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Why handstand?

Once im upside down, once im in my element, it gives me a sense of bliss.

Handstand is an art of the mind, not only the mind its also physical art.

Once you are in a handstand you only focus on one thing - holding it, you can't hear the noise around you.

That's a very powerful state of mind which teaches you how to use you mind like that in every aspect of your life. 

In short: Handstands teach us about life!

My first ever attempt of handstand hold against the wall

My first ever hold off the wall 18.08.2018

After a week of doing holds on the wall, just to learn the proper alignment and how it feels to be upside down I decided to try to balance.

After many fails this was my first ever balancing for 2-3 seconds. It felt like I was holding it forever.

The feeling was amaizing even it was for few seconds. 

My first attemps to do a kick up and hold it

After a week of practicing against the wall I decided to start trying to do a kickup and hold it without touching the wall.

In this video I was unable to hold any attempt, only bouncing on and off the wall.

As I said in my story the handstand is one of the hardest skills to achieve in n terms of technique and balance. It takes a lot of patience and dedication, a lot of fails and frustrations.

But when you succeed you forget everything and enjoy the progress, the feeling is amaizing.

Here it is, my first 4 seconds hold, it felt like I was holding it forever. And yes the sheer joy..

Handstand kickup practice (wall supported)

My handstand journey has continued, my desire for it has grown. But things did not went as I expected. There were so many fails to even do it again, to hold at least 4-5 seconds kickup like I my first one.

So here is one of my many attemps to hold it. I can't an count how many attempts there were, endless.

So here it is, after so many attempts I was finally back on track, holding it more than 5 seconds here. 

And yes, the celebration like I did something huge. 

Balance practice (back to wall)

After practicing kickups (wall supported) I decided to back off of kickups because I was stuck, I was not progressing in terms of balance. I started doing back to wall practise, trying to slowly move away and practice balance like that.

This is one of the many attempts.

As you can see, it was better way to focus on balance. But because it was back against the wall my form suffered, it was hard to hold it straight.

This one below was my best so far. 8 seconds hold, but I was not satisfied, I knew I could do better.

Balance practice (face to wall)

Few weeks after practising balance with back to wall, as expected my progress was very slow. Not much improvement and I decided to switch things up. Started to practice balance with face to wall.

Face to wall was more uncomfortable and I wasn't used to fall forward if I lose balance. But I after many attempts I learned how to bail properly if I lose balance.

This was my longest hold at that point, I started to get more aware od my body while upside down.

I was pretty satisfied that time because it felt different. I felt like I can hold it more. 

I started to learn how to properly engage my whole body in order to hold a straight line and be more stable. Engaging my core and glutes in order to prevent banana shape was my main point on this next video. 

And boom! My longest hold, more than 10 seconds, first time in my life. I was pretty happy. But as you can see my line was not pretty straight, but in my mind it felt like it was perfectly straight. 

Handstand kickups (freestanding)

After achieving my first 10+seconds handstand hold of the wall I decided to start doing kickups freestanding. I was confident of falling from handstand I learned how to bail properly.

My aim was to hit 10 seconds freestanding kickup. Here are some of my attempts, as expected, many fails.

Sometimes falling over.

Sometimes falling backwards. 

It was very different, I could easily hold 10+seconds off the wall, but kicking up in to it freestanding was very confusing. 

Finally after a lot of fails, I managed to hold around 5-6 seconds. I started to feel tha kick, and land into that sweet spot. 

Still struggling to kickup into handstand? Go back to the wall

And yes, again I underestimated myself. I though I was ready to kickup into freestanding handstand. I was wrong. Guess what, I went back to the wall.

And I broke my previous record, this time I nailed 18 seconds hold! I was super happy.

Few days later, I started holding consistently 15+ seconds off the wall and most importantly I have mastered my line and I was very steady, the wobble was reduced a lot. I was very satisfying and my endurance has increased a lot. 

Check out my best line at that point. 

Personal record 27 seconds handstand hold off the wall

In this period I started again to force things. I really wanted that 30 seconds and I thought that I was so close. But fail after fail, attempt after attempt I didn't realised that I started to overtrain.

My right shoulder started to hurt. And yes you need to feel pain to wake up and realise that you are overdoing something.

So I took around 12 days off. No handstands, no workouts, only light stretching and yoga. So after that I went back to the wall and I broke my previous record, from 18 seconds to 27 seconds.

It was huge progress, I was very satisfied and I wasn't even tired from that hold I knew I could hold it longer, but the balance failed me again.

15 seconds handstand kickup - PR

I did a smart move going back to the wall after a frustrating period of handstand kickups. And now after a solid work I did on the wall and made a significant progress I felt its time to try kickups again.

Of course the fails were there especially at the beginning, for few days it felt like I had no progress. But I was wrong. My goal was at least 10 seconds kickup, but not 10.. I nailed 15 seconds!

The happiness level was not measurable.
Check it out.

Period of fails and frustrations

I made this post especially to show how much I was struggling at this period. After I managed to do 15 seconds kickup my goal was of course.. 30 seconds.

For about 3 months I was only doing kickups in the range of 10 to 15 seconds. Like my brain was programmed to not hold it longer than that.

Here are some of my failed attempts. You can clearly notice how nervous I was in this video.

And finally on my next video I was able to break that platoe for at least 3 seconds more. I did 18 seconds kickup, but I wasn't satisfied with my form at all. Too wobbly and banana line. 

38 seconds handstand kickup - PR

It took me around 3 months, from 15 seconds kickup to reach my goal which was 30 seconds. But not 30 I nailed 38 seconds! It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

Too bad it was not filmed from side to show how my line was. But it was straight no doubt. At this point I was very stable and aware of my entire body while upside down.

Period of success - consistent 30+ seconds holds

At this point its safe to say I have become consistent in my 30+ seconds handstand kickups. I could almost hit 30 seconds at my first attempt of the day even without any warmup.

My level of body awareness and control was pretty high. I could almost knew where exactly are my feet when im upside down.

I have learned very well how to make very small corrections with my fingers, shoulders, hips and legs. How to counter balance to stop from falling over or falling back. 

My muscle up journey

40 seconds handstand hold - PR

 After a while and some solid combination work of kickups and wall work, I stepped up my hold game.

I wasn't chasing max hold in this period, only working on awareness and perfecting the corrections, making them very small. 

So I decided it's time to test my max hold. I was not much impressed, but it was my PR anyway, 40 seconds first time in my life.

My first muscle up attempt

As I said in my story, the first time I saw that move I was very impressed and at that moment I knew exactly what I wanted. I had some starting pulling strength already because I was few months already into training.

I knew I wasn't ready for it yet, but I gave it a go just to see at what level I'm at. To be honest I was surprised, I was closer than I expected.

50 seconds handstand hold - PR

 After I reached 40 seconds, I was very satisfied how my handstand was progressing and I worked on it less frequently, I was focused on building pushing strength.

I only did random handstand attempts on my rest days, nothing special. This period lasted around 2 months. After this, I decided to try my max hold again. 

This time I was surprised how my endurance has increased without putting much effort in direct handstand training. 

And I beat my previous record, now I did 50 seconds! Very happy moment.

Training for my first muscle up - band assisted muscle ups

As many may argue about band assisted muscle ups, I think I got the most of the progress doing them. Especially after I did my first muscle up.

They helped me clean up my form and understand how to move between reps and do them in a row. These are some of my attempts.

I have to admit it was fun doing them, I started to get a feel or the right technique and mechanics. 

Training for my first muscle up - explosive pull ups

They hit the fast twitch (type 2) muscle fibers that are responsible for quick and explosive move which is required for the muscle up.

Here are some of my explosive pull ups.

It was pretty challenging, the goal was to pull as high as you can and as close to the bar as possible. 

My first muscle up

One of the happiest days of my life. It took me about 2 months after my first attempt. Actually this was my second successful attempt, too bad the first one wasn't recorded, there was so much celebration.

It looked ugly, a lot of swing with my legs, I was all over the place.

Muscle up training - negatives

As I said in my other post, this move requires a lot of explosiveness, but it also requires strength, especially when you lose that explosive power while doing them in a row, the strength will help you to do few more reps at the end of the set.

Also the strength is required if you want to do slow muscle ups without using momentum. This was my first attempt of the negative. It was pretty tough.

My first 3 muscle ups in a row - band assisted

The best method to start doing reps in a row in my opinion was band assisted muscle ups. I finally gained some explosiveness and started to learn the proper path of going down and back up.

In this video I did 3 reps, the feeling was amazing.

Pulling higher than ever

My explosiveness has increased a lot in this period, with the light band I was able to pull at my hips, the highest possible.

Here is a video, I was flying.

Also without the band, I could almost pull to my hip. I could not touch the bar yet, but I was pretty satisfied with my progress. 

10 muscle ups in a row - band assisted

After few weeks of explosive pull ups and band assisted muscle ups I have built significant amount of explosiveness and endurance.

Muscle ups done in a row especially more than 5-6 reps becomes pretty cardio intense exercise, it burns hell of a lot calories.

Check out my first ever 10 reps with light resistance band.

My first 4 muscle ups in a row - without band support

I was pretty surprised at this moment, because this was my first attempt to do muscle ups in a row without the band and I managed to bust out 4!

I was very happy with the result, of course the form was off, I was swinging and kicking with my legs a lot.

Road to clean muscle up - my ugly form

In this post I will be showing you few videos of how my form looked like before I managed to do my first clean strict muscle up.

I could do 5-6 reps without any band assistance but they didn't looked very good. Clearly I still lacked explosiveness.

I was so desperate getting that clean muscle up. 

Period of consistency - 5+ muscle ups everytime

I have reached a level where I could do more than 5 reps without the band everytime I attempt them, even without warming up.

I felt confident more than ever and my form has gotten smoother and with less kick.

On this next video I did 6 reps. Pretty satisfied with the results. 

Clean muscle up - my first attempts

I have to admit, doing a clean muscle up is way harder and different than a kipping and swinging muscle up.

I had a lots of attempts and fails, here are some of them.

And that feeling of course, you think that you are so close to get it, but actually so far.