Friday 3 June 2016

Handstands Week 3 - Getting It Up

I've come to remind you that this challenge is, in fact, still about handstands. So here's what you need to know:

Handstands have a lot of benefits, and there are a tonne of reasons to practice them:
  • Highly scale-able - No matter your athletic ability, there's almost always going to be something to work up to; whether you're trying a plank position with your feet up on a stool, or one-armed handstand push-ups. This also means that as long as you're not going beyond your ability and taking proper precautions, it's a great deal safer than it might seem at first.
  • No equipment required - You can always supplement your workout with some, but this is primarily body-weight based. You can practice anywhere with empty walls or open space, and you don't have to spend a dagblasted dime.
  • Balanced development - While the legs specifically aren't getting a lot of love from handstands, developing the skills necessary to perform them are gonna amp up your overall strength, mobility, and balance in a really harmonious, practical, and healthy way.
  • Being upside down is awesome - The (initially uncomfortable) blood rushing to your head, and stacking of bones / joints opposite from their standard position allows the body to go through beneficial processes that don't normally occur in day to day life. Plus, have you ever met anybody that doesn't think handstands are fucking impressive? If so, send them my way so that I might learn their secrets (or punch them in their stupid butts if they can't actually do a handstand).

Thursday 26 May 2016

Handstands Week 2 - Shoulder: The Burden

Last post I promised to talk about mobility, so here it is! If downward dogs don't get you down, and you feel confident in your mobility, this probably isn't necessary for you. If you're like me, this is going to be your starting point, whether you want to do a handstand, or just about any other physical endeavor. Primarily: mobility takes time. It takes approximately 3 times longer for connective tissue in joints to recover than your actual muscles. This slow recovery means a lot of things for your training. Firstly, you're gonna wanna get as much of a head start on mobility as possible, because you really can't rush it. The joints need time to recover, and pushing your body more than it's capable of fixing is only going to hurt your gains and put you at risk of injury in the long run. It's a counter-intuitive approach that's eluded me for years. This is going to produce results that come about as fast as turtle shit, aaand if you're anything like myself, this is going to murder your march into mobile magnificence; which is a shame, because it does so many wonderful things for you. Wonderful things like reduced risk of injury, increased physical performance, more efficient training in other areas (maybe the reason you've hit a plateau), and most crucially: reaching the remote without getting off the couch.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

New Challenge - Handstands

I'm still alive! I think we can safely say that the last challenge was a failure. FAILURE! It's often an ugly word. Knowing that I started something and didn't finish it was painful, and certainly one of the factors contributing to another year-long absence. I want to get into my head- get into your head for a second! Failure is awesome! It means one of two things: you busted your ass and made progress, or you didn't and you need to shift your focus. For myself, the latter is twofold true. I started with the best intentions on my flair challenge, but things quickly fell apart because I had too much on my plate to meet the lofty goals I set. In retrospect, I also think my challenge was too closely tied to my actual job, and it became a redundancy issue. None of this changes the fact that I crashed and burned, but the only progressive option is to look at that failure objectively and tweak my goals, processes for meeting them, and general failure-based thinking. That reminds me. There's something over there, glistening on the horizon. What's that? It looks like... feet? Wait.. it's...

Handstand!!?!