Do you remember learning how to walk? Possibly not, yet somehow all of us mastered the technique of supporting our whole body weight through our feet and the narrow area of our ankles – and we’re all so great at it that we now barely give it a moment’s thought.
Let’s imagine for a moment turning this whole process upside down and balancing yourself through your hands and wrists? What happens to your body when you’re trying to maintain your balance in this precarious position? And more importantly, are there any advantages to doing so?
Just as walking on our feet supports the whole leg hip, and knee area, learning how to balance on your hands strengthens your shoulder, chest, back – and core. Yes, that four-letter word that gets thrown around a lot in personal training circles, though we use our body’s core muscles constantly in our everyday lives. Like walking upright, we barely notice, but turn yourself upside down and that same area is forced to work really, really hard! Here’s someone who’s mastered it: Jan Manke
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdLkpAEHkph/?taken-by=mankejan
Like any skilled performer, Jan makes hand-balancing look simultaneously simple and impossible. Learning takes time, but the good news is that from your very first lesson the benefits are immediate. Your body gets a complete workout due to the massive effort involved in maintaining your balance in a physically unfamiliar position. In other words, it’s an extremely learnable skill with huge pay-offs.
Want to see the benefits for yourself? Come learn with us at TransformGST in a class taught by handstand masters Jan Manke and Joe Putignano. Sign up here.
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