Day 6

How does flexibility *actually* help handstands?

Flexibility is always a consideration when learning a physical skill, not just handstands. Every kind of skill has a flexibility demand to it, both passive and active – as your flexibility defines where it’s possible for your body to move. The skill also requires you to control your range of motion, and have some variability within that range of motion too. This is a universal truth to most of the physical activities we do – I can’t even think of one that doesn’t.

Let’s say your goal is the classic, straight handstand, there’s a certain amount of overhead shoulder flexion required, and that can be limited by how flexible your pecs, lats, and other shoulder muscles are. But how do you know which of these is limiting your handstand line while you’re upside down?

Well, most of these flexibility shortcomings show up as problems upstream in the handstand. Very simple. If your chest isn’t open or closed enough, something else goes out. This is why you’ll see the “banana back” when shoulders are closed. It’s like stacking bricks on top of each other: they either are all evenly aligned on top of one another, or they have to alternate which side they stick out to counterbalance one another.

This analogy holds true with other handstand skills as well. Say you want to press to handstand. If your hamstrings and adductors are tight, you will not be able to compress your hips into a nice stack at the beginning of your press; so your hips start further back which then results in your shoulders jutting forward over your hands to compensate.

As you align your hands, shoulders, hips, and heels through better range of motion in these joints, the amount of strength and coordination to maintain your balanced stack decreases, making the skills easier and opening up the doorway to higher level skills too! This is why flexibility should be consciously and intentionally trained as part of, and informed by, your handbalancing practice.

We realize that flexibility is often the limiting factor in achieving the straight, freestanding handstand. That’s why for today we’ll be following one of the pike flexibility templates straight from our Push online handstand program. We even built an entire training template in there for those who are “strong, but not yet flexible” to improve the relevant ranges of motion to get that nice, effortless stack.

Training Routine

Forward folding is useful for all handbalancing, whether its learning the first kick up or a pike press. The goal here is to begin developing the hamstring and midsection flexibility and control that will benefit your handstand training over time.

Calf Stretch

Key Details:

  • Squeeze the muscles on the front of the leg.
  • Pull up the knee.
  • Hinge as best you can at the hips.

Description:
For this stretch you’ll need to find something solid to put the foot on. Foot wear is optional, but if the object you are using has an edge, it might be best to have some shoes or some other kind of padding under foot.

One of the key things in this stretch is to use the muscles at the front of the leg. So think about pulling the toes up towards the shin and locking the knee; when you engage the hinge, do not just fold but try to pull yourself forwards into the hinge.

If you find pike stretching to be felt mostly around the back of your knees, then this is the go-to exercise as your first drill in your stretching session.

Play with the angles here and find your own tight line.

Bent Leg Pike

Key Details:

  • Lock the chest to the knees.
  • Do not allow the chest to separate from the thighs.
  • Use a leg curling action to restart the motion.

Description:
For this exercise you’ll need something that can slide on the floor. It’s a nice exercise if you struggle with getting the hips to roll over in the pike itself or if you want to experience what a deeper pike feels like, so you can replicate the sensation of the hip and femur position.

The key thing is this stretch is to make a task out of keeping the quad and stomach connected and pressed together. It is very tempting to let them come apart or just not to notice, so this must be worked on.

Pike Compressions

Key Details:

  • Push as hard as you can against the unmovable object.
  • Pay attention to the line of your legs.
  • If you round backwards, sit against a wall.

Description:
We have to be honest here: the cramping in this exercise sucks and is basically unavoidable. The good news, though, is if you use the isometrics layered with the compressions, as we suggest, the cramping goes away much quicker than if you were just using the lifts alone.

Once again, in the video a partner is applying the resistance but any kind of heavy object will do. If the cramping gets too intense here, just stand up and give the quads a bit of a thump with a relaxed fist. In the long run, though, you should strive to work through the cramps as much as possible.

If you find you are rocking back and forth on the sit bones, sit with your back to the wall to stop this.

Think of this motion in terms of short term suffering, long term glory.