Keep working the skills, sucking at the simple
My fitness routine certainly is diverse if nothing else. Over the weekend I did my own personal triathlon, bundling a 4 mile run, 12.25 mile bike ride and a 1000 yard swim together. It added up to almost 1:45 in cardio time.
My exercises at the gym yesterday and later at home included 150 push ups, set of 20 pull ups, 3 sets of back to wall L-sits, lateral raises, set of slow rep pull ups, handstands (with wall safety), and back lever hold progressions. I like trying to keep my daily routine anything but routine.
My exercise schedule has been going pretty well recently however I have found that I am having issues with my diet. In the past few months I have found myself stuffing my face with empty calories, normally the sugary variety. I am sure some of it is emotional eating related to some of the ups and downs in my personal life. I’m hoping to apply some more discipline to my food intake to help maximize my output.
I have an odd problem sometimes doing moves that should be simple. One of these simple things I have been trying to work on is front rolling out of a handstand.
When I over balance on a handstand I typically will try to pirouette out of it. Sometimes I am successful, sometimes I just wind up kind of falling onto my side. A much simpler bail would be to forward roll out of it.
A forward roll is a simple move that kids learn very early on in gym class. Well for whatever reason, when I try to pair this with a handstand exit it becomes difficult for me. I did this out in my yard and found myself crashing onto the base of my neck when trying to roll which is at it’s least, painful and at it’s worse, dangerous.
As you can see in the picture, the goal is you roll onto your upper back, keeping your neck out of the impact zone. If I become efficient at safely rolling out of bailed handstands it would make practicing them more enjoyable.
Gotta work on my bar overs while I am at it, another movement that should be pretty simple that I struggle awkwardly at.
I have a tendency to over complicate the simple myself. What helped me was practicing solely for the front roll out. What I mean is that I would kick up into the handstand with no intention of trying to hold it. I would purposely overshoot the top. From the very start, before even kicking up, I would be thinking ‘tuck the chin’, ‘tuck the knees’ to cue myself. As soon as my legs were overhead I was already prepared to go into the roll without the distraction of trying to stick it and then reflexively rolling as an afterthought. When I tried to hold the handstand and then roll it didn’t work out as well. I would panic and get caught trying to do a weird pirouette/roll out hybrid of it and it was a very reactive maneuver at best. I guess multitasking ain’t for me. Concentrating on practicing the roll out as a move in itself did the trick though. Well, hope this makes sense. I just got this fear out of the way and am already sticking way more of my handstands. Hope this helps.
Yea that is exactly the sort of stuff I need to be doing as well.
Good luck.