March 27, 2023 • 21 mins
My Advice for more Advanced Practicioners (Beyond Press Handstands) | The Asana Academy Podcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
so the other day I sent out.
An email.
To my list.
And I asked for topics.
That they wanted to hear.
Or they wanted to cover.
And so generally whenever I dothis, I always find that rarely
be advice is ever in the middle.
And what I mean is that there'stwo camps.
(00:20):
There's either people who are.
Brand new, very beginner.
Just looking to get started withpress handstand or a very
limited experience.
And then those who are reallyadvanced.
Who already at the presshandstand level, but want to go
further?
That means like into the groundlifts and like L sits and visits
to handstands and straddle listsfrom the floor to Hansen, that
(00:42):
kind of thing.
So what I am going to do is anepisode for both and covering.
Advice for both brand newbeginners to press handstand and
more advanced practitioners now.
Today's show I'm going to coveradvanced practitioners
specifically.
And what I mean by advanced iswe're going to talk about the
(01:02):
lifts required or the liftsbeyond press handstand.
So a lot of the seated liftsfrom the ground BCIT's.
L sits to handstands.
Seated, straddle lifts tohandstands.
For all the yoga practitioners,all the third series.
Ashtanga lifts like Ostrovacross another handstand, low
Lawson on a handstand.
All the other variations ofthings you can do from the
(01:24):
ground, lifting yourself up.
So here's what to do.
So people tend to findthemselves in a plateau.
Once they get to.
The press handstand, right?
That's the skill where.
Some people will get too.
And they're good.
They're just like, all right,there's my achievement.
I'm done.
I don't want to go any furtherthan this.
(01:45):
And then there's another groupof people who want to go
further.
Into all the other lifts fromthe ground.
Those types of things, butthere's always a learning curve
between the two of them.
Which is it's like the firsttime again that they hit like a
real plateau, right?
Okay, I'm here to press, butanything beyond that, Is.
(02:09):
Now, it feels like it'scompletely out of reach for me.
What do I do?
Okay.
And maybe you're at this level.
So if you're somewhere aroundthere, Here's the advice that
I'll give you.
So like anything else wheneveryou're new to it, you can make
progress really easily, right?
It's not too difficult to makeprogress.
And oftentimes general thingswork.
(02:31):
For progress and you start tobelieve that.
I can do general things to getspecific results for myself.
But then later on, as you becomemore and more advanced, you have
to put more time in, in order tosee even a fraction of the
results or the improvement orthe change that you used to.
And so first from thepsychological level, What I find
(02:55):
with practitioners is that.
The press handstand level.
Is where, and then advancingbeyond that is where progress
really starts to slow down.
And so that's when.
Sometimes the first time there'slike a psychological battle.
That goes on inside, which is,have I reached.
(03:17):
My full potential.
Have I reached my cap?
And then there's actuallyfrustration because typically
you're still training as hard.
You're still doing things.
And you're still working just ashard as you were before, but
your body isn't changing asquick as it should or your body
isn't.
Now you don't feel like you'reprogressing.
That's fast, but.
(03:37):
The thing with it that happens.
And this is the main, this islike the main sticky point,
which is.
Having this is where you have tostop and reassess what's going
on with your body and where,like with my clients, I like to
do an anatomical assessment.
Meaning.
And this is from the start.
This is from even people who arejust brand new, my beginner
(04:00):
clients.
And so that way.
They have an understanding of.
Why they're limited in the waythey move, but not just why
they're limited in the way theymove, but anatomically, what is
preventing specific types ofmovements and what is.
Inhibiting other types of rangesof motion.
So there's a clear understandingthere.
(04:21):
Now when you get to a press handsend, it's a really good time to
reassess this.
And go back and understand,okay.
I have to look at now, what'slimiting me and what's going on.
And.
So when you're at that level,It's like a good reset button,
which is push the reset button.
Assume you're starting at groundzero.
(04:44):
And you are.
Now having a climb your way tothe top again.
So let's just imagine that bygetting to a press handstand,
you've now put yourself in thetop 1% of.
Practitioners out there, but nowthat you've just got it, you're
at the very bottom of that top1%.
And in order to now move upagain.
(05:05):
You have to hit that resetbutton, realize I need a new
foundation and I have to startfrom scratch with the beginner
eye, even though it's harder todo the more advanced you get,
but it's very powerful to dothis.
And.
Get to work.
And and, as I always say anyway,like my most advanced
practitioners understand this,which is.
(05:26):
The best, never get bored of thebasics.
Which means having foundationaland fundamental.
Pieces in place for yourtraining is incredibly
important, but also at the sametime, realizing that.
Having that understanding andunderstanding that fundamentals
and foundational things aregood.
You have to look at where thegaps are in your foundation or
(05:48):
in those fundamental pieces inorder to really go to the next
level.
And so it becomes a lot morespecific in training.
And so what that looks like isso typically like the way I like
to look at it is.
The target for.
Advanced lifts on the floor.
Being able to do a V sit up tohands-down.
And what that means is, andeveryone is different in this
(06:10):
case, right?
There's all sorts.
There's different kinds of presshandstands, right?
Just because five people can alldo a press handstand.
That doesn't mean.
That there.
Anatomy is all the same or thestrengths and the weaknesses in
their body is all the same.
So sometimes people will haveless moment.
Less Mo less mobility.
(06:31):
And more strength and do a presshandstand.
And sometimes they'll have morestrength and less mobility,
right?
And then that varies forindividual muscles.
Like sometimes someone's armscan be weaker than the others
someone's bat could activatemore than the others.
Someone's hamstrings could bemore mobile than the other
someone's hip flexors could workdifferent and.
In than the others, all slightvariations, but still.
(06:54):
It's enough for them to get tothe press.
So in order to get to the nextlevel, the thing that you have
to do and.
And again, this is something youcan do totally by yourself.
If you're training on your own.
But you have to take the time.
So I use an app it's calledcomplete anatomy, 2023, or it's
(07:15):
called complete anatomy, but itupdates.
Every year.
Is take the time in that app togo through.
And look at the muscles.
There's a section in there whichallows you to.
Look at the way muscles move andhow they affect ranges of
movement in the body.
(07:35):
Get yourself familiar withthose.
So that at least you canformulate or have a general kind
of understanding of the way themuscles work in your body
relative to your practice.
And then you can make ahypothesis and say this muscle
is creating this movement.
This muscle is creating thislack of movement, et cetera, et
cetera.
(07:56):
And then the plan that you makefor yourself is you have to
decide, okay.
Which areas of my bodyspecifically do I feel is
weakest.
Which areas do I feel are theweakest and I'm going to attack
those first.
I'm going to attack thosespecific anatomical points.
First.
And then see what happens.
(08:17):
And typically what you'll findis that.
When you're working on your weakpoints and you're working on
your.
The things in your body thatneed the most work that's when
you improve the fastest.
And that's why beginners tend tomake.
Improvements real quickly onthings because most of their
body is weak and you can quicklystart to make changes because
(08:41):
everything you work on is yourweakness, but as you get better
and better at things, and youget stronger and stronger.
You've got things that now.
Don't improve nearly as muchwith the same amount of.
Same amount of work becausethey're just better.
That's the strong points, right?
That's really the definition ofplateaus training plateaus is
when you've been working onstuff enough to where they
(09:03):
become strong points.
To where, when you started withsomething effectively.
You could spend 1% of the timeon something and get a 99%
improvement, but then itswitches where you can spend 99%
of your time on something.
And barely only get a 1%improvement.
That's a plateau.
So you have to go back.
And.
(09:23):
Then.
Say to yourself.
My number one priority.
If I want to advance my practiceis I need beyond a press.
Handstand is I need to figureout.
Exactly which areas of my bodyare the weakest, so that I can
zero in on training on thosethings.
It becomes spot specific, right?
(09:46):
It becomes a very spot specificthing, which is large
improvements will come fromtraining.
Your weakest links, training theareas in your body that are the
weakest and the more.
The more that you can adopt thatapproach.
The more you can keep movingyour practice forward.
And that's really what you haveto do.
(10:07):
You say to yourself?
And this is the question to askyourself if you're at press
Hanson and you're stuck and youwant to go further, ask yourself
the question, which area of mybody is weak and what's
preventing me from movingforward.
And if you can't answer thosequestions, that's where you have
to pause.
And your time is far better.
Spent.
Learning the mechanics of yourbody and the weaknesses
(10:28):
currently.
And assess them honestly.
So that way you can make aconcerted effort to make those
things better.
And.
And.
Oftentimes like some.
Two categories of people, right?
Sometimes there's people whojust want the end result, which
in that case, it gets realdifficult.
And there's other people wholike to learn, right?
They like to understand theanatomy, the way their body
(10:49):
works.
It's crucial for this.
It's really crucial to take thetime to learn these things and
understand these things.
So that way you can hone in onthem.
Because then once you do getthere and once you do get, once
you get to that understanding.
Knowing that, but then workingon that and being correct in
your assumption or in youranalysis and saying, yeah, this
(11:10):
is weak.
This is.
What's going on.
Your practice will start toimprove, right?
Your practice.
We'll literally start toimprove.
There's nothing.
That is more, there's nothing.
That's that is more sure-firefor improvement than
understanding.
The muscles in your body thatare weak.
Or are not conditioned to workin ways that you want them to
(11:32):
work and work on conditioning,those muscles to work in new
ways or to work on the musclesthat are weak and make them
stronger.
That's the fastest way toimprove your body.
And.
Getting to that, get into that.
And that's the whole approach wetake, in our program is just
well, understand your weakness.
I think the.
The greatest gift that I cangive to people is not do this
(11:54):
exercise.
Do this exercise, do this.
It's giving them, it's givingthem the certainty and the
understanding that, okay, thisis the point or part of your
body that's weak.
And when you train this is thechange that will happen in the
way your body moves.
And when you train with thatlevel of certainty, it makes it
far easier.
To not only improve, but itmakes it far easier to keep
(12:16):
going.
Because I know what it's likewhen you get to a certain point
in.
Your practice.
And you get to a.
Certain level in your training.
Especially when you're used toquick improvements, the problem.
Is that the more advanced youget, the harder you have to
work.
(12:37):
For less improvement for less ofa game.
And that's where likefrustration kicks in and that's
where the psychological sidekicks in, because then there's
always the question.
Of well is what I'm doingcorrect is what I'm doing.
Moving me forward is what I'mdoing.
Creating.
That the environment necessaryfor my body to improve.
(12:59):
And then you've got that side ofit, which is like the
psychological seed of doubt,which is sometimes I don't know
what's working.
And sometimes I think it'sworking, but it's not, or it's
not improving at the speed thatI want it to improve that.
The best advice I could give youfor this is to understand that.
(13:20):
Progress sometimes is aboutslowing down.
Versus speeding up.
It's not always speeding througheverything.
It's not always about.
That moving through thingsquickly.
In fact, like one of my mantrasfor training is to make haste
slowly.
And what that means is movequickly through things.
(13:42):
I mean progress through all theskills and things you want to
learn.
But at the same time, Giveyourself enough time to actually
improve.
Because this is the point inyour practice.
If you are more advanced whereyou start to be, you almost
start to drive yourself mad.
Which is I'm training every day.
I'm not seeing improvements, soI'm going to try something else
(14:04):
and then I'm going to trysomething else.
And then I'm going to do thisfor a little bit and it doesn't
work.
And then I'm going to trysomething else and then I'll try
something else again.
And then.
You jumped around too much,right?
This is the madness part of thetraining, the madness phase.
So to speak where you trysomething, it doesn't work and
you keep jumping around toomuch.
And then as a result, you don'timprove, right?
(14:26):
Because you can't stick toanything.
And especially because insociety where today we are more.
What's a good way to describeit.
We're more instantaneous thanever, right?
We like things quick.
We like our Amazon packagesdelivered to us in 20 minutes.
We like our information.
Instantly, right?
We want to know something, wetype it into Google.
So our attention span getsshorter.
And I used to think I used tosubscribe to the theory now I
(14:48):
don't.
Doing the same thing over andover is the definition of
madness or insanity.
But now I think doing the samething over and over.
Is the market of a genius.
It's like the issue withtraining now.
Is people don't stick to thingslong enough.
And they end up changing courseor changing direction long
before they've ever seensomething play out.
(15:09):
And from that perspective.
And from that point of view, Thereality of it is.
Post press handstand progressslows down, right?
Your body is just not going toprogress as quickly as it did,
but then this is where thepsychological battle comes in.
Meaning I have to.
I have to just stick with thingsand you have to be able to
(15:34):
troubleshoot and figure it out,right?
Like in a good amount of time tostick with something.
Is anywhere between two and fourmonths, like three months,
right?
If you're working on a specificbody part, make a concerted
effort.
For that amount of time.
And.
And measure the results.
(15:54):
Right measure the results.
And one of the other things todo this is probably another
really solid piece of advice foryou is that.
Let's say, for example, you aretraining your hip flexors,
right?
Since it fluxes are a big onefor a lot of advanced
practitioners.
You should have a list of whenyou say I'm going to train my
(16:17):
hip flexors, what does that looklike?
That doesn't mean I'm going todo them, sometimes, or I'll try
to do them.
What training, what specificallytraining a body part looks like
meeting.
Okay.
If I'm gonna train the hipflexors.
This is how the hip flexorsaffect movement.
These are baseline exerciseswhere I can gauge the strength
of my hip flexors.
Now.
(16:37):
Let me as I'm training them, goback to my benchmarks.
To check in with those to ensurethat what I'm doing is actually
improving.
Because when it comes to these.
Advanced lifts and it comes tothese.
These more intricate movements.
The.
The thing that you also may notrealize, but is incredibly
(16:59):
important.
Is that the it's like theopposite in this case is that.
Is that the whole is greaterthan the sum of its parts.
Meaning you can train body partsand you may feel like you are
making a little bit of progressand training those body parts to
make them stronger, but that onespecific area of your body is
(17:22):
having.
An X is creating an exponentialimprovement.
In.
The lift that you're trying tocreate.
And so by adding up and doingall of those little pieces, the
sum becomes bigger than whatmay, what it may feel like
training all those individualanatomical pieces.
And can it be boring?
Yes, it can be boring.
(17:43):
It can be.
But training doesn't always haveto be exciting.
In fact, I think.
I think the most effectivetraining is boring training.
Which is.
Do you, what do the thingsspecifically that you need to do
is training the hip flexorsboring.
Yeah.
Is training a specific body partto be stronger or to work in the
context of the functionalitythat you're trying to create?
(18:04):
Boring?
Yeah.
And this is where this is theother thing.
To really pay attention to iswhen people get bored, they tend
to think they're on the wrongtrack, right?
The wrong path.
Boring typically tends to bebetter.
Otherwise what happens, and thisis the other area that I find
more advanced practitioners gooff the rails.
Is they think that the traininghas to be more complex and more
(18:25):
advanced.
And so all of a sudden they'redoing.
All of a sudden they're doingmore strange.
They're doing so many, likecomplicated, complex things.
And I know like social medialoves to glorify this, which is,
I'm doing like I'm doing apistol squat while jumping rope
and holding a kettlebell on theleft-hand and crunching with the
right hand, you know what I'mtalking about.
(18:45):
Like you see these things thatare really advanced and you want
to try them.
Thinking that they're going tobe effective in any way, shape
or form, but it's more for showit's more for likes and it's
more for.
It's more for clicks andattention than it is actual
functionality improvement.
But this is where I see a lot ofadvanced practitioners go.
I was looking at I was lookingat a client of mine.
(19:05):
A new client of mine there.
There with our training regimenwas, and at what their training
regimen was for, again, this is.
This is someone who can alreadydo a press handstand.
That's looking to go further.
And somehow it was like amishmash of like kettlebells,
like TRX and all sorts of otherthings like mixed together in
(19:28):
the training.
And it was like, More quoteunquote advanced exercises and
intricate exercises, but no realfocus anatomically.
And that's.
Where that's another thing toconsider, which is if I want
direction in my practice.
Yeah, a boring practice with ananatomical focus is far more
effective.
(19:48):
Then no focus, no anatomicalfocused and advanced, intricate
Instagram.
Social media like exercises.
That kind of just, yeah, they'refun to do.
It's yeah, it's great.
I can try and do this and thatand balance on a kettlebell
while doing crunches and swingthrough TRX ropes.
Yeah.
That's all fun.
And that's great.
It's fun to try, but.
Is it really effective atbuilding up the areas in your
(20:10):
body that you need to build?
Having that focus.
Is most important.
I just looked at the time.
It's over 20 minutes already.
So I'll wrap it up here.
Now, if this was helpful foryou, this was useful.
My social media is in the shownotes below.
You can tag me in a story onInstagram and just let me know
what you learned, how you'regoing to apply it to your
(20:31):
practice, et cetera, et cetera.
And.
If you are enjoying this show,there's a couple of ways you can
support it.
Number one.
You can share it with someonewho you feel like would benefit
from it.
If you know someone who wouldbenefit from the stuff I share
on this.
The greatest thing you can do tohelp support it is to just share
the show and two you can takesome time to leave a review on
itunes or spotify or whereveryou listen to podcast episodes
(20:53):
And that way just helps thealgorithm and helps to get the
show out to people who wouldbenefit the most from it all
right so let's i've got for youon today's show have a good rest
of your day and i'll talk to yousoon
so the other day I sent out.
An email.
To my list.
And I asked for topics.
That they wanted to hear.
Or they wanted to cover.
And so generally whenever I dothis, I always find that rarely
be advice is ever in the middle.
And what I mean is that there'stwo camps.
(00:20):
There's either people who are.
Brand new, very beginner.
Just looking to get started withpress handstand or a very
limited experience.
And then those who are reallyadvanced.
Who already at the presshandstand level, but want to go
further?
That means like into the groundlifts and like L sits and visits
to handstands and straddle listsfrom the floor to Hansen, that
(00:42):
kind of thing.
So what I am going to do is anepisode for both and covering.
Advice for both brand newbeginners to press handstand and
more advanced practitioners now.
Today's show I'm going to coveradvanced practitioners
specifically.
And what I mean by advanced iswe're going to talk about the
(01:02):
lifts required or the liftsbeyond press handstand.
So a lot of the seated liftsfrom the ground BCIT's.
L sits to handstands.
Seated, straddle lifts tohandstands.
For all the yoga practitioners,all the third series.
Ashtanga lifts like Ostrovacross another handstand, low
Lawson on a handstand.
All the other variations ofthings you can do from the
(01:24):
ground, lifting yourself up.
So here's what to do.
So people tend to findthemselves in a plateau.
Once they get to.
The press handstand, right?
That's the skill where.
Some people will get too.
And they're good.
They're just like, all right,there's my achievement.
I'm done.
I don't want to go any furtherthan this.
(01:45):
And then there's another groupof people who want to go
further.
Into all the other lifts fromthe ground.
Those types of things, butthere's always a learning curve
between the two of them.
Which is it's like the firsttime again that they hit like a
real plateau, right?
Okay, I'm here to press, butanything beyond that, Is.
(02:09):
Now, it feels like it'scompletely out of reach for me.
What do I do?
Okay.
And maybe you're at this level.
So if you're somewhere aroundthere, Here's the advice that
I'll give you.
So like anything else wheneveryou're new to it, you can make
progress really easily, right?
It's not too difficult to makeprogress.
And oftentimes general thingswork.
(02:31):
For progress and you start tobelieve that.
I can do general things to getspecific results for myself.
But then later on, as you becomemore and more advanced, you have
to put more time in, in order tosee even a fraction of the
results or the improvement orthe change that you used to.
And so first from thepsychological level, What I find
(02:55):
with practitioners is that.
The press handstand level.
Is where, and then advancingbeyond that is where progress
really starts to slow down.
And so that's when.
Sometimes the first time there'slike a psychological battle.
That goes on inside, which is,have I reached.
(03:17):
My full potential.
Have I reached my cap?
And then there's actuallyfrustration because typically
you're still training as hard.
You're still doing things.
And you're still working just ashard as you were before, but
your body isn't changing asquick as it should or your body
isn't.
Now you don't feel like you'reprogressing.
That's fast, but.
(03:37):
The thing with it that happens.
And this is the main, this islike the main sticky point,
which is.
Having this is where you have tostop and reassess what's going
on with your body and where,like with my clients, I like to
do an anatomical assessment.
Meaning.
And this is from the start.
This is from even people who arejust brand new, my beginner
(04:00):
clients.
And so that way.
They have an understanding of.
Why they're limited in the waythey move, but not just why
they're limited in the way theymove, but anatomically, what is
preventing specific types ofmovements and what is.
Inhibiting other types of rangesof motion.
So there's a clear understandingthere.
(04:21):
Now when you get to a press handsend, it's a really good time to
reassess this.
And go back and understand,okay.
I have to look at now, what'slimiting me and what's going on.
And.
So when you're at that level,It's like a good reset button,
which is push the reset button.
Assume you're starting at groundzero.
(04:44):
And you are.
Now having a climb your way tothe top again.
So let's just imagine that bygetting to a press handstand,
you've now put yourself in thetop 1% of.
Practitioners out there, but nowthat you've just got it, you're
at the very bottom of that top1%.
And in order to now move upagain.
(05:05):
You have to hit that resetbutton, realize I need a new
foundation and I have to startfrom scratch with the beginner
eye, even though it's harder todo the more advanced you get,
but it's very powerful to dothis.
And.
Get to work.
And and, as I always say anyway,like my most advanced
practitioners understand this,which is.
(05:26):
The best, never get bored of thebasics.
Which means having foundationaland fundamental.
Pieces in place for yourtraining is incredibly
important, but also at the sametime, realizing that.
Having that understanding andunderstanding that fundamentals
and foundational things aregood.
You have to look at where thegaps are in your foundation or
(05:48):
in those fundamental pieces inorder to really go to the next
level.
And so it becomes a lot morespecific in training.
And so what that looks like isso typically like the way I like
to look at it is.
The target for.
Advanced lifts on the floor.
Being able to do a V sit up tohands-down.
And what that means is, andeveryone is different in this
(06:10):
case, right?
There's all sorts.
There's different kinds of presshandstands, right?
Just because five people can alldo a press handstand.
That doesn't mean.
That there.
Anatomy is all the same or thestrengths and the weaknesses in
their body is all the same.
So sometimes people will haveless moment.
Less Mo less mobility.
(06:31):
And more strength and do a presshandstand.
And sometimes they'll have morestrength and less mobility,
right?
And then that varies forindividual muscles.
Like sometimes someone's armscan be weaker than the others
someone's bat could activatemore than the others.
Someone's hamstrings could bemore mobile than the other
someone's hip flexors could workdifferent and.
In than the others, all slightvariations, but still.
(06:54):
It's enough for them to get tothe press.
So in order to get to the nextlevel, the thing that you have
to do and.
And again, this is something youcan do totally by yourself.
If you're training on your own.
But you have to take the time.
So I use an app it's calledcomplete anatomy, 2023, or it's
(07:15):
called complete anatomy, but itupdates.
Every year.
Is take the time in that app togo through.
And look at the muscles.
There's a section in there whichallows you to.
Look at the way muscles move andhow they affect ranges of
movement in the body.
(07:35):
Get yourself familiar withthose.
So that at least you canformulate or have a general kind
of understanding of the way themuscles work in your body
relative to your practice.
And then you can make ahypothesis and say this muscle
is creating this movement.
This muscle is creating thislack of movement, et cetera, et
cetera.
(07:56):
And then the plan that you makefor yourself is you have to
decide, okay.
Which areas of my bodyspecifically do I feel is
weakest.
Which areas do I feel are theweakest and I'm going to attack
those first.
I'm going to attack thosespecific anatomical points.
First.
And then see what happens.
(08:17):
And typically what you'll findis that.
When you're working on your weakpoints and you're working on
your.
The things in your body thatneed the most work that's when
you improve the fastest.
And that's why beginners tend tomake.
Improvements real quickly onthings because most of their
body is weak and you can quicklystart to make changes because
(08:41):
everything you work on is yourweakness, but as you get better
and better at things, and youget stronger and stronger.
You've got things that now.
Don't improve nearly as muchwith the same amount of.
Same amount of work becausethey're just better.
That's the strong points, right?
That's really the definition ofplateaus training plateaus is
when you've been working onstuff enough to where they
(09:03):
become strong points.
To where, when you started withsomething effectively.
You could spend 1% of the timeon something and get a 99%
improvement, but then itswitches where you can spend 99%
of your time on something.
And barely only get a 1%improvement.
That's a plateau.
So you have to go back.
And.
(09:23):
Then.
Say to yourself.
My number one priority.
If I want to advance my practiceis I need beyond a press.
Handstand is I need to figureout.
Exactly which areas of my bodyare the weakest, so that I can
zero in on training on thosethings.
It becomes spot specific, right?
(09:46):
It becomes a very spot specificthing, which is large
improvements will come fromtraining.
Your weakest links, training theareas in your body that are the
weakest and the more.
The more that you can adopt thatapproach.
The more you can keep movingyour practice forward.
And that's really what you haveto do.
(10:07):
You say to yourself?
And this is the question to askyourself if you're at press
Hanson and you're stuck and youwant to go further, ask yourself
the question, which area of mybody is weak and what's
preventing me from movingforward.
And if you can't answer thosequestions, that's where you have
to pause.
And your time is far better.
Spent.
Learning the mechanics of yourbody and the weaknesses
(10:28):
currently.
And assess them honestly.
So that way you can make aconcerted effort to make those
things better.
And.
And.
Oftentimes like some.
Two categories of people, right?
Sometimes there's people whojust want the end result, which
in that case, it gets realdifficult.
And there's other people wholike to learn, right?
They like to understand theanatomy, the way their body
(10:49):
works.
It's crucial for this.
It's really crucial to take thetime to learn these things and
understand these things.
So that way you can hone in onthem.
Because then once you do getthere and once you do get, once
you get to that understanding.
Knowing that, but then workingon that and being correct in
your assumption or in youranalysis and saying, yeah, this
(11:10):
is weak.
This is.
What's going on.
Your practice will start toimprove, right?
Your practice.
We'll literally start toimprove.
There's nothing.
That is more, there's nothing.
That's that is more sure-firefor improvement than
understanding.
The muscles in your body thatare weak.
Or are not conditioned to workin ways that you want them to
(11:32):
work and work on conditioning,those muscles to work in new
ways or to work on the musclesthat are weak and make them
stronger.
That's the fastest way toimprove your body.
And.
Getting to that, get into that.
And that's the whole approach wetake, in our program is just
well, understand your weakness.
I think the.
The greatest gift that I cangive to people is not do this
(11:54):
exercise.
Do this exercise, do this.
It's giving them, it's givingthem the certainty and the
understanding that, okay, thisis the point or part of your
body that's weak.
And when you train this is thechange that will happen in the
way your body moves.
And when you train with thatlevel of certainty, it makes it
far easier.
To not only improve, but itmakes it far easier to keep
(12:16):
going.
Because I know what it's likewhen you get to a certain point
in.
Your practice.
And you get to a.
Certain level in your training.
Especially when you're used toquick improvements, the problem.
Is that the more advanced youget, the harder you have to
work.
(12:37):
For less improvement for less ofa game.
And that's where likefrustration kicks in and that's
where the psychological sidekicks in, because then there's
always the question.
Of well is what I'm doingcorrect is what I'm doing.
Moving me forward is what I'mdoing.
Creating.
That the environment necessaryfor my body to improve.
(12:59):
And then you've got that side ofit, which is like the
psychological seed of doubt,which is sometimes I don't know
what's working.
And sometimes I think it'sworking, but it's not, or it's
not improving at the speed thatI want it to improve that.
The best advice I could give youfor this is to understand that.
(13:20):
Progress sometimes is aboutslowing down.
Versus speeding up.
It's not always speeding througheverything.
It's not always about.
That moving through thingsquickly.
In fact, like one of my mantrasfor training is to make haste
slowly.
And what that means is movequickly through things.
(13:42):
I mean progress through all theskills and things you want to
learn.
But at the same time, Giveyourself enough time to actually
improve.
Because this is the point inyour practice.
If you are more advanced whereyou start to be, you almost
start to drive yourself mad.
Which is I'm training every day.
I'm not seeing improvements, soI'm going to try something else
(14:04):
and then I'm going to trysomething else.
And then I'm going to do thisfor a little bit and it doesn't
work.
And then I'm going to trysomething else and then I'll try
something else again.
And then.
You jumped around too much,right?
This is the madness part of thetraining, the madness phase.
So to speak where you trysomething, it doesn't work and
you keep jumping around toomuch.
And then as a result, you don'timprove, right?
(14:26):
Because you can't stick toanything.
And especially because insociety where today we are more.
What's a good way to describeit.
We're more instantaneous thanever, right?
We like things quick.
We like our Amazon packagesdelivered to us in 20 minutes.
We like our information.
Instantly, right?
We want to know something, wetype it into Google.
So our attention span getsshorter.
And I used to think I used tosubscribe to the theory now I
(14:48):
don't.
Doing the same thing over andover is the definition of
madness or insanity.
But now I think doing the samething over and over.
Is the market of a genius.
It's like the issue withtraining now.
Is people don't stick to thingslong enough.
And they end up changing courseor changing direction long
before they've ever seensomething play out.
(15:09):
And from that perspective.
And from that point of view, Thereality of it is.
Post press handstand progressslows down, right?
Your body is just not going toprogress as quickly as it did,
but then this is where thepsychological battle comes in.
Meaning I have to.
I have to just stick with thingsand you have to be able to
(15:34):
troubleshoot and figure it out,right?
Like in a good amount of time tostick with something.
Is anywhere between two and fourmonths, like three months,
right?
If you're working on a specificbody part, make a concerted
effort.
For that amount of time.
And.
And measure the results.
(15:54):
Right measure the results.
And one of the other things todo this is probably another
really solid piece of advice foryou is that.
Let's say, for example, you aretraining your hip flexors,
right?
Since it fluxes are a big onefor a lot of advanced
practitioners.
You should have a list of whenyou say I'm going to train my
(16:17):
hip flexors, what does that looklike?
That doesn't mean I'm going todo them, sometimes, or I'll try
to do them.
What training, what specificallytraining a body part looks like
meeting.
Okay.
If I'm gonna train the hipflexors.
This is how the hip flexorsaffect movement.
These are baseline exerciseswhere I can gauge the strength
of my hip flexors.
Now.
(16:37):
Let me as I'm training them, goback to my benchmarks.
To check in with those to ensurethat what I'm doing is actually
improving.
Because when it comes to these.
Advanced lifts and it comes tothese.
These more intricate movements.
The.
The thing that you also may notrealize, but is incredibly
(16:59):
important.
Is that the it's like theopposite in this case is that.
Is that the whole is greaterthan the sum of its parts.
Meaning you can train body partsand you may feel like you are
making a little bit of progressand training those body parts to
make them stronger, but that onespecific area of your body is
(17:22):
having.
An X is creating an exponentialimprovement.
In.
The lift that you're trying tocreate.
And so by adding up and doingall of those little pieces, the
sum becomes bigger than whatmay, what it may feel like
training all those individualanatomical pieces.
And can it be boring?
Yes, it can be boring.
(17:43):
It can be.
But training doesn't always haveto be exciting.
In fact, I think.
I think the most effectivetraining is boring training.
Which is.
Do you, what do the thingsspecifically that you need to do
is training the hip flexorsboring.
Yeah.
Is training a specific body partto be stronger or to work in the
context of the functionalitythat you're trying to create?
(18:04):
Boring?
Yeah.
And this is where this is theother thing.
To really pay attention to iswhen people get bored, they tend
to think they're on the wrongtrack, right?
The wrong path.
Boring typically tends to bebetter.
Otherwise what happens, and thisis the other area that I find
more advanced practitioners gooff the rails.
Is they think that the traininghas to be more complex and more
(18:25):
advanced.
And so all of a sudden they'redoing.
All of a sudden they're doingmore strange.
They're doing so many, likecomplicated, complex things.
And I know like social medialoves to glorify this, which is,
I'm doing like I'm doing apistol squat while jumping rope
and holding a kettlebell on theleft-hand and crunching with the
right hand, you know what I'mtalking about.
(18:45):
Like you see these things thatare really advanced and you want
to try them.
Thinking that they're going tobe effective in any way, shape
or form, but it's more for showit's more for likes and it's
more for.
It's more for clicks andattention than it is actual
functionality improvement.
But this is where I see a lot ofadvanced practitioners go.
I was looking at I was lookingat a client of mine.
(19:05):
A new client of mine there.
There with our training regimenwas, and at what their training
regimen was for, again, this is.
This is someone who can alreadydo a press handstand.
That's looking to go further.
And somehow it was like amishmash of like kettlebells,
like TRX and all sorts of otherthings like mixed together in
(19:28):
the training.
And it was like, More quoteunquote advanced exercises and
intricate exercises, but no realfocus anatomically.
And that's.
Where that's another thing toconsider, which is if I want
direction in my practice.
Yeah, a boring practice with ananatomical focus is far more
effective.
(19:48):
Then no focus, no anatomicalfocused and advanced, intricate
Instagram.
Social media like exercises.
That kind of just, yeah, they'refun to do.
It's yeah, it's great.
I can try and do this and thatand balance on a kettlebell
while doing crunches and swingthrough TRX ropes.
Yeah.
That's all fun.
And that's great.
It's fun to try, but.
Is it really effective atbuilding up the areas in your
(20:10):
body that you need to build?
Having that focus.
Is most important.
I just looked at the time.
It's over 20 minutes already.
So I'll wrap it up here.
Now, if this was helpful foryou, this was useful.
My social media is in the shownotes below.
You can tag me in a story onInstagram and just let me know
what you learned, how you'regoing to apply it to your
(20:31):
practice, et cetera, et cetera.
And.
If you are enjoying this show,there's a couple of ways you can
support it.
Number one.
You can share it with someonewho you feel like would benefit
from it.
If you know someone who wouldbenefit from the stuff I share
on this.
The greatest thing you can do tohelp support it is to just share
the show and two you can takesome time to leave a review on
itunes or spotify or whereveryou listen to podcast episodes
(20:53):
And that way just helps thealgorithm and helps to get the
show out to people who wouldbenefit the most from it all
right so let's i've got for youon today's show have a good rest
of your day and i'll talk to yousoon
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