There are two new articles on the site, complete with videos, on the subject of rolling. These are important skills everybody should have. Real basic, but amazingly few people can do all these.
Forwards and Backwards Rolling
Check them out.
Good Luck and Good Tumbling,
Logan Christopher
In my last post on juggling I talked about the differences between learning most skills and that of hand balancing. The biggest difference being that hand balancing takes a lot of strength and endurance.
People talk about having the proper position which places the stress along the structure of the body versus using your strength to hold yourself up. This is true.
Building endurance holding this position against the wall allows you to train more when trying to learn the balance.
While holding a handstand out in the open is largely a matter of balance, you know once you get past a certain point fatigue starts to set in.
By working to increase the time you can hold a handstand against the wall you can increase your endurance overall. You should be able to balance and hold a freestanding handstand longer with more endurance.
But the main benefit is you’ll also have the endurance to train longer with greater effectiveness.
So even if you are working on balancing, still spending some time against the wall to improve your endurance will benefit you.
This applies to more than just the basic handstand. Why not try the same thing with the one hand handstand?
Of course, as going for long timed holds against the wall is fatiguing you’ll want to do these at the end of your practice, not at the start.
The same can be said of handstand pushups. Are you working on presses and freestanding handstand pushups? Make sure you have adequate strength to work on the skills of the movements. And to do that increase your reps and follow the progressions laid out in The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups.
Work to increase your skills. Work to increase your endurance. Both lead towards the same goal.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Many people have problems with this issue. I’ve decided to take my special report found only in the Hand Balancing Mastery Course and post it up in the articles section.
This will help anyone who has troubles with their wrists when doing hand balancing.
Yesterday I was doing a garage sale. Always nice to clear out stuff you don’t need.
It was a fairly busy day but there were points in time when no customers were around. Instead of just fiddling around on my iphone (alright I did a bit of that too) I decided to practice a new skill.
Juggling vs. Hand Balancing (How these skills are different)
Juggling.
Not kettlebell juggling, something I’m already quite good at, but just tossing three small balls around. It was one of the items we were selling, and to pass the time I picked the balls up and got started.
It may surprise you but this is something I never had really done before.
Within a couple minutes I was able to get the three balls going at once. It wasn’t pretty but I was having some success. By the end of the sale I could easily keep them going and hit a streak of about 30 or 40 tosses.
I even decided to keep the juggling balls so that I could practice more in the future.
Now this isn’t something I plan on doing all the time. Nor do I want to go after it and become a great juggler. But it was fun to pick up a new skill from scratch.
I want to relate this to hand balancing. One of the reasons hand balancing is a harder skill to work on then most is because on top of the skill you need strength and endurance.
This means you can only practice so much or so long before you get to the point where your body can’t handle any more.
Overtime, you can increase this amount. And certain skills take a lot less that others (the regular handstand versus handstand pushups, for instance). But no matter how you cut it, it is a very physical skill.
While I could juggle for hours without spending too much energy, the same could not be said for hand balancing.
So when you do practice you have to do it smart. Being able to get results in a short amount of time is going to get you further along overtime than needed to practice for long stretches at a time. For this reason doing short practices throughout the day may be your best bet.
Of course, if you have built up to it, then spending an hour or two can get you real far.
Having the right roadmap and way to progress into these skills is also essential. For the best material on all hand balancing skills, check out the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.
They say practice makes perfect. I would add that smart practice makes perfect faster.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Here’s another picture of Rafael Guerrero doing a one arm half planche or lever at Club Aponte.
There’s a few things I’d like to point out about this picture.
First off, on the move itself. I’ll be having more on the one arm half planche soon, even a full article as its a move I’ve been working on recently. You’ll notice his arm is moving, most likely this was an action shot, as he moved his arm to the fully extended position.
As you can see from the crowd this was a performance. Something to take into consideration if you ever perform. You need to be in a position that everyone can see you. If you don’t have a stage with theater seating you can simply raise yourself up on a table.
You’ll also notice the hand balancing stands Rafael is using. I guess these were common among professionals as they look very similar to the hand balancing stands I first received and have now made available. I just received a new shipment in from my manufacturer so they’re ready to ship out immediately. The hand balancing stands add a new dimension to what’s possible.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
As if balancing on the head or hands isn’t hard enough. As if trapeze isn’t a difficult discipline in its own right. No, some feel the need to combine the two!
This is known as Washington trapeze, a circus discipline invented in the 1800s by Kaye Washington. In this complex aerial act, the artist must balance him or herself on the head on the trapeze bar, thanks to a small “headrest” screwed down to the bar, and then launch into a series of balancing acts on the hands or feet, according to Canadian artist Marie-Josée Lévesque whose video is below.
And this one is an award winning Washington trapeze act by Elizabeth Axt
I first heard about these acts over at Gymnastics Coaching. And on that note you can see a guest post on the history of hand balancing I wrote for them.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing (on or off a trapeze),
Logan Christopher
I’ve added a new article to the site: How to do Handstand Pushups
New Handstand Pushup Article
This just covers the basics of the movement against the wall for anyone looking to get started. More articles and advanced stuff coming later.
And would you believe I don’t have a video of myself cranking out the handstand pushup reps? I will soon and I’ll be adding that to the article later.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
P.S. Of course if you want everything I know and do with this exercise, check out The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups.
When talking to Jim Bathurst the other night we we’re discussing the one arm handstand. Several points came up but I want to focus on one of them right now. And this actually applies to any hand balancing you do.
That point is shrugging up your shoulders.
When you go into a handstand you want to reach your shoulders towards your ears. Do not let gravity depress your shoulders. Why? This makes it so that your body is fully locked out. This improves your position as well as your endurance.
Shrugged vs. Not Shrugged
This is even more essential in the one arm handstand. But here’s the thing. Some people may not even have the strength in the shoulder girdle and scapula to do it properly.
As is many times the case in hand balancing it’s a good idea to go back to the wall for this one. Doing the one arm handstand against the wall, where you don’t need to worry so much about balance, you can focus on getting the shoulder shrugged.
In The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups there’s an exercise called the Handstand Shrug. This is just to repeat this shrugging motion over an over for reps. While I didn’t think about it at the time, you could do this exact same exercise on just one arm. (I just tried it against and found it to be quite fun.)
This will strengthen the area, giving you the strength to really begin to progress toward the one arm handstand.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
Meet Jyoti Raju also known as the Monkey King. Watching this video you’ll see how he earned that name.
According to the videos he commonly entertains the visitors at the Chitradurga Fort in southern India.
As in all forms of rock climbing this takes lots of skill and full body strength, especially in the hands and fingers. My favorite move is when he flips upside down.
Thanks to Tony for first pointing me out to this video.
This past weekend at a longevity conference I learn one more benefit of inversions.
Did you know that every species on this earth suffers from osteoarthritis? That is except for two, bats and sloths. What makes these two immune to this disease? They spend so much time hanging upside down!
The simple headstand can give you the benefits of inversion
I’m not saying headstands or hand balancing will cure arthritis, but isn’t that interesting.
By reversing the flow of gravity you do your body many benefits.
It allows the body to clear the often stagnant blood from your legs and feet. You heart needs to work hard to pump blood back up the body. Getting upside down makes this easy.
Inversion helps with not only circulation, but to increase oxygen to the brain which has obvious benefits.
Inverting can help relax the muscles, re-align the body and train your balance. In fact, being completely upside down is the only time your spinal discs get a break from the normal pull of gravity.
For more details on the benefits of inversion check out this page.
Now you don’t have to be a yogi or professional equilibrist to reap these benefits.
Doing a headstand even against the wall will give you all these benefits. You can also try hanging upside down.
But you can imagine what doing 30 minutes a day of hand balancing can do for your health.
Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher
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