WEEK 20
Reading up was a great use of my time and I found several new ab exercises and also decided that a handstand is worth learning. A lot of people use a handstand as a starting position before descending into a straddle planche and there’s also a seated tuck into handstand transition that looks like it will build the right strength for planche.
To give my body a break from planche training I will switch to handstand training for a few weeks. The format will be the same as learning frog stand, which is 5 x 20 secs of a strength move followed by balancing practice.
20 Feb
Bent Arm Tuck Planche – 9,14,15,10,8 secs
Handstand To Wall – 17,19,23,20 secs
L-Sit with High Feet (end on foam roller) – 7,8 secs
To get the tuck handstand press it’s recommended to do a bent arm tuck planche for a stable base to push off. These were tough but taught me that my core is not the limiting factor in my tuck planche because I could hold my legs there easily. A regular L-Sit isn’t a problem so with straight legs I’m looking to hold them up over an object, in this case a ~50cm foam roller. Handstands were against the wall with the intention of pushing my feet off to balance for 2-3 secs, which didn’t really work.
23 Feb
Bent Arm Tuck Planche – 20,12,15,12,14 secs
Handstand (aided) – 30,35,13,15 secs
Free Handstand Practice – 3 mins
Glad to see the strength from bent arm tucks come through and I hit my first 20 second hold. My wife caught my legs for the handstand but that felt more awkward than using the wall. I tried the standard ‘kick the legs up’ into a handstand hold and while it didn’t last more than 1-2 seconds I feel like that’s the best way to improve. I laid out cushions to soften my fall but the main problem was fatigue from the aided handstands, so next time I’ll jump straight into free handstands.
Here’s a few sets from the 20th