Training

Handstand Challenge Week 6: Freestanding Handstands

At the beginning of April, we started a brand new 6-Week Handstand Challenge.

During the few weeks, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this handstand challenge is for you.

During Week 1, we focused on building strength and endurance with wall handstands. Week 2 was all about protecting our wrists and avoiding injuries. During Week 3 we focused on our shoulder and hip positioning with pike rolls. During Week 4 we started working on our balance with handstand wall splits. Week 5 was all about building up our core strength for a better handstand line.

We’re about to start Week 6, but if you’re new to this challenge, no worries, you can still jump right in! To get the most out of this handstand challenge, make sure to join our private Facebook group where you can share your experience and get in touch with fellow members of the 12 Minute Athlete Community.

For Week 6 of the challenge, we’re going to be working on our freestanding handstands.

I’ll be totally honest with you guys: if you’re still pretty new to handstands, it may not be the best use of your time to spend too much time on freestanding handstands just yet.

Freestanding handstands can be incredibly frustrating so if you’re still struggling to build up your handstand endurance and still find drills like the wall handstand splits we did in Week 4 pretty challenging, I’d recommend you mostly keep working on those skills for now until you’re feeling more comfortable with them.

But if you’re feeling more and more comfortable upside down and think you’re ready to try a few freestanding handstands, let’s give it a shot!

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Handstand Challenge Week 5: Core Strength: Hollow Body Holds

At the beginning of April, we started a brand new 6-Week Handstand Challenge.

During the few weeks, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this handstand challenge is for you.

During Week 1, we focused on building strength and endurance with wall handstands. Week 2 was all about protecting our wrists and avoiding injuries. During Week 3 we focused on our shoulder and hip positioning with pike rolls. During Week 4 we started working on our balance with handstand wall splits.

We’re about to start Week 5, but if you’re new to this challenge, no worries, you can still jump right in! To get the most out of this handstand challenge, make sure to join our private Facebook group where you can share your experience and get in touch with fellow members of the 12 Minute Athlete Community.

For Week 5 of the challenge, we’re going to be working on building up our core strength for a more efficient handstand.

So far in this challenge we’ve talked a bit about avoiding “banana back handstands” when you’re practicing your handstands, but this week we’re going to dive in to how—and why—you should avoid them.

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Handstand Challenge Week 4: Balance Practice: Handstand Wall Splits

At the beginning of April, we started a brand new 6-Week Handstand Challenge.

During the few weeks, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this handstand challenge is for you.

During Week 1, we focused on building strength and endurance with wall handstands. Week 2 was all about protecting our wrists and avoiding injuries. During Week 3 we focused on our shoulder and hip positioning with pike rolls.

We’re about to start Week 4, but if you’re new to this challenge, no worries, you can still jump right in! To get the most out of this handstand challenge, make sure to join our private Facebook group where you can share your experience and get in touch with fellow members of the 12 Minute Athlete Community.

For Week 4 of the challenge, we’re going to be working on our balance.

There’s no question that for most people, the hardest part about learning to do a handstand is understanding how to balance.

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Handstand Challenge Week 3: Shoulder & Hip Positioning: Pike Rolls

At the beginning of April, we started a brand new 6-Week Handstand Challenge.

During the next month, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this handstand challenge is for you.

During Week 1, we focused on building strength and endurance with wall handstands. Week 2 was all about protecting our wrists and avoiding injuries.

We’re about to start Week 3, but if you’re new to this challenge, no worries, you can still jump right in! To get the most out of this handstand challenge, make sure to join our private Facebook group where you can share your experience and get in touch with fellow members of the 12 Minute Athlete Community.

For Week 3 of the challenge, we’ll be working on our shoulder and hip positioning in a handstand.

One of the hardest parts of learning to do a freestanding handstand is understanding where exactly your hips and shoulders should be.

While we’re pretty good at understanding where our hips need to be when standing to avoid falling over, this is much more difficult to do when upside down, and for good reason—we spend a lot more time on our feet than we do on our hands.

When you’re in a handstand, your hips should be directly over your shoulders. And while this may sound simple enough, until you develop the body awareness it takes to remain in a good line upside down, it can be extremely frustrating.

Here’s an exercise that can help you to start developing that body awareness you’ll later need for freestanding handstands:

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Is Cardio Bad For You?

 

You might have noticed recently how cardio has become an almost dreaded word in fitness industry and something that you should pretty much remove from your vocabulary altogether.

But is cardio actually bad for you?

People often associate the word cardio with long distance running. But they are not synonyms.

Grab a jump rope and do fifteen double unders. Do a hundred burpees. Do as many high knees as you can in 30 seconds.

You just did some cardio.

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Handstand Challenge Week 2: Wrist Health

At the beginning of April, we started a brand new 6-Week Handstand Challenge.

During the next five weeks, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this handstand challenge is for you.

Last week, we focused on building strength and endurance with wall handstands.

We’re about to start Week 2, but if you’re new to this challenge, no worries, you can still jump right in! To get the most out of this handstand challenge, make sure to join our private Facebook group where you can share your experience and get in touch with fellow members of the 12 Minute Athlete Community.

For Week 2 of the challenge, our focus will be working on our wrist health.

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Why You Shouldn’t Stretch Before Your Workout

 

If you’re like most people, you probably have a habit of stretching before your workout.

And it seems like no big deal to do a little pre-workout stretching, right? After all, it’s important to maintain a general level of flexibility, so why not add it in before a workout?

Many of us probably have this stretching routine as a leftover habit from our days playing team sports. In those days, it went without question that before any practice or game, our coach or team member would lead a warm up that would inevitably include a little jogging—and a lot of static stretching.

Static stretching means that you’re stretching the muscles while your body is at rest, as in a typical hamstring, calf, or shoulder stretch. This type of stretching is a great way to stay mobile and flexible.

Yet there’s more and more evidence that static stretching before a workout not only doesn’t offer any actual benefits, it can actually do more harm than good.

Here’s why you shouldn’t stretch before your workout:

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Handstand Challenge Week 1: Wall Handstands

Today is the official start of our brand new 6-week challenge and I couldn’t be more excited to be focusing on handstands.

During the next month and a half, we’re going to be working on different exercises you can do to help you build up to doing a freestanding handstand. Don’t be too intimidated—it doesn’t matter if you’ve been practicing handstands for a while now or you’ve never even tried to do one, this 6-Week Handstand Challenge is for you.

For the Week One of the challenge, our focus will be working on our wall handstands.

Even if you can hold a freestanding handstand relatively well, I’d still recommend working on your wall handstands to help build endurance and perfect your handstand positioning. Just try and hold them even longer to make them more challenging 🙂

Here’s everything you need to know to get started with week one of the Handstand Challenge:

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8 Awesome Sandbag Exercises to Add to Your HIIT Workouts

 

Have you ever worked out with a sandbag?

If not, you should try it. Sandbags are a fun piece of equipment that complement any home gym—and many forward thinking gyms are even starting to have sandbags available as well.

I love working out outdoors. Therefore, I have a lot of equipment that I can easily bring with me to a nearby park to workout there. A sandbag is one of those things. And if the weather is bad, I can still train with it without even having to leave the house—it’s a perfect tool for a living room workout.

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How I Spend My Rest Days

 

Whether you have a tough time working out at all, or, like me, you struggle to take a single day off, you should always make sure to take at least one rest day per week to let your body recover.

For some of you who still find working out on a regular basis a struggle, you probably have absolutely no problem with rest days. I know a lot of people look forward to their rest days, and love taking a day off and just lounging around.

Yet for those of us who have come to enjoy training and have trouble sitting still, rest days can be the hardest days of the week. I promise I wasn’t always this way—yet these days I actually dread rest days because I know how much better I feel after a workout. On rest days, I don’t get that same satisfactory post-workout feeling or get to take the time out of my day to just be completely focused and in the zone.

Yet it’s absolutely crucial that you take at least one day off a week to let your body rest and your muscles recover. Failing to do so will almost always lead to overtraining, and eventually, some sort of injury—basically your body’s way of forcing you to rest.

While I used to have a designated rest day per week, I now try and listen to my body to determine when I need a rest day, usually about every five, sometimes six, days. Yet even on my rest days, I make sure to keep moving. It’s taken a lot of trial and error, but I’ve learned over the years that I do much better when I take active rest days, versus spending the entire day laying on the couch.

Here are some of the benefits of taking active (versus completely sedentary) rest days:

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