Hey guys, I thought I'd make thread so that we can share our insights about achieving several calisthenics skills, advanced moves, and tricks. Such would include the following: handstand, human flag, front and back lever, planche, L sit, and many more. I think we could share some advice on how to progress to achieve this difficult skills and share our progress and success about how we did it. Please feel free to share your toughts.
I'm currently trying to achieve the handstand and both the front and back levers. I think good progression exercises for the handstand is to do it wall assisted at first and then take one leg out and hold it until you can hold it with both legs out(not touching the wall). I know this seems kind of obvious(Chris actually made a great video about it). Another good progression exercise is the frog stand. For the front and back levers, I think the best progression exercises are the front and back lever raises. Other than that, I don't know how to progress on those skills.
Handstand.. A week and a half ago I could hold it for 5 (sometimes 10) seconds at 2 out of 10 tries (so 20% chance to hold it), this week, just 2 days ago I held it for 15-18 seconds (I held it for about 12 seconds and walked and held it again) at 5 out of 6 tries (so 83.3% chance to hold it), it is early to talk but what worked for me, day 2 and day 3 really made me better:
Day 1:
You can try to hold it on free for some time, after you get tired you do the exercises.
1st exercise: I did 10 sets of 10 seconds belly/chest to wall (well the idea is 10x10, you can do 5x20 or even 1x100 sec. lol).
After this you do core (lower back + abs) exercise, lower back crunches, full atomic sit ups or any routine really.
Day 2:
1st exercise: 5 sets of 20 seconds frogstand hold
2nd exercise: do belly/chest to wall handstand hold for 2 minutes accumulated - meaning you can divide it in 2 sets of 1 minute or 4 sets of 30 seconds or 1 set of 2 minutes, just make sure you hit the 2 minutes.
3rd exercise: 2 sets of 30 back to wall handstand bodyweight shift left-right, meaning you shift your bodyweight to your left shoulder and that's 1 rep, then you shift to your right shoulder and that's 2 reps, but make sure you do it controlled.
4th exercise: accumulate 4 minute hollow rock position (I think Chris showed it in his 7 most important exercises vid)
Day 3:
1st exercise: you want to accumulate 1 minute of handstand hold whether free or wall, you could do 20 seconds free handstand, 20 second back to wall, 20 second chest to wall.
2nd exercise: 10 hollow to superman rocks
repeat 5 times (as a circuit, you do the first exercise then the second, and then you do the first and then second)
That's what helped me so far, this week I will do:
Day 1:
1st: 3 sets of 10 wall walks (chest/belly to wall, just like in the workout program)
2nd: 4 sets of 6 meters wall along the wall sideways
3rd: 5 sets of 10 handstand pops with the band, if you don't know how to do it or don't have the circumstances to do it, just workout your core again.
Day 2:
5 rounds - 30 sec. each exercise
1st: It's called plate walks, where you do a handstand back to wall and you have some elevation
2nd: do core exercise (lower back or abs)
3rd: handstand shoulder taps (better do it on the wall back facing you, you can do it in the free as well)
There's more days but I think this is a good bit, you can find the program I'm following on the net, just search 4 Week Handstand Happiness and adjust exercises to calisthenics, because it's crossfit, and more importantly adjust it to your workout schedule.
Every second day i train correct??
Yeah for optimal results you can train it second day because of the core workouts but you can train the handstand progressions pretty much everyday, like wall handstand and such.
This is so you learn the proper alignment for the balance as well as the proper core strength for the alignment, and bodyweight shifts that happen. On the wall holds I suggest that you try to hold it for a few seconds, meaning you get away from the wall and fall back to it (if needed).
Yeah great thread :-) keeps me focusing on training the skills! :-) thx a lot
i will inform you tomorrow about my handstand and l-sit progressions because today i am not going to do anything at all:-D