Day 8

Have you been spinning your wheels while running on fumes?

Rest days, how many days a person needs a week is variable. But there’s a cultural glorification of working too hard: “Train twice a day.” “You must be training 8 hours a day.” “Sleep is for the weak.” etc.

Yes, you could do those things, but a lot of the fatigue accumulated in skill-based training is not acute but chronic. It builds up slowly, often undetected, until eventually something goes. That’s when the bad things and actual long term injuries happen. You push your tendons too far to the limit for too long, masking natural inflammation with ibuprofen until *snap* and then you have to deal with it.

To avoid this, learn to back off, take the foot off the gas. Take an actual rest day, or two, or three. Everyone will have outside factors that influence their training schedule, start with that as your constraint. Are you a performer? Easy, just actually rest on your days off, or at least the day before or after a performance. Have a normal 9-5 workweek? Make getting over the midweek hump easier by taking Wednesdays off of training. You a weekend warrior? Smash it on Saturday and Sunday, then rest up at your desk on Monday and Tuesday. Ultimately you’ll need to gain an understanding of yourself and your outside influences to determine your optimal rest periods.

But even the seven day week gets unjustly glorified in some ways. Everything we talked about above has to happen on seven day schedules. But you could find out that, using strength training as an example, deadlifting heavy once every ten days is what works for you, anything more leads to performance compromising DOMS.

Same with handstands. If you train them too often, the training days become unproductive. So it’s better to space those days farther apart so you don’t plateau, or even worse degrade your other skills, by relentlessly spinning your wheels while running on fumes.

Basically, don’t prioritize quantity at the expense of quality. Just as you need to be fresh between sets to get quality reps, you need to be fresh between sessions to get quality sets.

Now I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself “But we’ve been training every day!” That’s why we’ve been selectively rotating in flexibility days to give your hands a break. Today we’re easing off the gas even more with a gentle wrist rehab routine taken from our free Grip forearm conditioning program.

Today’s session comes from our free wrist and forearm conditioning program Grip.  It is not only beneficial to cycle into their handstand routine a couple times a year for injury prevention reasons, but it has also gotten rid of chronic niggles for many people – even if handstands aren’t their training focus.

You can click here to build a free HSF Members Account to get access to the full program.

  • A1: Bent Arm Supination
    • 3 sets, alternating with A2
    • 12-15 reps at 2110 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
  • A2: Bent Arm Pronation
    • 3 sets, alternating with A1
    • 12-15 reps at 2110 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
  • B1:  Ulnar Flexion
    • 3 sets, alternating with B2
    • 12-15 reps at 2111 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
  • B2:  Radial Flexion
    • 3 sets, alternating with B1
    • 12-15 reps at 2111 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
  • C1:  Wrist Extension
    • 3 sets, alternating with C2
    • 12-15 reps at 1212 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
  • C2:  Wrist Flexion
    • 3 sets, alternating with C1
    • 12-15 reps at 1212 tempo
    • 60 second rest between sets
Bent Arm Pronation and Supination

Key Details:

  • Begin with a little bit of distance from the wall.
  • Look at the floor.
  • Push high through shoulders and try to stack shoulder over the middle of the hand to the degree you can. Do not push chest towards wall and open t-spine.
  • Keep toes pointed, legs locked and glutes tense to practice the pelvic tilt.

Description:
The chest-to-wall hold is the go-to exercise for developing capacity, form and a feeling for the handstand. This exercise does not teach you much about balance, but it is essential for developing correct body placement, building specific strength and acclimatising you further to the feeling of being upside down.

Make a checklist when you go up into the handstand, where you make sure your toes are pointed, legs and glutes are squeezed tight, shoulders pushed up and that you are looking at the floor. The toes should be the only thing touching the wall. You want to make sure your shoulders are placed over your hands so you are not opening them too much and pushing your chest out towards the wall.

Radial and Ulnar Flexions

Key Details:

  • Take your time to set up nicely here, elbows locked as best as you can.
  • Push shoulders high and inline with the torso as best you can.
  • Make sure to not sag in the mid section.

Description:
This drill is a great introduction for new handstand trainees.

Its main feature is that it gets you on your hands in a manner that most people can achieve. It is incredibly safe in that, if you need to exit quickly, you can just step off the wall. It also uses less wrist extension than holds that are closer to the wall. So if you need to work on your wrist flexibility, this will start getting you inverted while your wrist development catches up.

One of the main things to work on here is finding all the alignment cues from the straight body hold in this position. It is not a resting position where you are wedged into the wall but it is alive, meaning that the shoulders are working, and you are pushing through the arms. The body is, in other words, tight and not sagging.

Some things you can play with is deliberately sagging then finding the line again so you begin to build up a sensation library of what things might feel like when you lose the line and how you might be able to restack your position while inverted.

Wrist Flexion and Extension

Key Details:

  • Take your time to set up nicely here, elbows locked as best as you can.
  • Push shoulders high and inline with the torso as best you can.
  • Make sure to not sag in the mid section.

Description:
This drill is a great introduction for new handstand trainees.

Its main feature is that it gets you on your hands in a manner that most people can achieve. It is incredibly safe in that, if you need to exit quickly, you can just step off the wall. It also uses less wrist extension than holds that are closer to the wall. So if you need to work on your wrist flexibility, this will start getting you inverted while your wrist development catches up.

One of the main things to work on here is finding all the alignment cues from the straight body hold in this position. It is not a resting position where you are wedged into the wall but it is alive, meaning that the shoulders are working, and you are pushing through the arms. The body is, in other words, tight and not sagging.

Some things you can play with is deliberately sagging then finding the line again so you begin to build up a sensation library of what things might feel like when you lose the line and how you might be able to restack your position while inverted.