Last week I came upon this article. One of our athletes struggles pretty badly with this and has actually developed an injury, most likely due to years and years of both standing and moving with excessive curvature in her lower back. While I see people constantly standing in the manner this article discusses, ironically I also see people’s handstands look like this as well. If you are one of these people, you are putting additional stress on your low back while performing a movement that should have no implications on that area what so ever. I’ve shown proper handstand positioning many times, but in case of a refresher, this is what you should look like while inverted:
Skill work:
Tabata HS holds – away from the wall if possible
Take a recording of your efforts and go back and check your low back. Fight for perfect posture. If you are doing it away from the wall and notice bad positions and can not fix them, use the wall. If you’re unable to do the little things correctly, you will never be able to achieve perfection in the big things.
Coach Poppa