Hi All,

A short quick tip today on shaping handstands. I find that a lot of people want to fix the handstand shapes of their gymnasts, and proceed to tell them to get their ribs in etc when they are upside down. The problem with this is that if the gymnast can’t do it when they are right-side up when there is less force acting on them, they probably won’t be able to do it when they’re upside down.

This is a quick drill that’s really easy to do, but helps gymnasts understand things like ribs in, shoulders extended etc. You’ll see that they actually often have a hard time extending their shoulders for more than five or ten seconds. It’s better to train that right side up first, and make sure they have the strength that way, before turning it upside down. I like having them have their hands on either side of a relatively large block of foam, it’s keeps their hands just about right over their shoulders.

Train hard!