The other day, I was reading a fitness blog. I can’t remember which one. Probably a crossfit blog, because the author was talking about handstands (and I know it wasn’t a gymnastics blog). Then I was reading Charlotte’s book and she was talking about doing handstand push-ups for one of the workouts that she tried.
What surprised me, was that in both of these places the author talked about fearing the handstand. Really? I honestly was a little surprised by that. I thought everyone could do a handstand? Or…had done one in their lifetime. And then..I realized….how silly and ego-centric of me. I took gymnastics as a child…so handstands (and being inverted really) aren’t scary to me, and I’ve never doubted my bodies ability to perform basic gymnastic exercises. I expect my self to be able to do a back bend, handstand, cartwheel, the splits, and if I am being really cavalier…a back flip on the trampoline.
And then I started thinking…wait…maybe I can’t still do those things! Maybe I’m not strong enough anymore? (Or, let’s be real…maybe my current weight would prevent me from doing a handstand??!)
So, after watching youtube videos of handstand push-ups…I knew I wanted to try to do some. Haha. I KNEW these would be hard, even when I did handstands on a regular basis, these were hard.
So today, when my kettlebell trainer laid out our circuit, and it included stability ball push-ups, I asked her if I could do handstand push-ups instead.
hahahahahaha. The handstand I could do, no problem. The push-up part? Well…observe below:
I was able to lower myself like…2 inches. But….I did it. I’m going to keep working on these. I am a far cry from being able to lower my head to the ground and back up!
I got to thinking about it, and I really think that when you train your body in a certain way, your body never forgets how to perform. Like riding a bike…..and apparently, handstands.
Slow Miles 