s equally helpful for hand balancing.
Even just a picture can help. Because you can compare your position to a picture of someone who is much better and find out what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.
Most of the time what you think you’re doing is not what is actually happening. And that can be the difference between pulling off a move and failing miserably.
Even if you don’t personally own a camera, you probably know someone who does. If you want to get better and do it faster using a camera is a must-use tool.
The tip for today is to start recording yourself.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. If you need a video to compare your handstand to, not to mention a step-by-step plan to get there, check out the Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart Guide.
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