Open your shoulders! A ubiquitous cue in handstand work, but what should we really be doing? The goal is to get your arms and torso as close to 180 degrees as possible. How close you actually get there depends on your passive and active mobility, but you should open as much as possible. But what should we be feeling? If you feel a handstand primarily in the front of the shoulders, you may be closed off. Film from the side and see! Are you at 180 degrees? Or well below? Some will then just shrug their shoulders up to their ears, strongly pushing and engaging the traps, to open their shoulders more. Does this get you closer to 180 degrees? Probably, but it will be an exhausting position to hold - stretching your arm out of the socket. So what to focus on instead? How does your upper back feel? See if you can get engagement in the mid-upper back - right between the shoulder blades. If you stood on your feet, back-to-wall and tried to stretch your arms overhead to touch the wall, you should start to feel what Im talking about. The upper back engagement has taken me some time to feel in my two arm handstand, and even longer in my one arm handstand, but the results have been quite noticeable. Cant feel that? Then get to rolling out the tight tissues (improving passive mobility) and get to working various active shoulder opening drills (active mobility). Of course, if you open your shoulders and lose balance, youve missed the point too. Keep balance throughout!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 18:45:55 +0000