Exercises You’re Not Doing Correctly: Handstands

Handstand exercises were something of a work of art growing up. Prior to the internet, I can only recall watching old(er) kung fu and martial arts films, along with Only the Strong – capoeira’s entrance into the U.S. mainstream. For what it’s worth, it was amazing at the time.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-VHOp2myk]

Today, I’m not going to announce my entry into a cool martial arts movie – because that would be amazing and fulfill one of my lifelong goals – but rather talk about handstands.

Now, with the CrossFit games coming to an end, there has been much stipulation about handstands, kipping handstands, and the overhead athlete.

CrossFit Handstand
Rib flare, lack of true shoulder flexion, lack of tension via dorsiflexed ankles = bad handstand technique!

What isn’t talked about is what the proper form for a handstand, along with how to best train this exercise. Yes, you can train it, much like many other exercises.

Much like the push-up, you can do a handstand incorrectly.

With this in mind, I introduce to you the handstand hold with exhalation:

The handstand hold with exhalation goes to involve the relaxing of specific muscles, along with the proprioceptive feedback of other muscles working simultaneously.

Whether you’re a dancer, gymnast, budding parkour athlete, or just want to own a handstand for your own repertoire, this is a great exercise to add in for several reasons.

  1. It is a great upper body and shoulder exercise.
  2. By association is also a great abdominal exercise.
  3. It teaches total body tension when performed correctly.
  4. It teaches total body proprioception – because you’re upside down!
  5. You now have an awesome party trick to show everyone – when you master it that is …
Troubleshooting the Exercise

I believe it was Alwyn Cosgrove who taught the idea of utilizing self-limiting exercises to aid in progression for an individual. The handstand hold is a great example of this, as you’ll be able to tell right away if you are performing the exercise incorrectly from the get-go. Learning to brace your abdominals (via contracting your obliques, and posterior tilting) can go a long way to helping you learn how this exercise works.

By focusing on the breathing aspect of the exercise, you can begin to appreciate the smaller, yet important stabilizers found within the vertebra of the spine, along with the respiratory muscles of the abdominals (internal obliques, external obliques, and transverse abdomin-is), not to mention the diaphragm as well.

The reason I want to magnify the breathing aspect is to take tension away from other major movers that may be synergistically dominating, or working too much to override the exercise – the upper traps, erector spine of the lower back, among other muscles.

Further, if done correctly, you want to able to feel your shoulder blades moving as you perform this exercise. As a closed chain vertical pushing exercise, you want to be able to have a healthy, upward scapular rotation, as opposed to utilizing your upper traps and deltoids to the extent that they overrun the exercise itself.

So, instructions for this exercise include:

  1. Holding the “top” position of this exercise, relaxing your cervical neck so you look horizontally instead of vertically towards the ground underneath you. This will aim to not strictly use our upper traps during the handstand.
  2. Perform posterior tilt by “tucking” your pelvis in place – this is also referred to as a hollowing of the body, similar to what gymnasts use in their practice as well.
  3. Breathing in through your nose for a 5 second count.
  4. Exhaling through your diaphragm for a 5 second count, in which you should feel the “sides” of your stomach or abdominal wall contract – these are your obliques!
  5. Progressing through this exercise involves inhaling at the top of the exercise, and then lowering down, and then exhaling as you move upwards and away from the ground.

Give this a try before you start a session, or add it in if you are looking to increase your proprioceptive awareness for your handstands!

If you’re interested in more instruction and help with your bodyweight training, look no further – my Fitocracy coaching group has 5 spots left as of today, Tuesday July 29, 2014!

Sign up here before spots fill up fast!

Fitocracy - Online Coaching Program

As always,

Keep it funky.

MA 

How to Create An Exercise Routine with ONLY Bodyweight Exercises

Whether you’re unable to make it into the gym, traveling for work, or strapped for cash and don’t have access to equipment, understanding how to incorporate varying bodyweight exercises is a great “default” resource for those choosing an active and healthy lifestyle.

Laying the groundwork for a bodyweight oriented program essentially leaves me with these general thoughts whenever someone asks me, “What can I do if I don’t have access to a gym?” There are literally an endless amount of exercises and combinations of exercises that you can perform once you choose to start the habit of exercising regularly.

Before I incorporate these items, I will have to ask this person, “What is your goal?” Often they reply with one of the following:

  • Lose some pounds (Fat Loss)
  • Gain strength
  • Improve athletic performance

Since my mindset is centered around what is optimal, I will often default as well to the simplest and most direct route to that goal.

  • If your goal is fat loss, you need to focus on what is entering your mouth, or your daily nutrition, along with the psychological reasons why you eat the way you do.
  • If your goal is increased strength, utilizing an external load in various exercises may prove to be a faster and more optimal route.
  • If your goal is athletic performance, the process will focus on recovery and enhancing rate of force production.

None of these goals imply that bodyweight exercises are the LONE method that will allow you to reach your goal in as fast a way as possible. This method can help assist you on your goal, but as always a multi-faceted approach will accelerate you to your destination.

If we can accept that even if your individual logistics are not optimal, the next step must be “acceptable” – in this case if you still choose to use a bodyweight exercise program approach, these movements will need to be varied enough to prevent an overuse of a singular movement pattern, along with not deviating from the path towards your goal (fat loss, athletic performance, etc).

Since fat loss can and should be mediated with a nutritional focus, and athletic performance is specific to the many variables depending on the sport, I’ll continue forward with the goal of increasing strength and “obtaining” bodyweight feats of strength – ranging from your first push-up, to your first pistol squat, all the way to your first triple clap push-up.

A dynamic warm-up can and should be utilized prior to the bodyweight program for several reasons:

  • It increases proprioceptive awareness to the muscles surrounding subsequent joints that may be “underactive” and provide a mobilization or inhibitory effect for the “overactive” muscles surrounding a joint.
  • Improve neural drive to a movement pattern that can help increase performance during the actual exercise program.
  • Providing a wide variety of exercises can help “maintain” movement patterns during times when that movement may not be “loaded” or focused on.

After the dynamic warm-up, the exercise program begins with these variables in mind:

  1. Horizontal Pushing
  2. Horizontal Pulling
  3. Vertical Pulling
  4. Vertical Pushing
  5. Quad Dominant
  6. Hip Hinge
  7. Single Leg Quad
  8. Single Leg Hip Hinge
  9. Anti-Extension
  10. Anti-Rotation
  11. Anti-Flexion
  12. Lateral and Multi-Planar Movements (Combination Movements)

Among these variables, there are also opportunities for plyometric type exercises to enhance the stretch shortening cycle and improve neural drive for improvements in jumping or eccentric absorption types of exercises.

So with these cards laid out, we can begin to make a program!

Step 1: Dynamic Warm-Up (and Foam Rolling if accessible)

Step 2: Bodyweight Program

Step 3: Post-Workout Stretching

For the purposes of utilizing our bodyweight within the program, if you do not have a method of increasing work performed by utilizing an external load, another way to increase workload is to focus on capacity, or rather performing many exercises within a specific timeframe. Performing exercises in a density minded circuit, which can comprise up to 3, 4, or even 5 exercises is a useful approach when looking to enhance aerobic and even anaerobic capacity and output.

Keep in mind that this is one of many methods that can be used!

Step 2: Exercise Program

EDT Circuit A – Perform 3 times for designated time.

A1. Hip Hinge – Vertical Jump with Pause at Bottom

A2. Anti-Rotation – Side Plank

A3. Vertical Pushing – Yoga Push-Up (or Handstand Holds with Shrug)

A4. Single Leg Quad – Split Squat

A5. Vertical Pulling – Chin-Ups (if chin-up bar is available!)

EDT Circuit B – Perform 3 times for designated time.

B1. Quad Dominant – Bodyweight Squat to Bench or Chair with Pec Stretch (Hands Behind Head)

B2. Anti-Extension – Front Plank

B3. Horizontal Pulling – Prone Ts (or Suspended Rows if access to Suspension Straps)

B4. Single Leg Hip Hinge – Single Leg Deadlift with Inverted Reach

B5. Horizontal Pushing – Push-Up

Subscribe to my YouTube channel to stay up-to-date on my instructional exercise videos!

So with all of this in mind, hopefully you can begin to appreciate that if you apply the principles, you can still create an acceptable exercise program. This can give not only a training effect that will make you sweat and make your heart race, but also help improve specific physiological qualities as well.

With all of these variables laid out for you, two aspects that haven’t been mentioned include what the sets and reps will look like in the program, along with the manipulation of tempos, or how slow or fast these movements can and should be utilized in order to elicit proper technique along with a specific training effect if sought out.

If you’re interested in learning how to fully integrate these variables along with my thoughts on how I create bodyweight exercise programs for those without a gym, please check out my new online coaching group on Fitocracy, Bodyweight  Training: The Internal Strength.

Bodyweight Training - The Internal Strength

Not only will you get access to top of the line exercise programming, but direct access to me and my knowledge base, along with a support group who are all aiming to get back into the swing of things!

As always,

Keep it funky.

MA

Are You Really Warming Up?

Originally posted on GrassFedLifestyle.com

What You Need to Know

Performing eight to ten bodyweight exercises before your training session is more productive than warming up using a treadmill or elliptical before exercise.

From a movement and biomechanical point of view, a dynamic warm-up will aim to work in three dimensions, vs the singular plane of motion that walking on a treadmill encourages.

Take a Step Into Any Gym…

…any morning and the first thing you’ll notice is usually the slight humming of treadmill belts looping, and the *tap*tap*tap* of early morning runners getting after it. Talk to the front desk receptionist, and you find out that some of the gym members were there before 5am.

“Why such an early workout time?” you ask.

“Well, a lot of these members are the typified “Type-A” person, who goes to work right after their workouts.”

If you talk to a few of them, and ask them how they warmed up, they’ll usually respond with “Jogging,” “light stretching,” or there is no warm-up performed at all. Is this the usual, or is there a more efficient way to “warm-up”?

What Makes This Warm-Up “Dynamic”?

The fact of the matter is that simply running or walking to warm-up before any training session could be improved to including a bodyweight warm-up. To distinguish between a warm up on the treadmill, let’s call this a “dynamic warm-up”, which indicates that you’ll be moving through certain ranges of motion involving various mobility (think flexibility) and stability (think activating core muscles) exercises.

While walking and running on a treadmill or other typical cardio machine has its benefits, and its intentions are good natured, I value a dynamic warm-up for several other reasons:

PROS TO A DYNAMIC WARM-UP

  1. Increase in body temperature.
  2. Increases in power output [for performance purposes]. (1)
  3. Synovial fluid is heated up and flows better within the affected joints.
  4. Increases in stability by activating various muscles in multiple planes, as opposed to just the lower body during treadmill running/walking.
  5. Increase in sensitivity of the nerve receptors.

… Among many other benefits, such as acutely increasing range of motion when applied to “tight” muscular areas (2)

Warm-Ups for the Busy Professional

Before I go over what is involved with a dynamic warm-up, let me ask you these questions:

  • How long is your commute to work (and do you drive)?
  • When you go to work, do you sit down a lot?
  • When you get home, do you sit down to watch TV?
  • Do you drive to the gym?
  • When you go to the gym, do you do a lot of abdominal crunches?

The reason I ask these questions is due to the fact that over a period of time, our muscles become accustomed to certain lengths and postures. If you are constantly in a certain posture, such as sitting down, you may need more or less mobility and stability in certain joints before warming up, to “counter-act” the large amounts of time spent in this posture.

With that being said, try these exercises before you workout, take a look at the video below for detailed instruction.

Dynamic Warm-Up
  1. Dead Bug – 5/side
  2. Glute Bridge – 10 reps
  3. Quadruped Thoracic Rotation – 5/side
  4. Split Stance Adductor Mob – 5/side
  5. Hip Flexor Mob – 5/side
  6. Thoracic Extension on Box/Bench – 10 reps
  7. Spiderman Lunge + Rotation – 5/side

QUESTIONS?

If you’re not yet convinced, give this a quick routine a try as an “experiment” for at least 4 weeks… Note what you places feel tight, and what places are sore, and then see how you feel after those initial 4 weeks! Essentially, there should be a given amount of time before you see any adaptations – in this case it is only 4 weeks of your time (at around 5 minutes every day you exercise… So only 20 minutes if you exercise 4 times a week!).

If you’re interested in learning more of how you can incorporate more bodyweight exercises into your training program, check out my new Fitocracy Coaching group,

Bodyweight Training: The Internal Strength!

Fitocracy - Online Coaching Program

Only 8 spots remaining as of Sunday, July 27!


As always,

Keep it funky.

MA

REFERENCES

1 – Shellock, Frank G., and William E. Prentice. “Warming-up and stretching for improved physical performance and prevention of sports-related injuries.”Sports Medicine 2.4 (1985): 267-278.

2 – Bishop, David. “Warm up I.” Sports Medicine 33.6 (2003): 439-454.