Look Mom One Hand

So last night I decided to give hard mode of this month’s BB challenge a try which is a one hand handstand against a wall.  I have tried this hold multiple times in the past and had zero success.  It felt like I just could not support my entire 175 pounds of bodyweight on one arm. I also had issues with the balance part of the movement even if I tried wedging one of my feet into the corner.

Last night I tried a different approach.  In the past when I attempted a one hander I would just quickly pull my off hand off the floor and come crashing down.  This time I took more gradual approach.

I first got up into my normal wall handstand position.  I then slowly started shifting my center of balance on top of my right arm, keeping my left hand on the floor progressively less.  In conjunction I spread my legs wide on the wall to provide counterbalance.

Eventually it felt like I hit a balance point and I pulled my left hand off the floor.  Surprisingly, I felt pretty solid.  My right arm was working hard to support my weight but I held myself up there for close to 30 seconds.

It felt great as I came down, knowing I just pulled off another calisthenics first.

 

Documenting

Yesterday at the gym my legs actually felt decent enough to do some squats.  Considering I almost needed a walker on Monday I was quite happy the rebound my body has made after running the half marathon.

Last night after work I shot a video documenting where I am at with my form on muscle ups, slow muscle ups and static one handed chin up holds.  With the muscle ups my focus has been using less swing, less kip and keeping my legs together and in control.  In the video it looked like I succeeded on two of the three items.  My swing is about as small as I can make it and my legs did stay together.  However even though it felt like I didn’t use my legs much for lift in the video, it’s obvious I have a powerful knee raise going on.

My slow muscle up was pretty clean.  I made sure I was fully extended below the bar before pulling up and I did not use any appreciable kip to get over the bar.  I find the keys to the slow muscle up are of course a false grip (or wrists resting on top of the bar in my case) and trying to really pull hard during the transition phase so your shoulders get up and over the bar to a point where your center of balance is on top of the bar.

My static one handed chin holds documented the large discrepancy in holding power between my right and left sides. I held on with my right arm for almost a full 10 seconds.  On my left side I barely could hold a second which actually is a slight improvement where as normally I will drop almost immediately on the left.

I need to keep working to narrow that gap in strength as it will affect any pulling body weight movement.