Rationalization for Warm Up- Part 1 The Handstand

With the birth of my little one 4 months ago, my wife's return to work, balancing schedules, etc. time is of the essence. I need to try to fit as much "stuff" into a limited training window as possible.  My training time needed to be "nutrient" dense.  I also have never been a fan of really warming up. Usually I just get into it.  This is a way to trick myself into warming up for more intense work. 

There are some skills or items I decided I wanted to focus on in the coming months.  One of the area's I am lacking in is grace.  Some may say I lack some social graces, and I will not argue, however, I lack grace in movement.  Part of this could be due to just lifting weights and doing CrossFit moves, and I have limited flexibility, but most of this is due to the fact I move like  a big oaf.  I am amazed and awed by the likes of Ido Portal and his proteges, who have such fluid movement.  So little by little I am going to work on correcting my oaf-ness, and  start to acquire some skills which require awareness, balance, coordination, control, strength and endurance of the entire body and hope to gain some fluidity.  I know I need to start at the basics.   

Both of the skills I am working on will hopefully progress to higher level skills. This month and going forward until I get to a point where I get bored and need change, or a point where I have mastered the skill, although I am not sure mastery of either of these will be a short term endeavor, I am focusing on two hand balancing skills.  First is the handstand.  The other is the frog stand.  I will tackle the Handstand first.  Both work in conjunction with the other, but while the frog stand can help in the end goal of my handstand, my focus for the frog stand is a front planche. 

I admit, I would like to be the guy doing a handstand in front of the Sphinx in Egypt to post on my Facebook wall.  Its a cool trick.  But looking deeper into the handstand, or what makes it so cool is the amount of body coordination and focus it takes.  They also improve balance, flexibility, and strength and core stability.  It also gives you a new perspective on life.  Yogi's feel it invigorates your circulation, along with a bunch of other positive benefits from being inverted, although I am not so sure there is any research to prove this, a quick search of PubMed revealed nothing.  

For me, I am starting with just a handstand hold against the wall.  I can hold a basic handstand against  the wall for 60+ seconds, but I decided to start small and build on it.  Already within the first week of working on this, I am more comfortable with my balance, and am kicking off the wall and maintaining my balance point for a few seconds and increasing. Kicking up into the handstand without hitting the wall and holding it has happened here and there, and is only improving.  Ideally, I will gain the strength in my arms, and the balance to hold a free handstand, as well as a one handed handstand against the wall with each arm.  All of this will require strength, balance, flexibility in the wrist, hand strength, as well as core strength.  Ideally, learning how to walk on my hands would be cool, however, the above three feats are a happy start, and goal for now.  What this exercise does is warms up my entire body.  My shoulders feel greased, my core engaged, my hips engaged as I squeeze my butt and push up my legs.  When I am inverted I focus on maintain tightness throughout and keep my toes pointed skyward.  It really is a full body static hold which gets the heart and blood pumping.