March 20, 2023 • 19 mins
How can Press Handstand Rebalance your Body? | The Asana Academy Podcast
Looking for more actionable content from Brian Aganad?
Follow him on social media:
Instagram: @Brianaganad
Facebook: Brian Aganad
Twitter: @Brianaganad
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BrianAganad
Interested in joining Body Breakthrough & working with Brian Aganad?
Get started with our complimentary workshop and ensure that you understand our training methods and are a good fit for what we do and how we work.
Subscribe to our *new* podcast Mindset Daily here:
Mindset Daily on Apple Podcasts
Mindset Daily on Spotify
Not on Apple Podcasts or Spotify?
Subscribe and listen to Mindset Daily here
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So most of us naturally haveimbalances in our bodies.
And these imbalances that wehave are completely normal and
they show up throughout ourlives.
And, as humans we are.
Naturally we're left-handed orright-handed we're dominant on
one side on one leg.
We have just natural imbalancesin our body.
(00:21):
From the way we work.
We have a preferred side for howwe do things.
Like when we brush our teeth.
We pick up the toothbrush withthe same hand.
If we, swing a tennis racket, wehave a set way or a set hand of
how we swing the tennis racket.
These imbalances are completelynormal and what they do.
(00:43):
Is they start to train themuscles over time.
To pattern that behavior on oneside, which is a, how the
movement pattern is created, butB, which is why, if you try to
just.
Switch hands or try to dosomething on a non-dominant
side.
It feels awkward or it feelsweird.
And you see this all throughoutyour life, actually really great
(01:05):
example, too, is driving a car.
If you're listening to this inthe U S you're used to driving
on the right side of the road.
If you're listening to this inthe UK, you're used to driving
on the left side of the road,and the steering wheel and the
car is also in a differentplace.
Now, if you were to just switchthose things around, it's not
just a natural thing to do.
It feels a little bit awkward.
It feels a little bit weird.
(01:27):
And it feels a little bit clunkyand it's something that you have
to take the time.
To.
Go back and re pattern.
So those are natural imbalancesin the body and it's normal.
And when someone says what doesthe body typically look like?
What do healthy imbalances inthe body look like?
Somewhere close to the 60, 40range, right?
Like you're, 60% on one side,40% on the other, that type of
(01:51):
thing is what.
That's the ratio of imbalancesfrom side to side, right?
One side is 60% dominant.
One side is 40% dominant now.
You have imbalances.
In the body that like extremeimbalances that can happen over
time.
So for example, like if you are.
(02:11):
Playing a sport like I did, forexample, like baseball and
you're throwing with one arm foryears and years, that creates a
much, much more massiveimbalance that creates and also
throwing and not just throwingthe ball, I should say with my
left arm, but also.
Pitching throwing off the mound.
So pushing off the left foot,you start to create more and
(02:34):
more imbalances, more extremeimbalances that then have to
correct now.
When the balances start tobecome extreme.
What you'll find is that yourbody feels off your body starts
to.
It doesn't perform the way itshould, like basic functions
start to not work.
(02:55):
Like they should like, evensometimes walking feels weird.
And if you have a big imbalance,like for example, if you've had
a broken leg, And you'rewalking.
I should say, after you recover.
So let's say you've had a brokenleg, you recover and you start
walking.
You can tell a huge differencefrom side to side, and not to
mention the muscular atrophy.
(03:16):
That happens as a result ofhaving a broken leg and then
going through the rehab torecover it.
There's a huge difference fromside to side.
Now, one of the areas, one ofthe areas that a lot of people
don't necessarily think cancause more extreme imbalances in
the body is.
Yoga.
So yoga.
(03:37):
If we aren't careful.
Creates it exaggeratesimbalances that we already have.
For example, like if you'redoing a lot of planks, you're
doing a lot of like armbalances, for example, and you
have a.
You have a bias towards say yourleft side.
Over time.
You'll start to push more withthat left side because it's
(04:01):
comfortable and you'll start tocreate even more in a minute of
an imbalance there.
So like a really great exampleis if you.
If you notice.
One side of your body willbecome imbalanced.
And that imbalanced site startsto become far stronger than the
opposite.
So if your left arm gets reallystrong and you're pushing into
(04:22):
the ground.
You don't realize it, but if youwere to see like a weight
distribution of how much you'repressing.
You're probably pressingsomewhere in.
The range of, 70%, even 75% intothat left arm and not very much
in the other arm.
So then what will happen bydefault is the muscles on the
right side of the body, thelarger muscles, especially don't
(04:45):
get a strong.
And they lagged behind thedominant side or the highly
skewed and balanced side.
And so then the smaller musclesstart to overwork.
And they get tight.
For example, if your left arm.
Is working a lot.
You're going to find the wholeleft side of your body is
stronger.
That's with your lats.
And also sometimes down throughthe legs, But as a result on the
(05:08):
right side, You're you'll findyour shoulders and your like,
your right shoulder and yourright traps.
And even the right side of yourneck are chronically tight right
there.
Tighter.
Then the left side, becausethose larger muscles on the
right side of your body, aren'tas strong as those muscles on
the left.
And so the smaller muscles.
(05:29):
So essentially what happens inthis process is when you're
practicing yoga, when you'retraining, when you're doing
anything.
The left side of your bodybecause the muscles are
stronger.
They have more endurance, theycan handle the load, whether
that load comes from your bodyor whether that load comes from.
Weights or an external force ofsome sort.
The left side is better equippedto handle it than the right.
Those larger muscles can workmore efficiently and handle more
(05:52):
of a load than the right side.
So the smaller muscles, likeyour shoulders, your traps, and
your neck, for example, I'mtalking about the torso here
tend to get tight and stressedbecause of that imbalance.
So then that imbalance creates apattern.
Which is on one side of thebody.
You'll use your stronger, largermuscles.
(06:13):
And then on another side, on theother side of your body, you'll
use your smaller muscles as notbecause that's what your body
wants to do.
It's doing it because it has nochoice that opposite side, that
right side of your body is justweaker.
So it can't keep up.
So because the larger musclesgive out first, those smaller
stabilizing muscles start totake over.
(06:34):
So those imbalances like creepup and you'll see it all.
Oftentimes you're like I see itwhere I see it a lot is like in
the hips, like with my clientsand the hips, you'll see the hip
flexors tend to.
Work in the work like that.
Also like the hips tend to bestronger on one side.
Typically what you'll find isone side of the body is more
(06:55):
mobile.
One side of your hips is moremobile.
If you're extending your hips,You have more mobility on one
side and then you have morestrength.
On the opposite side, but whenthose extreme imbalances come
in, what you'll find isoftentimes we talk about like
pelvic tilts.
In terms of like anterior tiltor posterior tilt, but the
(07:16):
other.
The other.
The other thing, your hips cando a slant from side to side.
Trying to describe this withouta visuals imagine your pelvis,
or imagine your hip points.
Imagine your two frontal hippoints.
One of the hip points actuallystarts to slant down.
So they're not level.
And that causes one side of thehip to push up, say the left
side to push up and the rightside to push down.
(07:37):
That creates an imbalance thatcreates imbalances in the spine.
And that creates imbalances likein your QL muscles and all of
those things that go on.
And these are the things thatjust happen.
And the thing with imbalances isthat they happen over time.
It's not something that happensright away, but it's just our
body gradually adapting andwhatever we're presenting,
whatever physically we'representing ourselves.
(07:59):
Our brain is creating a newpattern before you know it.
We have this.
We have this extreme muscularimbalance from side to side.
The question is how can presshandstand correct these types of
body imbalances and.
So one of the.
One of the first and I'll gothrough the process here, but
one of the first.
(08:20):
Symptoms typically when a bodystarts to move into an like an
extreme imbalanced state.
Is that your core is weak.
So this, and I'm describingmyself here to a T, like when I
used to play baseball, I had areally strong upper body.
Like I used to muscle a lot ofthings like in my shoulders, In,
in my traps and my arms, I usedto just use sheer brute force in
(08:44):
order to that's where mystrength came from.
But little did I know my coremuscles?
My, my TVA was really weak andit was weak because it wasn't
even trained to engage.
So that muscle.
Is the, that muscle is theprimary stabilizing muscle in
our body to transverseabdominis.
Lots of you listening.
(09:05):
I know are familiar with thisbustle.
I have.
If you go over to my website,the Austin academy.com.
You can read all about themuscle.
It's all there.
If you want to learn more aboutit.
But when that's our primarystabilizing muscle in the body.
And so the way it works iswhenever our body moves, whether
we're running, jumping,swimming, reaching up with our
arms, creating some kind ofmotion from scratch, like we're
(09:29):
going from standing still tomoving.
That muscle theoretically shouldlead the engagement, right?
That should lead the movement.
Meaning before I move my arm.
Back TVA muscle engages firstand it activates and stabilizes
so that the body can be stablein anticipation of the movement
that you're about to create.
(09:49):
And.
What that does is it works isalmost like it's like a safety
net for the body.
And when that doesn't work, whenthat muscle isn't working.
That's where you will start tofeel like your body is like
offer feels clunky or you are,you struggle with your balance.
But then without having thatmuscle stabilize, it's like a
(10:11):
normalizer in the body.
Meaning.
Like without the support of yourcore.
Stretching out are engaging.
When you say reach out your arm.
Or, step with your leg or stepup with your leg.
Whatever side of the body you'reusing tends to activate even
more.
And it tends to drive theimbalance.
With plank, for example.
(10:32):
If you are doing plank, say.
Your course should engage.
Your TVA should engage while.
You're doing plank.
Now I should say this.
I should say this.
When I'm talking generally,sometimes I refer, I.
When I say core, what I do meanis the TVA, but the technical
definition of your core is notjust the TVA muscle.
(10:55):
Your core is essentially all themuscles that you use on your
torso to help stabilize.
So I probably shouldn't saythat, but I do it for
simplicity.
And also, because that's justwhat a lot of people are
familiar with.
When I say core, you caninterchange it with the TVA.
Now, like in plank.
When you are.
Extending your arms out orpushing her arms into the ground
when your core engages.
It will stop you fromconcentrating a lot of weights
(11:19):
into the side of your body.
That's stronger.
So when your court doesn'tengage.
Let's say your right arm isstronger.
You'll push down.
Even more with the right armbecause your right arm is trying
to compensate for the cord andnot engaging.
And you'll tend to skew evenmore power into that arm.
And that's what creates animbalance, right?
(11:40):
So if you look at, sometimes, ifyou look at your two arms, like
a really good example of this isIn some people you can see a
visual difference in the arms.
Like one arm is like visuallybigger than the other.
That's an example of.
A of a more.
Exaggerated imbalance.
And those are things really thatyou, those are things really
(12:02):
that when you, when your bodystarts to act in a balanced way,
That your capacity for strengthis a whole lot higher, right?
Your strength ceiling.
Is a whole lot higher simplybecause you're now operating
with a much more solidfoundation and it's.
(12:24):
And not a C, not from skewed,not from like a skewed
foundation where one side is oneside is strong and one sided.
Isn't right.
It's like the equivalent of sayhaving one foot on concrete, one
foot on sand, right?
The concrete is very solid.
The sand is, It's imbalanced,right?
The sand is like not imbalanced,but wobbly, right?
It's not is it's soft.
And.
That's what imbalances are like.
(12:46):
When you become balanced, it'slike having two feet on concrete
when you're standing, it's asolid firm foundation.
So I see.
Clients who have these extremeimbalances.
And the first step is literallycorrecting the TVA.
It's making sure the TVA isactivating correctly.
It's making sure the TVA'sengaging in a way that.
(13:10):
That allows it to support thosemuscles in the body.
So that way.
A majority of the support andthe stability is coming from
your TVA, but not your smallermuscles.
When support comes from smallermuscles, that's when.
You start to really exaggeratethose imbalances.
Like when you're forcing yourshoulders, your traps, your
(13:32):
neck, for example.
To support the body or stabilizethe body.
That's where you start to reallycreate imbalances.
And then once you go from there,like correcting the TVA, like
once you go from there thenyou've got that foundation.
To then correct larger musclesand smaller muscles and the way
you go about correcting thebody.
(13:52):
Is these imbalances is you startwith the TVA, then you move to
the larger muscles.
And then from there you move tothe smaller muscles.
Effectively, what you're doingis you're taking.
You're taking say if your latmuscles, a lot of women tend to
have really imbalanced reallyimbalanced back muscles.
Like one is really a lotstronger than the other.
(14:16):
You start buying balanced byrebalancing those lats.
And then in turn, like once yourebalance the lats.
Then you can go and then you canrebalance the muscles that the
lats support.
So what are the muscles?
The lot support?
That's the shoulders and that'sthe traps and that's the neck.
You can go in that line.
And once you start to it's likea, it's like a path, like you go
(14:37):
through that path.
Of correcting the muscles.
Like the largest one first isalways the TVA.
Like it's almost it's nearlyimpossible to rebalance the body
without having a strong core andnot just a strong core, but, and
a core that activates correctly.
Which is a conversation foranother show, but a core that
(14:58):
activates correctly in a corestrong.
But then you can go and youcould look at those larger
muscles.
And then from there, you canstart to address the smaller
ones.
So you're just moving, down thechain, so to speak from largest
to smallest.
And that's one of the, that'sone of the things that I see a
lot.
When someone has a hard time.
(15:19):
Actually doing a press handstandis you'll find that there are
imbalances.
So I guess another question is.
How do the other way round ishow do you imbalances affect a
press handstand?
And they do.
If they do.
In that if you're trying to pushinto the.
The ground against similar, likewhen you're lifting yourself up
(15:40):
off the floor, there's moreweight in one hand than there is
the other more weight in onearm.
Just like you would be skewedand plank.
So correct again.
Understanding Matt and how thatmanifests itself.
By the way is if you look andyou task, go try to do a press
handstand.
If you notice the reason thatyou are.
(16:02):
If you're not lifting up.
And you're feeling like yourhips are rotating from one side.
Like you've got.
You feel you're not goingstraight up, but your body's
rotating to the side.
You can, that's a sign rightthere that you've got inbound.
You've got arm imbalances andit's manifesting itself in the
way the hips rotate.
(16:23):
And.
Another area where you canactually see imbalances in the
body is.
Like in the hip flexors, like ifone hip flexor is stronger than
the other, I've talked on thisshow a lot about the hip flexors
and hip flexor strength.
But.
One hip flexor may be strongenough to hold to support the
leg.
And the other hip flexor maynot.
(16:44):
If you are lifting yourself, ifyou're trying to press and like
you feel one leg wanting to bendwhen you lift off the ground.
Or one leg wanting to leave theground first, which is another
really common thing that's asign that one of the hip flexors
is stronger than the other.
And.
Correcting that imbalance is howyou correct the takeoff phase.
(17:05):
Those are some areas that youcan see, like if your body has
imbalances and then if you'recorrecting those again, you just
have to go back and go throughthat process.
We do that a lot with ourclients in the program.
We actually do a whole, there'sa whole section.
And the program on justrebalancing the body, which is
creating just how do you.
Overcome those imbalances,because that's a big part of
(17:29):
actually learning to do a presshandstand.
It's I it's like you have to beable to, your body has to be
balanced.
And part of that, part of theprocess of learning one for most
people is rebalancing.
The body is going through andthese little.
These imbalances in the smallermuscles tend to have the largest
effect on your practice and theway you move and that kind of
(17:49):
thing.
Going back and looking at itfrom that angle is.
A really important part of theprocess.
So you can see to things like,yeah.
Trading for press and sand isgoing well.
At least like in bodybreakthrough, going through my
process, rebalancing is part ofit.
But then the other side to it isyou can also look at imbalances
in your body and figure out whyyou're having a hard time
(18:12):
lifting yourself up off theground.
It's the imbalances that stopyou.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
If this was useful for you.
Tag me in a tag me in a story onInstagram and let me know,
share, let me know what youlearned, how you apply it to
your practice.
Or whoever you're going to useit.
And as always, if you're, if youare enjoying the show, you can
help support the show by sharingit with someone who you think
(18:33):
would benefit and taking thetime to leave review.
Okay.
So that's all I've got for youin today's show.
Have a good rest of your day.
And I will talk to you soon.
So most of us naturally haveimbalances in our bodies.
And these imbalances that wehave are completely normal and
they show up throughout ourlives.
And, as humans we are.
Naturally we're left-handed orright-handed we're dominant on
one side on one leg.
We have just natural imbalancesin our body.
(00:21):
From the way we work.
We have a preferred side for howwe do things.
Like when we brush our teeth.
We pick up the toothbrush withthe same hand.
If we, swing a tennis racket, wehave a set way or a set hand of
how we swing the tennis racket.
These imbalances are completelynormal and what they do.
(00:43):
Is they start to train themuscles over time.
To pattern that behavior on oneside, which is a, how the
movement pattern is created, butB, which is why, if you try to
just.
Switch hands or try to dosomething on a non-dominant
side.
It feels awkward or it feelsweird.
And you see this all throughoutyour life, actually really great
(01:05):
example, too, is driving a car.
If you're listening to this inthe U S you're used to driving
on the right side of the road.
If you're listening to this inthe UK, you're used to driving
on the left side of the road,and the steering wheel and the
car is also in a differentplace.
Now, if you were to just switchthose things around, it's not
just a natural thing to do.
It feels a little bit awkward.
It feels a little bit weird.
(01:27):
And it feels a little bit clunkyand it's something that you have
to take the time.
To.
Go back and re pattern.
So those are natural imbalancesin the body and it's normal.
And when someone says what doesthe body typically look like?
What do healthy imbalances inthe body look like?
Somewhere close to the 60, 40range, right?
Like you're, 60% on one side,40% on the other, that type of
(01:51):
thing is what.
That's the ratio of imbalancesfrom side to side, right?
One side is 60% dominant.
One side is 40% dominant now.
You have imbalances.
In the body that like extremeimbalances that can happen over
time.
So for example, like if you are.
(02:11):
Playing a sport like I did, forexample, like baseball and
you're throwing with one arm foryears and years, that creates a
much, much more massiveimbalance that creates and also
throwing and not just throwingthe ball, I should say with my
left arm, but also.
Pitching throwing off the mound.
So pushing off the left foot,you start to create more and
(02:34):
more imbalances, more extremeimbalances that then have to
correct now.
When the balances start tobecome extreme.
What you'll find is that yourbody feels off your body starts
to.
It doesn't perform the way itshould, like basic functions
start to not work.
(02:55):
Like they should like, evensometimes walking feels weird.
And if you have a big imbalance,like for example, if you've had
a broken leg, And you'rewalking.
I should say, after you recover.
So let's say you've had a brokenleg, you recover and you start
walking.
You can tell a huge differencefrom side to side, and not to
mention the muscular atrophy.
(03:16):
That happens as a result ofhaving a broken leg and then
going through the rehab torecover it.
There's a huge difference fromside to side.
Now, one of the areas, one ofthe areas that a lot of people
don't necessarily think cancause more extreme imbalances in
the body is.
Yoga.
So yoga.
(03:37):
If we aren't careful.
Creates it exaggeratesimbalances that we already have.
For example, like if you'redoing a lot of planks, you're
doing a lot of like armbalances, for example, and you
have a.
You have a bias towards say yourleft side.
Over time.
You'll start to push more withthat left side because it's
(04:01):
comfortable and you'll start tocreate even more in a minute of
an imbalance there.
So like a really great exampleis if you.
If you notice.
One side of your body willbecome imbalanced.
And that imbalanced site startsto become far stronger than the
opposite.
So if your left arm gets reallystrong and you're pushing into
(04:22):
the ground.
You don't realize it, but if youwere to see like a weight
distribution of how much you'repressing.
You're probably pressingsomewhere in.
The range of, 70%, even 75% intothat left arm and not very much
in the other arm.
So then what will happen bydefault is the muscles on the
right side of the body, thelarger muscles, especially don't
(04:45):
get a strong.
And they lagged behind thedominant side or the highly
skewed and balanced side.
And so then the smaller musclesstart to overwork.
And they get tight.
For example, if your left arm.
Is working a lot.
You're going to find the wholeleft side of your body is
stronger.
That's with your lats.
And also sometimes down throughthe legs, But as a result on the
(05:08):
right side, You're you'll findyour shoulders and your like,
your right shoulder and yourright traps.
And even the right side of yourneck are chronically tight right
there.
Tighter.
Then the left side, becausethose larger muscles on the
right side of your body, aren'tas strong as those muscles on
the left.
And so the smaller muscles.
(05:29):
So essentially what happens inthis process is when you're
practicing yoga, when you'retraining, when you're doing
anything.
The left side of your bodybecause the muscles are
stronger.
They have more endurance, theycan handle the load, whether
that load comes from your bodyor whether that load comes from.
Weights or an external force ofsome sort.
The left side is better equippedto handle it than the right.
Those larger muscles can workmore efficiently and handle more
(05:52):
of a load than the right side.
So the smaller muscles, likeyour shoulders, your traps, and
your neck, for example, I'mtalking about the torso here
tend to get tight and stressedbecause of that imbalance.
So then that imbalance creates apattern.
Which is on one side of thebody.
You'll use your stronger, largermuscles.
(06:13):
And then on another side, on theother side of your body, you'll
use your smaller muscles as notbecause that's what your body
wants to do.
It's doing it because it has nochoice that opposite side, that
right side of your body is justweaker.
So it can't keep up.
So because the larger musclesgive out first, those smaller
stabilizing muscles start totake over.
(06:34):
So those imbalances like creepup and you'll see it all.
Oftentimes you're like I see itwhere I see it a lot is like in
the hips, like with my clientsand the hips, you'll see the hip
flexors tend to.
Work in the work like that.
Also like the hips tend to bestronger on one side.
Typically what you'll find isone side of the body is more
(06:55):
mobile.
One side of your hips is moremobile.
If you're extending your hips,You have more mobility on one
side and then you have morestrength.
On the opposite side, but whenthose extreme imbalances come
in, what you'll find isoftentimes we talk about like
pelvic tilts.
In terms of like anterior tiltor posterior tilt, but the
(07:16):
other.
The other.
The other thing, your hips cando a slant from side to side.
Trying to describe this withouta visuals imagine your pelvis,
or imagine your hip points.
Imagine your two frontal hippoints.
One of the hip points actuallystarts to slant down.
So they're not level.
And that causes one side of thehip to push up, say the left
side to push up and the rightside to push down.
(07:37):
That creates an imbalance thatcreates imbalances in the spine.
And that creates imbalances likein your QL muscles and all of
those things that go on.
And these are the things thatjust happen.
And the thing with imbalances isthat they happen over time.
It's not something that happensright away, but it's just our
body gradually adapting andwhatever we're presenting,
whatever physically we'representing ourselves.
(07:59):
Our brain is creating a newpattern before you know it.
We have this.
We have this extreme muscularimbalance from side to side.
The question is how can presshandstand correct these types of
body imbalances and.
So one of the.
One of the first and I'll gothrough the process here, but
one of the first.
(08:20):
Symptoms typically when a bodystarts to move into an like an
extreme imbalanced state.
Is that your core is weak.
So this, and I'm describingmyself here to a T, like when I
used to play baseball, I had areally strong upper body.
Like I used to muscle a lot ofthings like in my shoulders, In,
in my traps and my arms, I usedto just use sheer brute force in
(08:44):
order to that's where mystrength came from.
But little did I know my coremuscles?
My, my TVA was really weak andit was weak because it wasn't
even trained to engage.
So that muscle.
Is the, that muscle is theprimary stabilizing muscle in
our body to transverseabdominis.
Lots of you listening.
(09:05):
I know are familiar with thisbustle.
I have.
If you go over to my website,the Austin academy.com.
You can read all about themuscle.
It's all there.
If you want to learn more aboutit.
But when that's our primarystabilizing muscle in the body.
And so the way it works iswhenever our body moves, whether
we're running, jumping,swimming, reaching up with our
arms, creating some kind ofmotion from scratch, like we're
(09:29):
going from standing still tomoving.
That muscle theoretically shouldlead the engagement, right?
That should lead the movement.
Meaning before I move my arm.
Back TVA muscle engages firstand it activates and stabilizes
so that the body can be stablein anticipation of the movement
that you're about to create.
(09:49):
And.
What that does is it works isalmost like it's like a safety
net for the body.
And when that doesn't work, whenthat muscle isn't working.
That's where you will start tofeel like your body is like
offer feels clunky or you are,you struggle with your balance.
But then without having thatmuscle stabilize, it's like a
(10:11):
normalizer in the body.
Meaning.
Like without the support of yourcore.
Stretching out are engaging.
When you say reach out your arm.
Or, step with your leg or stepup with your leg.
Whatever side of the body you'reusing tends to activate even
more.
And it tends to drive theimbalance.
With plank, for example.
(10:32):
If you are doing plank, say.
Your course should engage.
Your TVA should engage while.
You're doing plank.
Now I should say this.
I should say this.
When I'm talking generally,sometimes I refer, I.
When I say core, what I do meanis the TVA, but the technical
definition of your core is notjust the TVA muscle.
(10:55):
Your core is essentially all themuscles that you use on your
torso to help stabilize.
So I probably shouldn't saythat, but I do it for
simplicity.
And also, because that's justwhat a lot of people are
familiar with.
When I say core, you caninterchange it with the TVA.
Now, like in plank.
When you are.
Extending your arms out orpushing her arms into the ground
when your core engages.
It will stop you fromconcentrating a lot of weights
(11:19):
into the side of your body.
That's stronger.
So when your court doesn'tengage.
Let's say your right arm isstronger.
You'll push down.
Even more with the right armbecause your right arm is trying
to compensate for the cord andnot engaging.
And you'll tend to skew evenmore power into that arm.
And that's what creates animbalance, right?
(11:40):
So if you look at, sometimes, ifyou look at your two arms, like
a really good example of this isIn some people you can see a
visual difference in the arms.
Like one arm is like visuallybigger than the other.
That's an example of.
A of a more.
Exaggerated imbalance.
And those are things really thatyou, those are things really
(12:02):
that when you, when your bodystarts to act in a balanced way,
That your capacity for strengthis a whole lot higher, right?
Your strength ceiling.
Is a whole lot higher simplybecause you're now operating
with a much more solidfoundation and it's.
(12:24):
And not a C, not from skewed,not from like a skewed
foundation where one side is oneside is strong and one sided.
Isn't right.
It's like the equivalent of sayhaving one foot on concrete, one
foot on sand, right?
The concrete is very solid.
The sand is, It's imbalanced,right?
The sand is like not imbalanced,but wobbly, right?
It's not is it's soft.
And.
That's what imbalances are like.
(12:46):
When you become balanced, it'slike having two feet on concrete
when you're standing, it's asolid firm foundation.
So I see.
Clients who have these extremeimbalances.
And the first step is literallycorrecting the TVA.
It's making sure the TVA isactivating correctly.
It's making sure the TVA'sengaging in a way that.
(13:10):
That allows it to support thosemuscles in the body.
So that way.
A majority of the support andthe stability is coming from
your TVA, but not your smallermuscles.
When support comes from smallermuscles, that's when.
You start to really exaggeratethose imbalances.
Like when you're forcing yourshoulders, your traps, your
(13:32):
neck, for example.
To support the body or stabilizethe body.
That's where you start to reallycreate imbalances.
And then once you go from there,like correcting the TVA, like
once you go from there thenyou've got that foundation.
To then correct larger musclesand smaller muscles and the way
you go about correcting thebody.
(13:52):
Is these imbalances is you startwith the TVA, then you move to
the larger muscles.
And then from there you move tothe smaller muscles.
Effectively, what you're doingis you're taking.
You're taking say if your latmuscles, a lot of women tend to
have really imbalanced reallyimbalanced back muscles.
Like one is really a lotstronger than the other.
(14:16):
You start buying balanced byrebalancing those lats.
And then in turn, like once yourebalance the lats.
Then you can go and then you canrebalance the muscles that the
lats support.
So what are the muscles?
The lot support?
That's the shoulders and that'sthe traps and that's the neck.
You can go in that line.
And once you start to it's likea, it's like a path, like you go
(14:37):
through that path.
Of correcting the muscles.
Like the largest one first isalways the TVA.
Like it's almost it's nearlyimpossible to rebalance the body
without having a strong core andnot just a strong core, but, and
a core that activates correctly.
Which is a conversation foranother show, but a core that
(14:58):
activates correctly in a corestrong.
But then you can go and youcould look at those larger
muscles.
And then from there, you canstart to address the smaller
ones.
So you're just moving, down thechain, so to speak from largest
to smallest.
And that's one of the, that'sone of the things that I see a
lot.
When someone has a hard time.
(15:19):
Actually doing a press handstandis you'll find that there are
imbalances.
So I guess another question is.
How do the other way round ishow do you imbalances affect a
press handstand?
And they do.
If they do.
In that if you're trying to pushinto the.
The ground against similar, likewhen you're lifting yourself up
(15:40):
off the floor, there's moreweight in one hand than there is
the other more weight in onearm.
Just like you would be skewedand plank.
So correct again.
Understanding Matt and how thatmanifests itself.
By the way is if you look andyou task, go try to do a press
handstand.
If you notice the reason thatyou are.
(16:02):
If you're not lifting up.
And you're feeling like yourhips are rotating from one side.
Like you've got.
You feel you're not goingstraight up, but your body's
rotating to the side.
You can, that's a sign rightthere that you've got inbound.
You've got arm imbalances andit's manifesting itself in the
way the hips rotate.
(16:23):
And.
Another area where you canactually see imbalances in the
body is.
Like in the hip flexors, like ifone hip flexor is stronger than
the other, I've talked on thisshow a lot about the hip flexors
and hip flexor strength.
But.
One hip flexor may be strongenough to hold to support the
leg.
And the other hip flexor maynot.
(16:44):
If you are lifting yourself, ifyou're trying to press and like
you feel one leg wanting to bendwhen you lift off the ground.
Or one leg wanting to leave theground first, which is another
really common thing that's asign that one of the hip flexors
is stronger than the other.
And.
Correcting that imbalance is howyou correct the takeoff phase.
(17:05):
Those are some areas that youcan see, like if your body has
imbalances and then if you'recorrecting those again, you just
have to go back and go throughthat process.
We do that a lot with ourclients in the program.
We actually do a whole, there'sa whole section.
And the program on justrebalancing the body, which is
creating just how do you.
Overcome those imbalances,because that's a big part of
(17:29):
actually learning to do a presshandstand.
It's I it's like you have to beable to, your body has to be
balanced.
And part of that, part of theprocess of learning one for most
people is rebalancing.
The body is going through andthese little.
These imbalances in the smallermuscles tend to have the largest
effect on your practice and theway you move and that kind of
(17:49):
thing.
Going back and looking at itfrom that angle is.
A really important part of theprocess.
So you can see to things like,yeah.
Trading for press and sand isgoing well.
At least like in bodybreakthrough, going through my
process, rebalancing is part ofit.
But then the other side to it isyou can also look at imbalances
in your body and figure out whyyou're having a hard time
(18:12):
lifting yourself up off theground.
It's the imbalances that stopyou.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
If this was useful for you.
Tag me in a tag me in a story onInstagram and let me know,
share, let me know what youlearned, how you apply it to
your practice.
Or whoever you're going to useit.
And as always, if you're, if youare enjoying the show, you can
help support the show by sharingit with someone who you think
(18:33):
would benefit and taking thetime to leave review.
Okay.
So that's all I've got for youin today's show.
Have a good rest of your day.
And I will talk to you soon.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.