February 15, 2023 • 25 mins
New Insight on Press Handstand for 2023 | The Asana Academy Podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So 2023 marks the year that I'veofficially been.
Training clients online andworking with people online on
their press handstands for 10years.
That's a full decade now.
Of just working with peopleonline.
And not quite yet.
I believe it's more towards thesummer or more towards the fall
(00:21):
that will mark 10 years.
But 2023 is now officiallyworking with people online for
10 years.
And.
One of the things.
That I strive to do.
Is.
Every year, I try to gain somenew insight on how I can more
efficiently.
Work with clients and how I canmore efficiently.
(00:44):
Deliver training in a sequenceand sequences that are actually
extremely powerful and extremelypotent.
And one of the, one of thethings that.
I learned, especially now, Iwould say from the era of COVID.
And then through 2022.
(01:06):
And especially through 2022.
Is that when something is reallywhen a training plan is really
dialed in.
To a person's body, they haverapid improvements.
They have rapid improvements intheir practice.
And so press hands down is more.
And if you've been following mefor a while, this, that press
(01:27):
handstand is a lot aboutbuilding movement patterns and
less about building.
Sheer strength.
Yeah, the strength is importantand it's necessary.
But building the correctmovement patterns is even more
important.
And so piecing together.
Movement patterns.
Is one of the, one of thestumbling blocks for most
(01:51):
people.
It's just, they haven't yetdeveloped.
The patterns and their body.
And that's really what a presshandstand is at its core is it's
your body's ability to execute awhole basket.
So to speak of movement patternsall at once.
And then you can break that downinto kind of smaller components.
And say this is what the armsare supposed to do.
(02:11):
This is what it's supposed tofeel like.
This is what the hips aresupposed to do.
This is what that feels like.
This is what the key Wells.
Should be doing when they'reworking correctly.
That's what that feels like.
And you can go throughout thebody, but for the most part,
it's mastering those movementpatterns.
And one of the things that.
Helped me immensely.
(02:32):
Was especially like when I firststarted.
Online, like working with peoplethrough various programs and
various capacities.
It was mostly all yogapractitioners.
And one of the things thatstarted to help me.
Was, and this made the shiftaround 2016 ish or so 2017.
I was, I started to market a lotof my programs towards people
(02:55):
who didn't practice yoga.
Or weren't necessarily like thedaily, go to yoga classes and
been practicing for years.
But at other backgrounds likeweightlifting athletics,
CrossFit all sorts of differentbackgrounds, runners.
And so you start to see that.
Every person that comes totrain.
(03:16):
That learns a press handstandcomes from a different spot.
There's a different point ofview.
And though where they arecurrently is just a result of
the movement patterns that theirbody has developed historically.
So no matter what it is, yourbackground, no matter what your
background is, athletically orhow you move your body or how
(03:37):
you haven't moved your body, bythe way.
Your brain is always creatingmovement patterns.
For itself, you're it's alwayscreating and the way your brain
works is it's a very efficientmechanism.
And then fortunately our brainis really smart in some ways,
and it's really dumb andotherwise.
And.
I know the downside of ourbrain.
Is that whenever our body moves.
(03:58):
We tend to, our brain says, huh?
Let me create this type of.
Pattern, let me emboss the newpattern.
In the body and in the muscles.
And let me, Make, let me justtrain this specific movement or
this specific way of moving,even if it's dangerous.
So even if it's, even if it'ssomething that harms you or
(04:18):
something that's bad for yourback or your shoulder or your
leg or your hamstring, whateverthat is, your body still creates
the pattern.
It's still your brain createsthat pattern because the brain
recognizes a pattern byrepetition.
The more you do something, themore your body identifies it as
a pattern.
And the more it starts tocreate.
(04:40):
The ease and the pathways foryour body to do or create that
movement or pattern more easily.
And different people withdifferent backgrounds, all have
different patterns coming in.
And so one of the things that Iand this was what really changed
I think a lot, and this is whereyour perspective can change too.
Is.
(05:01):
Understand that a lot of.
A lot of learning.
Too.
Do a press handstand or a lot ofcreating a new movement pattern
or series of movement patternsmeans unlearning old ones.
Which is I have to.
I have to like Berget.
The old patterns so that I canthen start to create these new
(05:25):
ones.
And I have to retrain myself inthat way.
And a really good example is Nis take baseball and golf.
It's.
As someone like me, right?
Who played baseball when I was akid and plays golf occasionally
now.
On the surface, they're verysimilar movements.
You're swinging a bat with yourtwo hands and you're swinging a
club with two hands.
(05:46):
But.
Once you spend even more thantwo minutes swinging a baseball
bat and swinging a golf club.
Yeah.
You're both swinging an object,but there, the mechanics are
very different.
And you start to carry overthose mechanics from one to the
other without realizing.
That you're doing it.
And it's interesting because.
(06:08):
It's interesting because for mehaving done.
Press handstands for so long andhaving moved my body in this way
for so long.
Whenever I go and I embark onsome kind of different sport or
a different kind of movementwith my body.
It's really apparent.
Which movement patterns areembedded in which aren't.
(06:31):
But this is really where a lot,like the start.
And I can tell you definitively,like this is something that.
I see.
With with a press handstandspecifically.
Is that.
Because it's a type of patternwhere the skill ceiling is so
high.
And the example of a patternwhere the skill ceiling is
(06:52):
lower.
It's like brushing your teeth,right?
There's not, it's not a reallyhigh, complex movement.
So you can develop that.
You can learn that and embody itpretty quickly and you can do it
from the start.
But when the complexity of themovement is so high, the D the
degree at which the body createsthe pattern has a much smaller
margin for error.
And it takes a little more timebecause you have to build up to
(07:13):
it.
It's not something you can justdo.
Right away.
So a lot of people hit what'scalled the.
They're there.
They're basically that theirstrength ceiling.
Which is there they'recompletely falling, training the
strength on their own.
Like you can build the differentcomponents for it, but the press
handstand is of the it's one ofthe skills where the sum of the
(07:37):
parts doesn't necessarily add upto the whole, right?
Like you can have all the piecesper se.
Eh, And I see it a lot of time.
With clients, which is on thesurface, they have the strength
on the surface.
They have the mobility.
On the surface, they may havethese things, but what they're
doing is they're lackingcritical movement patterns that
block the movement.
(07:59):
And.
Though that lack of those lackof movement patterns are the
things that actually.
Prevent.
Someone from moving forward intoa technical movement.
And that's why.
And that's why, again, if you'vebeen following me for awhile, I
think, my stance on this too,which is because sometimes
people at last why not justpractice a press handstand over
(08:20):
and over.
But the issue with that is it's.
If you practice it wrong, youbuild the wrong pattern.
So you train your body to do it.
And I've seen this too, I'veseen this too, where people have
developed an over dependency ofthe shoulders because they're
practicing and they're notlifting.
So they developed this overdependency of the shoulders
instead of actually engagingtheir largest and most and the
(08:44):
muscles in the body and yourtorso.
That can generate the moststrength or the highest
potential for strength, right?
And this is where you can lookback.
This is where you can look in,look back into it and you can
say.
So let me even take a step backhere.
On your torso.
You've got larger muscles.
You've got small muscles.
And typically for balance andfunctionality in your body,
(09:07):
there's a general rule.
And the amount that you use amuscle on your torso is, should
be proportional to the surfacearea of the muscle itself.
Basically a fancy way of sayinguse your larger muscles more
depend on your larger muscles,more AK your core muscles, your
TVA, and use your smallermuscles less, right?
(09:27):
Your shoulders, your traps, etcetera, et cetera.
From that from that point ofview, like one of the things
that I have really moved awayfrom is.
And I've seen this nowfirsthand.
So one of the things that Iexperimented with in 2022 with
clients specifically, Was evenmore focused.
Movement pattern, movement,pattern specific.
(09:51):
Sequences for them and less.
So because actually when you'retrying to build movement
patterns, If you train anywherenear your body to exhaustion are
typically high volume training.
You tend to erode your body'sability to create the pattern
effectively.
Because now when you're tired,The more you train exhausted the
(10:13):
more your body defaults back toits old patterns.
So it's works counterintuitive.
Tor towards.
Building a press handstand.
So I actually found.
And I scan and even more sotoday, what I really like to do.
With clients is I like to takeeven more time to analyze what
(10:33):
their background is and thetypes of patterns they've
created, because what I've seen.
Is that when someone properlyaddresses their, the movement
patterns that they have.
And you can see the patternsthat kind of hold people back.
Like whether that's back painand injury or whatever kind of
(10:54):
sport they played.
It ultimately ends up.
Being like that main criticalthing.
Like the inability for someoneto stack their hips over their
shoulders can be largelydependent on an old pattern.
That they created maybe throughsports, maybe they played
(11:15):
volleyball.
Maybe they were a swimmer.
And they were using theirshoulders or they were using
their back in the wrong way ortheir QL in the wrong way.
The focus.
Th the focus and even more so ison how to create.
Movement patterns and the body.
That can help address the oldones that pave a new path for
(11:39):
someone to properly execute themovements.
And that actually means less.
And a lot of people who arereally hardcore in a training,
right?
If you're a yoga practitionerespecially in, you're used to
doing, and I know there's notvery many 90 minute classes any
more, but let's say for example,you do are stronger and you're
used to powering through everyday and doing that 90 minute
practice at 90 minute training.
(12:00):
And a lot of cases, it's toomuch.
It's too much, there's there,you're just exhausting your body
and not giving time to improvebecause.
Because the thing is like thepatterns are difficult to build.
The strength is easy.
Like it's really easy to buildthe strength.
If someone doesn't have thestrength.
Two.
(12:21):
To do a press handstand.
The strength can be built reallyquickly.
And if someone doesn't have thestrength that's an indicator
that they're doing somethingdrastically wrong in there and
our training, but this cause thestrength is easy to build.
The patterns are what takes thetime.
So I don't even really focus somuch on.
Like strength building from thestart.
(12:41):
Like I used to pair the twotogether, but now I've actually
made it even more.
I found it's even morebeneficial to do shorter
sequences.
If you're doing the right thingin 20 minutes a day, you can
start to shift your body'sability.
You can not shift your body'sability to create new patterns
and you can create thosepatterns quickly.
(13:01):
Quickly and.
Efficiently, but sometimesstrength building is actually
counterintuitive and it gets inthe way of that.
So being even more hyper-focusedon.
Overtrain on over-training.
And actually.
Instilling, even under trainingin some cases to make sure that
the patterns are built becausethen after, after you have those
(13:24):
patterns, The strength comesvery easily.
It comes very easily.
And you've got the patterns thatback the string.
You're building the foundationfor a house before you actually
start to build the house on topof it, and that's really
effective.
And that also makes it a lotmore accessible.
To people who, and most of thetime too, it's like faulty
movement patterns or mechanics,or what actually have just held.
(13:47):
They held people back in termsof injuries and chronic pain and
that type of stuff, which isjust bad patterns.
That's what chronic pain is.
It's just your body's createdbad patterns.
And it's another thing I seeMost people have been injured at
some point in their life.
Doing something or other, andwhen your body is injured, it
tends to.
Create different patterns,right?
(14:08):
If you have, if you pull a backmuscle, you learn to walk in a
different way.
Because you're catering to thatmuscle.
And if that muscle is beeninjured for a few months, like
your body creates a new pattern,you don't realize that even
after the muscle heals, you'restill walking in a different
way, which then impacts your legmuscles and impacts your hip
flexors and impacts all sorts ofother things that go on.
(14:30):
Taking the time to properlyreverse those.
Is, that's also the ticket toovercoming pain, because if
you've got chronic pain, ifyou've got back pain I think the
message that people sometimes.
Sometimes people lose,especially the ones that haven't
followed me for a while thatdon't really understand kind of
the synergy of everything that Iteach, but the press handstand
(14:51):
is a very powerful tool forovercoming pain.
And the reason that is, isbecause you have to basically
clean out and address thoseolder patterns and replace them
with newer, healthier patterns,empowering patterns for the
body.
And that's how you remove pain.
Right patterns.
Otherwise, anything you do isjust short term and that can
actually be done.
(15:11):
In 20 minutes per day.
Also cause sometimes, and wehave a lot of clients who just
work with us for back pain.
They've got like back painissues.
That's really easy, overcomeback pain.
It's let's just ID the movementpatterns that are causing the
back pain and let's train themuscles to work correctly
because a lot of times when youhave pain at the skeletal level,
you.
(15:32):
Painted the skeletal level wasbrought on by muscular
dysfunction, right?
By.
Dysfunction at the muscularlevel and then dysfunction at
the muscular level over time iswhat leads to deeper, deeper.
Pain, skeletal problems,skeletal pain.
Bones, dislodged, a lot of stuffgoing on in your back, the back,
especially like any kind of backand neck and spinal injuries and
(15:54):
sciatic and those kinds ofthings.
Started from musculardysfunction.
It did not start.
It did not start withoutmuscular dysfunction without a
T.
There was muscular dysfunctionin there at some time.
And when you dress that youaddress that problem.
That's that is actually one ofthe, that's actually one of the
big takeaways.
The one of the big takeaways isless, is more and being
(16:17):
specifically targeted on tothings being targeted on very
unique movement patterns.
Is, and that's why the Mo it'sfunny because the more I.
The more that I work withpeople, the more I see so many
different unique scenarios.
And for me, the approach is fun.
Because everyone has a slightlydifferent path to get to the
(16:38):
same end goal.
And their body just is there.
Their body is just there.
Their body is just verydifferent.
And you have to take thosethings into account.
Because another thing too, thatI find in and.
I'm guilty of this at times too,because I love training is that
when people overtrain, it tendsto lead to injuries.
(17:00):
And when you get injured.
From when you get injured fromtraining, you, it throws you
back more than anything else.
Doing, doing two hour longtraining sessions or even in an
intense hour for developing theskill for press handstand is too
much.
It's too much.
And you have to just scale thatback to ensure.
(17:23):
That your body has the time tobuild the patterns effectively.
And then you can start to buildthat.
And from there.
So that's a big and for me,that's what I'm double, that's
what I'm doubling down on withclients in 2023.
Is.
Is less affect, less sheertraining volume, but more
(17:43):
effective training volume thatfocuses more directly on
addressing the movement patternsfrom the start.
Because the strength is builtlike in, in my experience, like
once somebody has the movementpatterns, they build the
strength easily.
Like they build the strengtheasily.
And then it's a functionalstrength that, that.
Prepares them.
(18:04):
For the movement.
So it's taking the time.
To really go in and taking thetime to really go in and learn
those patterns.
And then for yourself as apractitioner, Like for for
yourself as a practitioner.
There is.
Things that cause a lot ofpeople when they're training for
press handstand, It's verystrength oriented, meaning.
(18:28):
I just feel like I need to buildmore strength, but 99.
99 times out of a hundred, likethat's the easy part.
And that's.
That's why it becomes it becomesdifficult, right?
Like you get stuck.
That's why so many people.
Plateau.
Is because they have beentraining, just nothing for
strength then.
(18:48):
And it's really easy, right?
If you get on, if you get onlike YouTube and search for
press hands down, like a lot ofit is all just strength
building.
Or they're drills, which are,which a lot of the drills are.
Technically advanced that.
Your body can't.
It's a movement pattern in andof itself to execute the drill.
(19:09):
So it comes down to first kindof building those.
Those individual, thoseindividual things.
And then the S the second.
The moving on.
My, the second thing I'verealized more and more with
people is that I like to adoptthe mentality.
(19:31):
Which is make haste slowly.
And what that means.
Is.
You have to approach trainingthe body with the proper mindset
hints.
I have a whole.
A whole podcast called mindsetdaily that I started this year.
It's in the show notes, you cancheck it out.
(19:52):
But having the right mindset andto give yourself the space.
To actually evolve and actuallydevelop and actually grow.
Is so critical when learning anew technical skill, right?
Like press Hanson is a highlytechnical skill.
And you have to go into it.
(20:14):
With the understanding that it'sgoing to take hundreds of tries
thousands of failed attempts,thousands of exercises and
minutes you're putting into it.
And oftentime with no returnright away.
Like with no return because Ifind the biggest form of self
sabotage that.
People put themselves throughwhen it comes to press.
(20:35):
And I see this because all of myclients have to remind sets
obviously.
The ones that tend to be really.
Impatient and you have to slowthem down.
Are the ones that actuallymoves, they actually move
slower, right?
Because they're constantlyknocking on the door of the red
lining constantly to get therequicker.
And sometimes you don't seeprogress for a couple of weeks,
(20:57):
but you're doing the rightthings and you're building the
right patterns.
In order to make it happen.
And then the ones who do thebest.
Are the ones.
Who have that, like the mindsetof patients, which is give
yourself the patients.
To change.
And continue to do the rightthings and build that foundation
(21:17):
slowly.
So for building movementpatterns specifically.
There's a patience level that'sinvolved because of the
complexity, but it's like going110% when you're trying to build
movement.
Patterns is actually detrimentalto building the movement
patterns because you're workingin the zone of exhaustion.
But being at 70% or 80% is farbetter.
(21:39):
70% is ideal.
And then over time as you buildthat up, a month or two down the
line.
You say, look, if I just trainat 70%, I built the patterns and
then my, my.
My 70%.
Or I should say, this is your110% today becomes.
(22:02):
Your 70% next month.
So if you're just patient, youcan grow into that, but it's
giving yourself the space torealize no matter how talented
somebody is, I've never seenthem do a press handstand on
their first try.
No one.
So you have to take the time tobuild that up.
You have to build and build andbuild and build and realize
okay.
If I can approach it with theright mindset and I can approach
(22:23):
it from a place of curiosity.
Versus a place of self judgment.
Like sometimes people tend toapproach their training with
like self judgment, which isall, man.
I'm really bad at this.
Or I'm comparing myself to whatI see on Instagram or all these
other people who look beautiful.
It tends to throw them off theirgame a little bit versus.
Instead saying, you know what.
(22:44):
I'm just going to focus onbuilding at my pace and I'm
going to focus on.
Continuously.
Developing.
The right movement patterns thatI can do it right.
And then I don't have to worryabout getting injured and I
don't have to worry.
About.
Competing quote unquote againsteverybody else, but.
Approach it with curiosity, whatkind of learn, right?
(23:05):
Every, every stumbling block,which is every stumbling block
is an opportunity.
To learn more.
It's curious.
Be curious.
What can I learn about my body?
What do I learn?
And then as a direct, asovercoming it, What's my
takeaway, right?
What's the distinction therefrom learning.
And that also gives you thetools to realize, look, I'm not
(23:27):
just changing my bodyanatomically, I'm changing it on
a deeper level.
And I understand why that'screating my body.
To change.
So those are two.
And I think also right as my.
As my training.
As my training methodologymatures, and going on and on you
start to realize too.
(23:48):
That mindset is critical, andhelping people to stay in the
game.
Like staying in the game is themost.
Important part it's the mostimportant part of it is being in
being dialed in.
Too, I'm in it for the longhaul, right?
Which is not like a flash in thepan thing, or learn the skill in
a week and be done.
(24:09):
It's building the foundationproperly and taking the amount
of time necessary, but then alsotraining in the right way.
That's the, that's really thebig takeaway of all of this is
like you can build in a ton ofstrength.
A ton of strength and just 20 to25 minutes of training per day,
a lot of strength.
And that's how you build thepatterns.
To most efficient, to, to mosteffectively and efficiently get
(24:32):
towards the press handstand.
Because there's a lot ofpatterns you got to build and
you can build them by doing.
By doing less right.
And oppress Hanson is really oneof those things where less is
more.
Less is more.
And slowing down and movingslowly is speed.
And it's very paradoxical, butthat's what it is.
That's what it takes for.
(24:54):
To build that, to build it theright way and to build it in
sustainable way without.
Beating yourself up right?
Without in reinjuring.
Injuring the body.
That's all I've got for you ontoday's show.
Hope that was helpful.
I helped you learn some newthings.
You can find me on Instagram.
My, my Instagram is in the shownotes.
You can check it out there.
You can share it.
Tag me in a story.
Shoot me di.
DM, if you've got questions andif you are interested in.
(25:17):
Working with us and bodybreakthrough, you can go to
www.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
Or you can just shoot me a DMand I'll get you over the proper
links and things you need.
All right.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
Have a good rest of your day.
And I will talk to you soon.
So 2023 marks the year that I'veofficially been.
Training clients online andworking with people online on
their press handstands for 10years.
That's a full decade now.
Of just working with peopleonline.
And not quite yet.
I believe it's more towards thesummer or more towards the fall
(00:21):
that will mark 10 years.
But 2023 is now officiallyworking with people online for
10 years.
And.
One of the things.
That I strive to do.
Is.
Every year, I try to gain somenew insight on how I can more
efficiently.
Work with clients and how I canmore efficiently.
(00:44):
Deliver training in a sequenceand sequences that are actually
extremely powerful and extremelypotent.
And one of the, one of thethings that.
I learned, especially now, Iwould say from the era of COVID.
And then through 2022.
(01:06):
And especially through 2022.
Is that when something is reallywhen a training plan is really
dialed in.
To a person's body, they haverapid improvements.
They have rapid improvements intheir practice.
And so press hands down is more.
And if you've been following mefor a while, this, that press
(01:27):
handstand is a lot aboutbuilding movement patterns and
less about building.
Sheer strength.
Yeah, the strength is importantand it's necessary.
But building the correctmovement patterns is even more
important.
And so piecing together.
Movement patterns.
Is one of the, one of thestumbling blocks for most
(01:51):
people.
It's just, they haven't yetdeveloped.
The patterns and their body.
And that's really what a presshandstand is at its core is it's
your body's ability to execute awhole basket.
So to speak of movement patternsall at once.
And then you can break that downinto kind of smaller components.
And say this is what the armsare supposed to do.
(02:11):
This is what it's supposed tofeel like.
This is what the hips aresupposed to do.
This is what that feels like.
This is what the key Wells.
Should be doing when they'reworking correctly.
That's what that feels like.
And you can go throughout thebody, but for the most part,
it's mastering those movementpatterns.
And one of the things that.
Helped me immensely.
(02:32):
Was especially like when I firststarted.
Online, like working with peoplethrough various programs and
various capacities.
It was mostly all yogapractitioners.
And one of the things thatstarted to help me.
Was, and this made the shiftaround 2016 ish or so 2017.
I was, I started to market a lotof my programs towards people
(02:55):
who didn't practice yoga.
Or weren't necessarily like thedaily, go to yoga classes and
been practicing for years.
But at other backgrounds likeweightlifting athletics,
CrossFit all sorts of differentbackgrounds, runners.
And so you start to see that.
Every person that comes totrain.
(03:16):
That learns a press handstandcomes from a different spot.
There's a different point ofview.
And though where they arecurrently is just a result of
the movement patterns that theirbody has developed historically.
So no matter what it is, yourbackground, no matter what your
background is, athletically orhow you move your body or how
(03:37):
you haven't moved your body, bythe way.
Your brain is always creatingmovement patterns.
For itself, you're it's alwayscreating and the way your brain
works is it's a very efficientmechanism.
And then fortunately our brainis really smart in some ways,
and it's really dumb andotherwise.
And.
I know the downside of ourbrain.
Is that whenever our body moves.
(03:58):
We tend to, our brain says, huh?
Let me create this type of.
Pattern, let me emboss the newpattern.
In the body and in the muscles.
And let me, Make, let me justtrain this specific movement or
this specific way of moving,even if it's dangerous.
So even if it's, even if it'ssomething that harms you or
(04:18):
something that's bad for yourback or your shoulder or your
leg or your hamstring, whateverthat is, your body still creates
the pattern.
It's still your brain createsthat pattern because the brain
recognizes a pattern byrepetition.
The more you do something, themore your body identifies it as
a pattern.
And the more it starts tocreate.
(04:40):
The ease and the pathways foryour body to do or create that
movement or pattern more easily.
And different people withdifferent backgrounds, all have
different patterns coming in.
And so one of the things that Iand this was what really changed
I think a lot, and this is whereyour perspective can change too.
Is.
(05:01):
Understand that a lot of.
A lot of learning.
Too.
Do a press handstand or a lot ofcreating a new movement pattern
or series of movement patternsmeans unlearning old ones.
Which is I have to.
I have to like Berget.
The old patterns so that I canthen start to create these new
(05:25):
ones.
And I have to retrain myself inthat way.
And a really good example is Nis take baseball and golf.
It's.
As someone like me, right?
Who played baseball when I was akid and plays golf occasionally
now.
On the surface, they're verysimilar movements.
You're swinging a bat with yourtwo hands and you're swinging a
club with two hands.
(05:46):
But.
Once you spend even more thantwo minutes swinging a baseball
bat and swinging a golf club.
Yeah.
You're both swinging an object,but there, the mechanics are
very different.
And you start to carry overthose mechanics from one to the
other without realizing.
That you're doing it.
And it's interesting because.
(06:08):
It's interesting because for mehaving done.
Press handstands for so long andhaving moved my body in this way
for so long.
Whenever I go and I embark onsome kind of different sport or
a different kind of movementwith my body.
It's really apparent.
Which movement patterns areembedded in which aren't.
(06:31):
But this is really where a lot,like the start.
And I can tell you definitively,like this is something that.
I see.
With with a press handstandspecifically.
Is that.
Because it's a type of patternwhere the skill ceiling is so
high.
And the example of a patternwhere the skill ceiling is
(06:52):
lower.
It's like brushing your teeth,right?
There's not, it's not a reallyhigh, complex movement.
So you can develop that.
You can learn that and embody itpretty quickly and you can do it
from the start.
But when the complexity of themovement is so high, the D the
degree at which the body createsthe pattern has a much smaller
margin for error.
And it takes a little more timebecause you have to build up to
(07:13):
it.
It's not something you can justdo.
Right away.
So a lot of people hit what'scalled the.
They're there.
They're basically that theirstrength ceiling.
Which is there they'recompletely falling, training the
strength on their own.
Like you can build the differentcomponents for it, but the press
handstand is of the it's one ofthe skills where the sum of the
(07:37):
parts doesn't necessarily add upto the whole, right?
Like you can have all the piecesper se.
Eh, And I see it a lot of time.
With clients, which is on thesurface, they have the strength
on the surface.
They have the mobility.
On the surface, they may havethese things, but what they're
doing is they're lackingcritical movement patterns that
block the movement.
(07:59):
And.
Though that lack of those lackof movement patterns are the
things that actually.
Prevent.
Someone from moving forward intoa technical movement.
And that's why.
And that's why, again, if you'vebeen following me for awhile, I
think, my stance on this too,which is because sometimes
people at last why not justpractice a press handstand over
(08:20):
and over.
But the issue with that is it's.
If you practice it wrong, youbuild the wrong pattern.
So you train your body to do it.
And I've seen this too, I'veseen this too, where people have
developed an over dependency ofthe shoulders because they're
practicing and they're notlifting.
So they developed this overdependency of the shoulders
instead of actually engagingtheir largest and most and the
(08:44):
muscles in the body and yourtorso.
That can generate the moststrength or the highest
potential for strength, right?
And this is where you can lookback.
This is where you can look in,look back into it and you can
say.
So let me even take a step backhere.
On your torso.
You've got larger muscles.
You've got small muscles.
And typically for balance andfunctionality in your body,
(09:07):
there's a general rule.
And the amount that you use amuscle on your torso is, should
be proportional to the surfacearea of the muscle itself.
Basically a fancy way of sayinguse your larger muscles more
depend on your larger muscles,more AK your core muscles, your
TVA, and use your smallermuscles less, right?
(09:27):
Your shoulders, your traps, etcetera, et cetera.
From that from that point ofview, like one of the things
that I have really moved awayfrom is.
And I've seen this nowfirsthand.
So one of the things that Iexperimented with in 2022 with
clients specifically, Was evenmore focused.
Movement pattern, movement,pattern specific.
(09:51):
Sequences for them and less.
So because actually when you'retrying to build movement
patterns, If you train anywherenear your body to exhaustion are
typically high volume training.
You tend to erode your body'sability to create the pattern
effectively.
Because now when you're tired,The more you train exhausted the
(10:13):
more your body defaults back toits old patterns.
So it's works counterintuitive.
Tor towards.
Building a press handstand.
So I actually found.
And I scan and even more sotoday, what I really like to do.
With clients is I like to takeeven more time to analyze what
(10:33):
their background is and thetypes of patterns they've
created, because what I've seen.
Is that when someone properlyaddresses their, the movement
patterns that they have.
And you can see the patternsthat kind of hold people back.
Like whether that's back painand injury or whatever kind of
(10:54):
sport they played.
It ultimately ends up.
Being like that main criticalthing.
Like the inability for someoneto stack their hips over their
shoulders can be largelydependent on an old pattern.
That they created maybe throughsports, maybe they played
(11:15):
volleyball.
Maybe they were a swimmer.
And they were using theirshoulders or they were using
their back in the wrong way ortheir QL in the wrong way.
The focus.
Th the focus and even more so ison how to create.
Movement patterns and the body.
That can help address the oldones that pave a new path for
(11:39):
someone to properly execute themovements.
And that actually means less.
And a lot of people who arereally hardcore in a training,
right?
If you're a yoga practitionerespecially in, you're used to
doing, and I know there's notvery many 90 minute classes any
more, but let's say for example,you do are stronger and you're
used to powering through everyday and doing that 90 minute
practice at 90 minute training.
(12:00):
And a lot of cases, it's toomuch.
It's too much, there's there,you're just exhausting your body
and not giving time to improvebecause.
Because the thing is like thepatterns are difficult to build.
The strength is easy.
Like it's really easy to buildthe strength.
If someone doesn't have thestrength.
Two.
(12:21):
To do a press handstand.
The strength can be built reallyquickly.
And if someone doesn't have thestrength that's an indicator
that they're doing somethingdrastically wrong in there and
our training, but this cause thestrength is easy to build.
The patterns are what takes thetime.
So I don't even really focus somuch on.
Like strength building from thestart.
(12:41):
Like I used to pair the twotogether, but now I've actually
made it even more.
I found it's even morebeneficial to do shorter
sequences.
If you're doing the right thingin 20 minutes a day, you can
start to shift your body'sability.
You can not shift your body'sability to create new patterns
and you can create thosepatterns quickly.
(13:01):
Quickly and.
Efficiently, but sometimesstrength building is actually
counterintuitive and it gets inthe way of that.
So being even more hyper-focusedon.
Overtrain on over-training.
And actually.
Instilling, even under trainingin some cases to make sure that
the patterns are built becausethen after, after you have those
(13:24):
patterns, The strength comesvery easily.
It comes very easily.
And you've got the patterns thatback the string.
You're building the foundationfor a house before you actually
start to build the house on topof it, and that's really
effective.
And that also makes it a lotmore accessible.
To people who, and most of thetime too, it's like faulty
movement patterns or mechanics,or what actually have just held.
(13:47):
They held people back in termsof injuries and chronic pain and
that type of stuff, which isjust bad patterns.
That's what chronic pain is.
It's just your body's createdbad patterns.
And it's another thing I seeMost people have been injured at
some point in their life.
Doing something or other, andwhen your body is injured, it
tends to.
Create different patterns,right?
(14:08):
If you have, if you pull a backmuscle, you learn to walk in a
different way.
Because you're catering to thatmuscle.
And if that muscle is beeninjured for a few months, like
your body creates a new pattern,you don't realize that even
after the muscle heals, you'restill walking in a different
way, which then impacts your legmuscles and impacts your hip
flexors and impacts all sorts ofother things that go on.
(14:30):
Taking the time to properlyreverse those.
Is, that's also the ticket toovercoming pain, because if
you've got chronic pain, ifyou've got back pain I think the
message that people sometimes.
Sometimes people lose,especially the ones that haven't
followed me for a while thatdon't really understand kind of
the synergy of everything that Iteach, but the press handstand
(14:51):
is a very powerful tool forovercoming pain.
And the reason that is, isbecause you have to basically
clean out and address thoseolder patterns and replace them
with newer, healthier patterns,empowering patterns for the
body.
And that's how you remove pain.
Right patterns.
Otherwise, anything you do isjust short term and that can
actually be done.
(15:11):
In 20 minutes per day.
Also cause sometimes, and wehave a lot of clients who just
work with us for back pain.
They've got like back painissues.
That's really easy, overcomeback pain.
It's let's just ID the movementpatterns that are causing the
back pain and let's train themuscles to work correctly
because a lot of times when youhave pain at the skeletal level,
you.
(15:32):
Painted the skeletal level wasbrought on by muscular
dysfunction, right?
By.
Dysfunction at the muscularlevel and then dysfunction at
the muscular level over time iswhat leads to deeper, deeper.
Pain, skeletal problems,skeletal pain.
Bones, dislodged, a lot of stuffgoing on in your back, the back,
especially like any kind of backand neck and spinal injuries and
(15:54):
sciatic and those kinds ofthings.
Started from musculardysfunction.
It did not start.
It did not start withoutmuscular dysfunction without a
T.
There was muscular dysfunctionin there at some time.
And when you dress that youaddress that problem.
That's that is actually one ofthe, that's actually one of the
big takeaways.
The one of the big takeaways isless, is more and being
(16:17):
specifically targeted on tothings being targeted on very
unique movement patterns.
Is, and that's why the Mo it'sfunny because the more I.
The more that I work withpeople, the more I see so many
different unique scenarios.
And for me, the approach is fun.
Because everyone has a slightlydifferent path to get to the
(16:38):
same end goal.
And their body just is there.
Their body is just there.
Their body is just verydifferent.
And you have to take thosethings into account.
Because another thing too, thatI find in and.
I'm guilty of this at times too,because I love training is that
when people overtrain, it tendsto lead to injuries.
(17:00):
And when you get injured.
From when you get injured fromtraining, you, it throws you
back more than anything else.
Doing, doing two hour longtraining sessions or even in an
intense hour for developing theskill for press handstand is too
much.
It's too much.
And you have to just scale thatback to ensure.
(17:23):
That your body has the time tobuild the patterns effectively.
And then you can start to buildthat.
And from there.
So that's a big and for me,that's what I'm double, that's
what I'm doubling down on withclients in 2023.
Is.
Is less affect, less sheertraining volume, but more
(17:43):
effective training volume thatfocuses more directly on
addressing the movement patternsfrom the start.
Because the strength is builtlike in, in my experience, like
once somebody has the movementpatterns, they build the
strength easily.
Like they build the strengtheasily.
And then it's a functionalstrength that, that.
Prepares them.
(18:04):
For the movement.
So it's taking the time.
To really go in and taking thetime to really go in and learn
those patterns.
And then for yourself as apractitioner, Like for for
yourself as a practitioner.
There is.
Things that cause a lot ofpeople when they're training for
press handstand, It's verystrength oriented, meaning.
(18:28):
I just feel like I need to buildmore strength, but 99.
99 times out of a hundred, likethat's the easy part.
And that's.
That's why it becomes it becomesdifficult, right?
Like you get stuck.
That's why so many people.
Plateau.
Is because they have beentraining, just nothing for
strength then.
(18:48):
And it's really easy, right?
If you get on, if you get onlike YouTube and search for
press hands down, like a lot ofit is all just strength
building.
Or they're drills, which are,which a lot of the drills are.
Technically advanced that.
Your body can't.
It's a movement pattern in andof itself to execute the drill.
(19:09):
So it comes down to first kindof building those.
Those individual, thoseindividual things.
And then the S the second.
The moving on.
My, the second thing I'verealized more and more with
people is that I like to adoptthe mentality.
(19:31):
Which is make haste slowly.
And what that means.
Is.
You have to approach trainingthe body with the proper mindset
hints.
I have a whole.
A whole podcast called mindsetdaily that I started this year.
It's in the show notes, you cancheck it out.
(19:52):
But having the right mindset andto give yourself the space.
To actually evolve and actuallydevelop and actually grow.
Is so critical when learning anew technical skill, right?
Like press Hanson is a highlytechnical skill.
And you have to go into it.
(20:14):
With the understanding that it'sgoing to take hundreds of tries
thousands of failed attempts,thousands of exercises and
minutes you're putting into it.
And oftentime with no returnright away.
Like with no return because Ifind the biggest form of self
sabotage that.
People put themselves throughwhen it comes to press.
(20:35):
And I see this because all of myclients have to remind sets
obviously.
The ones that tend to be really.
Impatient and you have to slowthem down.
Are the ones that actuallymoves, they actually move
slower, right?
Because they're constantlyknocking on the door of the red
lining constantly to get therequicker.
And sometimes you don't seeprogress for a couple of weeks,
(20:57):
but you're doing the rightthings and you're building the
right patterns.
In order to make it happen.
And then the ones who do thebest.
Are the ones.
Who have that, like the mindsetof patients, which is give
yourself the patients.
To change.
And continue to do the rightthings and build that foundation
(21:17):
slowly.
So for building movementpatterns specifically.
There's a patience level that'sinvolved because of the
complexity, but it's like going110% when you're trying to build
movement.
Patterns is actually detrimentalto building the movement
patterns because you're workingin the zone of exhaustion.
But being at 70% or 80% is farbetter.
(21:39):
70% is ideal.
And then over time as you buildthat up, a month or two down the
line.
You say, look, if I just trainat 70%, I built the patterns and
then my, my.
My 70%.
Or I should say, this is your110% today becomes.
(22:02):
Your 70% next month.
So if you're just patient, youcan grow into that, but it's
giving yourself the space torealize no matter how talented
somebody is, I've never seenthem do a press handstand on
their first try.
No one.
So you have to take the time tobuild that up.
You have to build and build andbuild and build and realize
okay.
If I can approach it with theright mindset and I can approach
(22:23):
it from a place of curiosity.
Versus a place of self judgment.
Like sometimes people tend toapproach their training with
like self judgment, which isall, man.
I'm really bad at this.
Or I'm comparing myself to whatI see on Instagram or all these
other people who look beautiful.
It tends to throw them off theirgame a little bit versus.
Instead saying, you know what.
(22:44):
I'm just going to focus onbuilding at my pace and I'm
going to focus on.
Continuously.
Developing.
The right movement patterns thatI can do it right.
And then I don't have to worryabout getting injured and I
don't have to worry.
About.
Competing quote unquote againsteverybody else, but.
Approach it with curiosity, whatkind of learn, right?
(23:05):
Every, every stumbling block,which is every stumbling block
is an opportunity.
To learn more.
It's curious.
Be curious.
What can I learn about my body?
What do I learn?
And then as a direct, asovercoming it, What's my
takeaway, right?
What's the distinction therefrom learning.
And that also gives you thetools to realize, look, I'm not
(23:27):
just changing my bodyanatomically, I'm changing it on
a deeper level.
And I understand why that'screating my body.
To change.
So those are two.
And I think also right as my.
As my training.
As my training methodologymatures, and going on and on you
start to realize too.
(23:48):
That mindset is critical, andhelping people to stay in the
game.
Like staying in the game is themost.
Important part it's the mostimportant part of it is being in
being dialed in.
Too, I'm in it for the longhaul, right?
Which is not like a flash in thepan thing, or learn the skill in
a week and be done.
(24:09):
It's building the foundationproperly and taking the amount
of time necessary, but then alsotraining in the right way.
That's the, that's really thebig takeaway of all of this is
like you can build in a ton ofstrength.
A ton of strength and just 20 to25 minutes of training per day,
a lot of strength.
And that's how you build thepatterns.
To most efficient, to, to mosteffectively and efficiently get
(24:32):
towards the press handstand.
Because there's a lot ofpatterns you got to build and
you can build them by doing.
By doing less right.
And oppress Hanson is really oneof those things where less is
more.
Less is more.
And slowing down and movingslowly is speed.
And it's very paradoxical, butthat's what it is.
That's what it takes for.
(24:54):
To build that, to build it theright way and to build it in
sustainable way without.
Beating yourself up right?
Without in reinjuring.
Injuring the body.
That's all I've got for you ontoday's show.
Hope that was helpful.
I helped you learn some newthings.
You can find me on Instagram.
My, my Instagram is in the shownotes.
You can check it out there.
You can share it.
Tag me in a story.
Shoot me di.
DM, if you've got questions andif you are interested in.
(25:17):
Working with us and bodybreakthrough, you can go to
www.theasanaacademy.com/apply.
Or you can just shoot me a DMand I'll get you over the proper
links and things you need.
All right.
So that's all I've got for youon today's show.
Have a good rest of your day.
And I will talk to you soon.
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