Intro
Two areas i find the adult population deficient in (through my coaching experience) is mobility & core strength! These are both essential to moving, being more efficient with exercises, staying pain free and getting the most out of life!
What’s really alarming is that i find most people’s perception of core training consists of a few sets of sit ups & plank holds, and then if it burns a little, job done!! There’s so much more to core training then ‘sit-ups, plank holds & even hollow holds’ which will not only make your core significantly stronger (and transfer to other skills) but also help improve your body awareness and control.
Summary:
If there’s one cue that takes precedence over all the others (when it comes to being more efficient in your handstand) then it’s definitely having good shoulder elevation!
Why?
Without having your ears glued to your shoulders (good shoulder elevation), this will impede your ability to:
Hold a stacked and efficient handstand
Be consistent and efficient when kicking up to a handstand
Transition your body weight from side to side so you can ultimately lift your hands off the floor (eg. perform skills like shoulder taps & handstand walking) whilst trying not to compensate throughout your body in order to do so
How?
Sometimes it’s not just as simple as hearing the same words repeated all the time – PUSH TALL!!! You need to actually do something about it by adding more accessory exercises to your training to help aid your handstands!
Below are a couple of tips to help you train your shoulder elevation:
- Seated pike DB straight arm overhead DB raises (sit nice and stacked at a 90 degree angle, and shrug your ears whilst holding some light DBs)
- Handstand shrug variations (box pike/tuck handstand, full handstand etc)
- Single arm lean variations
Make sure your stacked when doing these positions so you make it all count!
Conclusion:
With many gyms around the world still closed, now is a great time to work on these progressions to help you get stacked as well as feel lighter and more confident for handstands!
It takes time to get good shoulder elevation and improve your stacked position, but you need to start somewhere. Just doing one session alone (in the hope it will get you instantly better) will not move the dial! You’re going to need to step it up with a program and some guidance to finally nail this very important cue so your handstand is awesome for life!!
6 Week Online Handstand Course – Launches this SUNDAY!!!!
The long wait for my much anticipated ‘6 Week Online Handstand Course’ finally comes to an end this Sunday (May 17th), with the inaugural launch of what will be an amazing Handstand course, that was well worth the time to get it right and provide everyone with an awesome experience!
Don’t forget to register your interest (see the link below) so you don’t miss out on the special 25% discount on launch (which will be available for only 72 hours).
