Will 1 month away from handstands affect them a great deal?

[Charlie Martin]

Hi there,

 

I'm convinced I've been overtraining my shoulders for some time now. I recently took 2 weeks off one arm handstands and planches only to come back with the same issues I was having before.
 

I've decided I'm going to take a full month off any intensive shoulder work and just focus on stretching and on my other body areas + cardio.

 

I was curious as to whether I would come back a lot weaker than before. I'm aware that that I will barely lose muscle mass over the month (I'm a  19 year old male so my hormones will help here), but I was curious about my neuromuscular efficiency and also proprioception - do these deteriorate at the same rate as muscle mass?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Alessandro Mainente]

if your one arm handstand is the one showed in your profile photo i'm not surprised by your shoulder problem. there is no alignment and stacked position. in this way shoulder feel the weight tons of time more compared to a correct position and the consequence is overtraining.

Personally I train my shoulders daily with no problems, your situation reflects the wrong process of training. so instead of take a full month of rest, you should take a 100% rest from your current schedule and consider the idea to restart in function of your real capacity.

[Charlie Martin]

59 minutes ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

if your one arm handstand is the one showed in your profile photo i'm now surprised by your shoulder problem. there is no alignment and stacked position. in this way shoulder feel the weight tons of time more compared to a correct position and the consequence is overtraining.

Personally I train my shoulders daily with no problems, your situation reflects the wrong process of training. so instead of take a full month of rest, you should take a 100% rest from your current schedule and consider the idea to restart in function of your real capacity.

I completely agree that my handstand form is wrong and that it makes one arm handstands a lot harder on the shoulders than it should be.

 

The main thing keeping me from a proper one arm handstand is my shoulder flexibility. What I have been doing lately is focusing a lot more on flexibility whilst still training handstands and I am seeing some progress.

 

So would you suggest that I stop one arm handstand training completely and wait for my flexibility to be perfect before beginning training again? I would agree and do as you say immediately, however, you have to understand that I'm scared I'll lose the strength and ability to hold several sorts of one arm handstands. No matter how poor the training was to reach the point I am at, I would be lying if I said I wasn't proud of my ability to do what I can do.

 

Even so, if it means preventing injury in the long run, I will do whatever it takes. I have goals to get into Cirque du Soleil one day and if  it means putting my progress to a halt, then so be it.

 

Would your advice be to do what I said above? Stop training completely until the flexibility issue is addressed?

 

Thanks for the help.

 

 

[Alessandro Mainente]

Yes, with your actual flexibility the movement is absolutely uncomfortable and there is a lot of energy dispersion over different wrong directions. fix your deficits then move on.

[Charlie Martin]

OK thanks!

[Jon Douglas]

Honestly if your goals are Cirque then flexibility should be one of your prime priorities. Assuming you want to enter as a handbalancer, the cleaner your OAHS is the better at this stage; that is a mobility first and strength second issue.

[Julian Aldag]

I work for Cirque. You need to have your technique dialed-in or the volume of the shows (10 shows a week) will destroy you. Take a step back, and learn things properly. There is no short cut.

[Charlie Martin]

Thanks guys. I've only been able to train one arm handstands about twice a week on average thanks to my poor mobility. I've always been jealous of the handbalancers that can train almost everyday. Maybe in 1 or 2 years I will be able to as well.

[Ian Gibson]

On 7/1/2016 at 5:04 AM, Charlie Martin said:

Even so, if it means preventing injury in the long run, I will do whatever it takes. I have goals to get into Cirque du Soleil one day and if  it means putting my progress to a halt, then so be it.

Keep in mind that true progress is likely to increase by taking a step back in this case, even though it is by a different standard than you have been used to.